Outside the Reaching Sky

Chapters

Prologue: First Encounter
Preparation
Departure
Exploration
Surprise
Planetfall and Strife
Contact and Outcomes
Excursions
Recovery
Enemies
Siege
Aftermath

Prologue: First Encounter

The two Warden cutters cruised through the void of space, silent and dark. They kept a close formation, sweeping the outer rim of the system, watching for intruders.

Of course, there weren’t any. There never were. Captain Silver Stars sighed, stretching her neck. The Warden outsystem patrol was more intended as a way to test space hardware and train crewmares, a way of preparing for Equestria’s big exploratory mission that Twilight Sparkle had been talking about for decades now. The Warden commanders, Rainbow Dash and Applejack, had taken to the project with interest, building the two small, armed cutters as prototypes and testbeds to work out the kinks and to give their ponies a chance to learn how a ship in space worked. Silver Stars had been thrilled when she’d been selected to captain the Lightning, the first armed ship in the Warden fleet and, by extension, the first armed vessel built by Equestria. She’d always loved space, always been fascinated by the endless void, and the chance to actually spend time up there had been a literal dream come true. Lightning’s sister ship, Thunder, had been completed a month later, making Silver Stars the senior Captain in the fledgling Equestrian Navy.

Of course, all that had been before she realized how tremendously boring this duty was going to be. While her fellow Wardens got to fight off creature incursions, keeping Equestria safe from the monsters that threatened it, Silver Stars and her crew got to bum around the rim of the solar system. Oh, sure, there was the occasional live-fire test where she got to blast some rocks, and that one time they got to blow some craters in that moon, and okay, that training op where they were giving orbital support to a group of power-armored Warden troops and heavy tanks during a simulated assault on Princess Luna's moon had been really cool, but even that was nothing to a veteran Warden who’d cut her teeth fighting hydras out of the Everfree or gemfly swarms from the Crystal Desert, out west of the buffalo ranges. All this patrol duty rather paled in comparison, though it did help that the ship was hers, and she loved it.

The ship was conducting a near-pass of the gas giant Taurus’s third moon, Hippocamp, and Silver Stars was fighting to keep from yawning, when the sensor officer spoke up. “Captain, I have an anomalous reading at three-three-one mark minus four-five. Signal is small on RF, thermal, and visual, but large on aetherics.”

Off the port bow and down, Silver Stars’ brain translated the bearing information automatically. It was probably nothing; they had anomalous contacts a few times every cruise, but at least it gave the crew a task to focus on. “Nav, get us a bearing change so we can get a distance fix.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Whiterush, the navigator, confirmed, feeding the new course information to the pilot, Night Breeze. While the ship was coming to its new course, Oculus, the sensor officer, studied her instruments carefully. Her horn glowed as she interfaced with the ship’s systems, trying to resolve whatever she was looking at.

Oculus’s brow furrowed in concentration. “Oh, that’s…odd,” she mumbled to herself. Silver Stars saw flashes of data on the other mare’s screen, and discreetly popped into the net herself. The ship’s network started feeding information directly into her brain through the arcane interface she built around her horn, and she saw the refined data that Oculus was sending to Lightning’s command feed.

“Vector change!” Oculus cried out, the tan-coated mare’s voice tense with excitement. “Contact is under power!” The change was small and subtle, but stood out with the large size of the contact on the aetheric sensors. The icon in the ship’s data net changed from anomalous contact to unknown ship as Oculus updated its status. Silver Stars felt a rush of adrenaline at the revelation; the unknown vessel had been hidden behind Hippocamp as they’d approached, and it was well within missile range. Way, way inside missile range, actually. It was almost within beam range, if it was as maneuverable as the Warden cutters.

The captain wanted to gape in shock. A starship? Here? That couldn’t happen! Silver Stars pushed that shock aside immediately, as befitted the veteran Warden that she was. “Alert status!” she snapped, dropping instantly to full immersion. A siren sounded, three harsh blares that told the crew that action might be imminent.

Silver Stars felt the bridge crew falling into immersion as well, surrounding her with the mental noise of her Wardens interfacing with the data net. Information flooded her brain, refined data pouring into her from the rest of her bridge officers. They were all unicorns except for the pilot and the weapons officer, and both of those sported the dangerous interface implants pioneered by Commander Rainbow Dash, affording them the same capability a unicorn had to mentally control and interface with arcanotechnological systems. Mentally linked to the ship, and through it to one another, the bridge crew formed a single unit able to fight and react at the speed of thought.

It was tremendously stressful and dangerous, but the speed was worth it.

:Verify ship contact: Silver Stars commanded. Secondary status feeds showed her the ship’s power core increasing output to combat levels and the other ponies of the Lightning’s crew rushing to their stations, the off-shift crew rolling out of their bunks and stumbling to their backup duty stations.

:Confirmed: Oculus replied, pulsing the refined data she’d painstakingly assembled from her sensor nets and tagging the obviously powered course changes the contact had performed. It looked like the contact had been trying to avoid them, changing course to keep itself away from the two cutters. The comm officer was already sending the first-contact package over broadband radio frequencies, and Silver Stars spared a corner of her mind to verify that Thunder had joined Lightning in the alert-status datalink. She felt her opposite number confirm, and the two ships’ comm systems meshed swiftly, enabling them to react instantly to one another’s actions.

The unknown ship hadn’t yet responded, but Silver Stars wasn’t ready to order the crew out of full immersion. At this range, missile flight time would be measured in seconds. A flash from Oculus indicated that the other vessel had started a random maneuvering pattern, but Silver Stars wasn’t worried yet. The two Warden cutters were doing the same thing, after all; it was only prudent, especially given the absurdly short range. It was interesting that the unknown wasn’t pulling anywhere near as many Gs as the Warden ships, though; beam range against it would be a good bit longer than it would have been against another Equestrian vessel. In fact, they were almost within range as it was. Blast, they’re close, Silver Stars thought. This was not good for a first-contact situation, and she ordered her two ships to open the range, hopefully putting the other crew, the aliens, as strange as that thought was, more at ease. Silver Stars shivered; everypony knew about Duran Thirk, the alien whom Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash had brought home and who had subsequently sent Equestria into a technological renaissance. Would these aliens be like him? Different? In spite of the tension of the moment, Silver Stars was excited. Duran had died long before she was born, but she’d always wanted to meet an alien.

:Debris!: came the thought-message from Oculus. Small objects had just been thrown away from the alien ship. The sensor officer focused intently on the objects, refining data on their vector and size, and… :Missiles, missiles, missiles! Incoming missiles!: The virtual icons flipped from a neutral white to a threatening red, simultaneously shifting from the thoughtshape of unknown debris to that of incoming hostile ordnance, an icon nopony had ever seen outside of training simulations. At the same instant, Oculus changed the icon of the alien ship from “unknown” to “hostile.” Its icon had suddenly become oddly fuzzy, indicating that it had become more difficult for Oculus to track. :Reclassing unknown as Intruder One:

The captain felt the chill of fear that she always felt at the start of a fight. She ignored it like the veteran she was. Orders flashed out from Silver Stars to her subordinates on the bridge and to the captain of Lightning. The Equestrian cutters instantly started widening the distance between them, maintaining their contact with each other via aetheric communication and tightbeam lasers while they brought up their antimissile defenses. Arcane barrier shields slammed into place, swiftly ramping up to full power and putting an additional layer of protection over the ships’ armor.

Both cutters armed their missiles, but they didn’t launch. :This could be a mistake or a misfire, ladies and gentlecolts: the Captain reminded her subordinates through the thoughtlink, :Keep the first-contact package going, and prepare to repel missiles, but do not fire:

:Receiving interference: Oculus pulsed. :Interference on RF band, losing thermal and visual contact with Intruder One. No effect on aetherics.: The missiles bored closer, their icons firming up as the distance closed. The whole group appeared targeted on Thunder, ignoring Lightning. Intruder One’s icon was still fuzzy with uncertainty; the Warden cutters relied on broadband sensors to pinpoint contacts, and the unimpaired signal from the aetheric sensors wasn’t enough to establish its position and vector with total confidence.

:Communication attempt?: Silver Stars asked.

:Negative. Too random: The response from the comm officer was almost instant. He’d clearly been working on it already, which the captain had expected.

:Deliberate obfuscation attempt: Oculus theorized. :Now receiving multiple position indicators. Attempting to resolve.: The feed from the sensor operator flickered as she tried to figure out where exactly Intruder One was. Several contact icons now populated the fuzzy hash where the intruder ship’s icon had been before. The missiles bored in while Oculus worked, their high relative speed and deliberately erratic course giving the Equestrian ships frighteningly short beam range against them.

:Second salvo, incoming!: Oculus’s thoughts blared as another sprinkle of crimson icons studded the virtual space.

:Continue to hold fire: Silver Stars commanded. This could still be a mistake. She hoped, she hoped it was just a mistake. She really didn’t want to be known as the mare whose first contact with aliens had embroiled Equestria in an interstellar war. But it really was starting to look like a flat-out attack, mad as that was.

The first salvo entered the envelope of the antimissile defenses, and they sprang to life. Fast-tracking, rapid-firing beam weapons, mostly lasers, spat energy at the hostile ordnance, trying to swat it down before it could reach the Warden ships. The missiles didn’t cooperate, throwing themselves into corkscrews and violent evasive jags, trying to make the defense systems’ job harder. Twenty-five of the thirty warheads flared and died, scorched to nothing or shattered by the beams’ touch, but that left five.

The final five missiles detonated on contact with Thunder’s shields, flaring to sun-white brilliance against the black of the void. The impacts were staggered, the missiles prevented from simultaneous detonation by the cutter’s frantic evasions, and when the light cleared, Thunder was still there.

:Shields holding: Captain Crimson Dusk reported, :Cycling back to full. No damage incurred.:

Silver Stars let out the breath she’d been holding. Her thoughts were interrupted by Wingblade, her weapons officer. :Captain, this is clearly hostile action. May I return fire?: Interestingly, Wingblade’s thought-pulse was utterly calm. This was the pegasus mare’s first actual combat; she’d been assigned to the Lightning straight out of training, and for a first-timer to react this coolly was rare. That was also an unusually clear thought; communications under immersion were normally much more fragmentary, especially in a stressful situation. This young Warden bore watching.

:Negative, hold fire.: Silver Stars was still holding out hope that this could all be a huge mistake.

:Hostile attempting to open the range: Oculus was starting to make progress in filtering out the noise Intruder One was throwing out, convincing her systems to concentrate on the aetheric returns and using that to augment the other sensor systems. It was brilliant work, but Silver Stars could still see multiple signatures where there should only be one. Maybe it’s launched more, or maybe it’s actually several ships that were docked together?

:Let it.: Maybe they were trying to disengage, perhaps a form of apology for an accidental attack?

:Third salvo!: Oculus’s thoughts were urgent.

Okay, that’s enough. There was trying to be tolerant, and then there was just stupid. :Close range. Return fire.: If the intruder was trying to open the range, then Silver Stars decided she wanted the range close.

The two cutters fired as one, their outgoing salvos perfectly coordinated. The missiles sped outward, slightly faster than Intruder One’s ordnance, seeking a target that was difficult to see.

Intruder One’s second salvo reached the Wardens just before cutters' ordnance reached attack range. Once again, antimissile defenses sprang into action, this time having had a chance to analyze the aliens’ attack patterns. Only two enemy missiles made it through, again focusing on Thunder.

The gap between salvos had been long enough for the cutter’s shields to hit full power again, and they brushed aside the aliens’ strike. Whoever these creatures were, their missiles were slower and less powerful than the Equestrian ships’, and they didn’t reload as quickly.

Silver Stars watched intently as her ships’ first salvo reached the location of Intruder One. Wingblade had been carefully updating the missiles’ robotic brains with Oculus’s refined information, and she’d deliberately had her cybernetic minions spread themselves among all the contacts. A few of the missiles wandered off-course and self-destructed, misled by the devilishly effective interference still coming from the intruder, but the others stayed obedient. A few more were lost, destroyed by the intruder’s missile defenses, which included what were clearly missiles designed to hit other missiles, a fiendishly clever idea that Silver Stars mentally resolved to mention to her superiors when she got home.

The rest struck home. All but one of the signal returns vanished, the level of interference dropping significantly, but the intruder’s rate of acceleration didn’t slow.

:Decoys!: Oculus thought-blurted in a moment of insight. :Hostile using decoy platforms!:
It was another fiendishly clever idea. Silver Stars was starting to worry. How many other tricks did the intruder have under its saddle?

:Can you refine? Screen out the false returns?: Wingblade’s thought was creepily focused.

:Trying: More blips were starting to appear, Intruder One evidently launching more decoys, and the interference was strengthening again.

Lightning’s acceleration dropped suddenly, her spinal aetherbeams drinking greedily of her power core’s output to send lances of force outward. The intruder’s vector lurched suddenly, the drunken motion and drop in acceleration coinciding with the invisible flash of the aetherbeams. At the same moment, Oculus detected a flash of gas molecules reflecting the light of Celestia’s distant sun. :Got her: Wingblade’s thoughts snarled. :A piece of her, at least.:

The hostile hadn’t exploded; the interference was enough to obscure its exact position and prevent Wingblade from getting the range precise enough to induce an aetheric cascade. Still, the beam had clearly punched through at least part of Intruder One.

:Good work. Do it again.: Silver Stars told the young pegasus, receiving a flash of affirmation in reply. Nearby, Thunder’s aetherbeams flared in imitation of her sister, a sudden hard argent glare erupting from the approximate position of Intruder One. There was a flare of hope from Lightning’s bridge crew, and a flash of mixed elation and shame from the weapons officer as Thunder’s gunner managed to do what she’d tried and failed, but the interference didn’t cease, nor did the intruder’s course lurch as it had when Wingblade had hit it. Thunder had evidently scored a kill on another of the intruder’s decoys.

The battle went on, crawling outward along the system ecliptic. Intruder One scored several more hits with its missiles, but failed utterly to breach the Warden ships’ barrier shields, while Thunder and Lightning were unsure of how many hits they actually landed in the face of the alien ship’s persistent ability to foul their sensors. Every time the frustrated Oculus managed to filter out a layer of interference, a new one sprang up. Still, the tan-coated unicorn felt that she was getting closer and closer to breaching it and finally getting a good look at the interloper. In addition, the cutters had scored repeated hits, the Intruder’s acceleration had dropped, and Oculus was seeing more and more gas and debris emitting from the alien ship indicating that the Wardens were indeed inflicting damage.

Silver Stars wondered what in the world the aliens were trying to do. It was clear that they were badly, badly overmatched by the Warden cutters, but they kept fighting. They were well outside the range of the sun that would prevent Gate drive from functioning, but they didn’t run. It made no sense! They were losing, why didn't they run or surrender?

Suddenly, just as another salvo was about to reach the now wreckage-spewing Intruder One, the ship sent out a surge of power and vanished. Oculus went into overdrive, searching the immediate area, but there was nothing. Intruder One had disappeared, leaving no clue as to where it had gone.

Silver Stars maintained alert status for several minutes, waiting to see if the alien ship would reappear, but she was finally forced to order her bridge crew out of full immersion. Silver Stars followed suit, finally releasing the spell that tied her to Lightning. The virtual world of the ship’s datanet dropped away, leaving a massive, raging headache in its place, centered on the captain’s horn, and she sagged in fatigue. The rest of the bridge crew were doing likewise, the strain of the rapid-fire thoughts, calculations, and commands having taken its toll on their minds and bodies.

Silver Stars sighed, glancing around at her bridge crew and starting to issue orders. This was going to be a heck of a report to write.

“Captain?” Whiterush, the navigator, croaked, “I think we just won.”

Silver Stars smiled tiredly. “That we did, Warden.”

“Wow, I hope they’re not mad at us back home,” Webster, the comms officer, piped up. “I mean, that’s the first alien ship Equestria’s ever seen, and we got in a fight with it.” He sounded a little guilty, like the aliens’ refusal to respond to his signals had been somehow his fault.

“I doubt it.” The captain shook her head, managing not to wince at the motion. “They started that fight, not us. And the Commanders sure as heck aren’t going to be mad; they picked a fight with us, and we bucked their teeth down their throat. That’s the Warden way, after all!”

“Yeah,” Night Breeze chuckled from her pilot’s couch, fanning her night-black feathers in an unconscious effort to dissipate her own postbattle tension, “Commander Dash will probably want to buy us all drinks.”

The pilot was answered with low laughs running around the bridge, and the crew turned back to their jobs, focusing on powering combat systems down and assessing the results of the fight, exactly as their Library Core training had emphasized. Silver Stars rubbed her head wearily. It wasn’t Rainbow Dash or Applejack she was worried about. No, the one whose reaction she feared wasn’t in the Wardens’ chain of command at all. She was worried about what Equestria’s head diplomat, Fluttershy, would say when Silver Stars came back with nothing but the report of a battle.

The Council had ruled largely unchallenged for generations. Few had dared dispute the united might of its most powerful members, the bare handful of exceptions having been quickly dispatched by the disciplined, well-equipped squadrons of the Council’s armed forces. More, many more, had been disrupted and left ultimately powerless by the Council’s greatest and subtlest asset: the infiltrator service.

Until now.

Now, a single, little-known world at the rim of the Council’s territory had managed to avoid disruption by the infiltrator service, and it had part of the Council deeply worried. Less than ten star-seasons ago, this world had been primitive, far from starflight, notable only for the bizarre, inexplicable abilities of its inhabitants and the unknown but formidable strength of its two powerful guardians. The infiltrator service (acting outside of official orders) had already set in motion a series of events that would leave the world devastated at the (metaphorical) hands of its own residents; the Council had enough members and protectorates already, and it did not need another primitive world to look after, and there was the matter of the conflict brewing with the Tazaft. The council couldn’t afford the distraction of integrating another primitive world.

Then, disaster struck. The infiltrator cruiser sent in for a regular examination of the world and its agents had met with quite a rude surprise. Not only had it been unable to contact the planetside agents from the system rim, not only did it find a number of ships and their attendant sensors bustling through the system that absolutely should not be there, but for the first time in almost forty great seasons, an infiltrator cruiser was actually discovered.

The cruiser’s captain had confidently assumed that the two small patrol vessels had simply stumbled across it, flying out from behind a small moon at the perfect time to spot the heavily-stealthed cruiser. Knowing that he had likely been seen, the captain had elected to attack the small ships, hoping to destroy them quickly and thus limit his degree of exposure before he could retreat back outsystem and report to the nearest infiltrator base. The infiltrator service’s specialized cruisers were the most advanced vessels in the Council fleet, and were among its most powerful combatants on a ton-for-ton basis. To make matters even more lopsided, the cruiser outmassed both of its opponents combined by a rather comfortable margin. Ignoring the messages sent by the two patrol vessels, the captain had opened fire, expecting to destroy both ships in at most three salvos before he could duck back into the safety of the interstellar void.

That was when he’d received his next surprise.

The small patrol craft had been preposterously powerful, far, far more so than they ever should have been. They’d shrugged off the first salvo launched by the infiltrator cruiser with contemptuous ease, obliterating most of the cruiser’s missiles in flight with point-defense fire, and the few that had gotten through had accomplished precisely nothing. They’d hesitated at the hostile response, not unexpected from the relatively nonaggressive species that inhabited this system,(the response didn’t even help identify which of the local sapient species had built this preposterous level of infrastructure, though it did rule a couple out) allowing the cruiser to launch a second salvo that proved similarly fruitless, and a third had been on the way before they returned fire with weapons scaled to match their defenses. The infiltrator cruiser had barely escaped serious damage from the first salvo, managing to decoy nearly all of the patrol ships’ missiles away, but their direct-fire weapons had been harder to deal with.

The infiltrator captain had realized when the first beam punched straight through his ship that he was seriously outmatched. The cruiser’s electronic warfare systems had gone into overdrive, trying desperately to decoy the patrol ships’ fire away while the infiltrator ship made a break for the system limit. Observing what happened to his decoys, the captain realized that the only thing that had saved his vessel had been his foes misjudging the range slightly; several of his decoys had exploded violently when hit by the same beam weapon that had simply punched a clean, white-hot hole straight through the cruiser, effortlessly penetrating the ship’s armor on both sides along with everything in between. Something in that beam had caused the decoys to explode, and the captain had been devoutly grateful that it hadn’t managed to do that to his cruiser.

Even the edge offered by the cruiser’s electronic warfare systems, a gap that should have been assured against any foe, had been narrowing dangerously by the time it had reached the system’s edge. The enemy had clearly started without much knowledge of electronic warfare, but they’d been learning unpleasantly quickly over the short duration of the engagement, and the cruiser had taken several hits that damaged its EW equipment. It had been with tangible relief that the infiltrator cruiser had managed to limp over the system’s wormhole limit and vanish into FTL, thanking their great good fortune that none of the patrol ships’ hits had managed to cripple the cruiser’s wormhole drive. The cruiser had limped back to base missing half its weapons, its stealth systems blasted to uselessness, and its insystem drive functioning at barely a third of its normal capability. Almost half of the cruiser’s crew was dead or injured, its foes had barely been scratched, and worst of all, its mission had failed utterly. It was transparently clear from the sheer volume of traffic in the system that its inhabitants had not suffered the annihilating conflict that the infiltrator service had been working to guarantee, which meant that the infiltrator agents onplanet had either been killed or otherwise rendered irrelevant. Further, the cruiser hadn’t been able to properly assess the locals’ technology, which was far, far beyond what it should have been, nor had it been able to discern the cause of the sudden technological leap. There had been some initial speculation among the analysts that the ships present in the system hadn’t been local at all, but careful analysis of the infiltrator cruiser’s sensor record had revealed layers of development and traces of previous generations of technology, making an interloper unlikely, though the alternative was scarcely more palatable.

From the locals’ demonstrated level of advancement, it was highly likely that they possessed FTL capability. It could only be a matter of time before they left the confines of their own system. The Council was in a tizzy, some members trying to determine what to do, others furious that the captain had opened fire without attempting contact, when the infiltrator service came forward with additional news.

Another infiltrator cruiser had returned. This one had been sent after the crippled ship’s return, sitting well outside the system FTL limit and hiding in the interstellar dark while it listened to the signals coming from the system. Much had been indecipherable, their electronic coding methods still unknown and therefore unreadable, but this much had come through; the Six would be leaving the system in a mission of exploration. The greatest paladins and champions of their race would be out in the cold, vulnerable, outside the protection of the Two and whatever defenses had been deployed around their homeworld.

The long-term solution was still under debate, a rift of bitter disagreement forming among the Council’s founding membership, but the short-term plan would be carried out without informing the senior council. The Six would be tracked down and killed, their ship destroyed, and hopefully this would weaken both the Two and the unity of their home system, allowing the Council to take necessary steps.

Orders were sent, the part of the Enforcement Division under control of the Interventionist faction mobilized. The Six and their vessel would be hunted down and destroyed. The infiltrator service had suffered minor reversals before, but the Enforcement Division had never failed.

The dissent in the Council would fade away once the problem was removed.

Preparation

Twilight Sparkle set the smartscroll on her desk with a sigh, rubbing her eyes. Every time she thought they were almost ready, a new host of questions and problems manifested. They were on schedule, moving along exactly as expected, but it still felt like she was running in place.

She glared at the programmable surface of the smartscroll. This one was a request from the shipyards for the Bureau of Technology (the government branch formed from the company formerly known as Thaumatech Incorporated) to release several prototypes that were in their final stages of development. Twilight had convinced her friends, fellow beneficiaries of the deceased Duran Thirk who’d bequeathed the company to them, to merge the huge corporation with the Equestrian government. She’d since come to regret that, as Princess Celestia had appointed Twilight as head of the new Bureau of Technology and made her responsible for its enormous, sprawling research and production departments. Celestia had never expressed anything other than total satisfaction with the way Twilight had done her job with the BoT in the last eighty years, though Twilight herself knew that she’d had a number of major failures and a whole host of smaller ones. She had them written down in a list somewhere, so she could be certain she wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.

The lavender unicorn sighed again and turned to her right. The illusory screen of her desk terminal flicked to life at a thought-prompt, and Twilight’s personal holodaemon obediently retrieved the details of the first requested prototype for her perusal. Twilight rubbed her face again, and started reading.

Two hours of research later, she’d approved three of the shipyard’s requests, forwarding them to Spike so the young dragon could assemble the information and material to send up on the next few supply runs and denied a fourth. The prototype of the newest version of the gravity generators would have increased the Dauntless’s acceleration by almost ten percent… but several tests had hinted at a dangerous instability. The rate of failure was extremely low, but they absolutely couldn’t afford to use a piece of equipment that might kill the entire crew if it hiccupped, and Twilight wondered why in the world the shipyard supervisor had even bothered to make that request. She had to know that Twilight would veto something that risky!

She was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t even hear her office door open. She didn’t hear her secretary clear his throat, either; he finally had to ping her terminal to gain her attention.

Twilight started when the prompt appeared on her screen, and looked up guiltily at the dark grey figure of her receptionist. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Numbers, I didn’t even notice you there!”

The unicorn stallion smiled gently. He was quite used to his boss being so engrossed in her work that she lost track of the world around her; his predecessor and mentor had warned him about that tendency when the older stallion had retired. “Not a problem, Ma’am, I hadn’t been standing here long.” Ordered Numbers glanced back over his shoulder. “The Field Commander of the Border Wardens is here for your two o’clock appointment.”

“It’s two already?” Twilight glanced at the clock display on her terminal. “Goodness, the day just zooms by! Please, show her in!”

The stallion gave an elegant bow of his white-maned head, retreating back to the outer office and closing the door behind him. Twilight drew a mental breath, readying herself. She’d already met all four of her other friends in preparation for the planned voyage, but she’d deliberately left this one for last. She’d been… difficult to deal with at times over the last few decades, though less so for Twilight than for some of the others. Twilight was half-expecting to face a bit of a challenge convincing her friend to accept the lavender unicorn’s command for the duration of this mission, not to mention the other matters that she knew were guaranteed to make the other pony angry.

The door opened again, and Twilight heard the clicking sound of metal on tile along with the slight whine of cybernetics that accompanied Rainbow Dash wherever she went. Numbers held the door open for the cyan-coated pegasus as she prowled into the room. There was nothing deliberately or overtly menacing in her gait, but her movements were far smoother than was normal for a pony, and most didn’t realize that the slightly uncanny style of her movements was due to the habit she’d picked up of carefully placing each rear hoof in the spot vacated by the corresponding forehoof as she walked. She'd gotten so smooth and quick with that way of moving that most ponies didn't even notice that it wasn't natural, only coming away with a nagging sense of unease. The overall effect was unsettlingly feline, and Rainbow had been doing it for so long that she probably didn’t even realize she was using her altered gait.

Twilight mentally shook her head, taking care not to show her feelings on her face. This might be more difficult than she’d thought. Rainbow had developed that gait while she was patrolling the frontier with her Wardens, and she didn’t usually do it in the city unless she was expecting a fight. Darn. I was hoping she wouldn’t be this wary until later. Maybe she heard about what Fluttershy and I were discussing.

The unicorn took a moment to assess her friend. It had been a few years since she’d last seen the aggressive pegasus, but she didn’t look all that different. Three of her legs were cybernetic; two had been replacements for limbs irreparably damaged in an operation with her Border Wardens, while her left foreleg had been intentionally replaced; Rainbow had liked the handy bladed weapons and strength enhancements she’d had incorporated into her artificial left foreleg, and had decided to replace the other foreleg as well. The three metal legs and one natural hoof produced an odd-sounding uneven rhythm when the multicolored mare walked, especially on the smooth stone tiles of Twilight’s office. The cybernetic limbs also whined whenever she moved, a slight noise just above the threshold of audibility that drove Twilight nuts nearly every time she was in the same room as the pegasus, especially since Rainbow almost never sat completely still.

Rainbow’s other cybernetics were less obtrusive. Despite the vicious scar on her face, legacy of a dragon’s claw that had torn out her right eye, her eyes could be taken as natural until one got close. The left eye, like her left front limb, had been an intentional replacement; Rainbow actually had her left eye preserved in a jar somewhere in her home in case she ever wanted it back. She brought it out sometimes when she wanted to shock someone. Her muscular enhancements and dermal reinforcement, on the other hoof, weren’t visible at all unless one had specialized sensors or particular spells. Twilight could see light reflecting off of the neural interface link half-concealed in the Warden’s multicolored mane just behind her left ear that let the Warden commander interface with most arcanotechnological devices. Rainbow had been one of the first ponies to receive an interface implant, and this was probably the newest model; she liked to upgrade as soon as stable new versions were available.

It didn’t look like she’d added any more since Twilight had last seen her, but the unicorn knew her friend had been deeply impressed with some of the newer low-profile enhancements that had been coming out of the Bureau lately, so the lack of obvious new cybernetics didn’t necessarily mean much. Rainbow had definitely modified her forelegs in the last year or so, probably adding newly miniaturized disruption field generators to the bladed talons stored inside. Twilight thought she saw some extra circuitry in the pegasus’s eyes as well, but she wasn’t certain. The only parts of Rainbow she was sure weren’t cybernetic were her wings; the Bureau hadn’t yet produced anything that could match the strength, toughness, and light weight of pegasus wings, and the unicorn knew her friend would never settle for something less effective than what she already had.

Rainbow met Twilight’s eyes, and gave a nod of greeting. She glanced back over her shoulder at where Twilight’s secretary was still standing by the open door. “Thanks, Numbers, but I gotta talk to your boss in private. Scoot.” She made a slight shooing motion with one hoof.

Numbers raised an eyebrow at the curt dismissal, and looked to Twilight. The unicorn nodded, confirming her friend’s request; they needed to talk, and as a rule Rainbow was much easier to talk to with nopony else around. The elegant gray-coated stallion bowed and left the room, the door closing softly behind him. Rainbow watched the door for a moment after it closed, then smoothly moved to hop up into the spare chair in Twilight’s office.

Twilight smiled warmly at her friend. Best to start the meeting off amicably, if she could. “Good afternoon, Rainbow. How have you been?”

Rainbow’s wings flipped up and settled, a pegasus shrug. “Eh, not terrible. Had to deal with a big ol’ pack of timber wolves trying to get into Ponyville the other day. Didn’t lose any Wardens or any townsponies, so a pretty good day”

Twilight snorted. “Ponyville? Really?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow smiled absently. “Been a while since I visited there. Like, twenty years, I think?” She shrugged again. “We can usually spot and stop stuff coming out of the Everfree before they get that far, but those timber wolves look enough like trees that they snuck past our detector nets and we really had to scramble to get there in time.” The pegasus snorted. “You know Carousel Boutique’s still there? I mean, it’s a Rarity’s now, but the building’s still there.”

“Yes, I did know that, actually.” Twilight smiled, remembering. “Rarity feels nostalgic about her first location, so she maintains that branch there even though the town’s bought about all it’s going to.”

“Speaking of, how long have you had that Rarity’s just outside your HQ? That wasn’t there last time I was here.”

“Really?” Twilight tried to think back to the last time Rainbow visited her here at her office. “That one’s been here… it has to be twenty-five, thirty years now.” Rarity’s had at least one branch in every large city, (most had several) and most of the smaller cities and towns hosted a Rarity’s as well. Nearly everypony owned at least one of its products, whether one of the off-the-shelf units or a custom-ordered and special-designed model. Rarity encouraged her customers to take the latter option; “Everypony’s got different needs,” as her slogan went, “Tell us yours!”

“Man, really?” The pegasus shook her head. “I gotta remember to visit you more.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door. “Especially since your new secretary’s cute. He available?”

“Rainbow!” Twilight scolded, “He’s a quarter your age!”

Rainbow let out a dirty snicker. “Yeah. All the hot ones are. The ones my age are all either nasty and old or dead except you and the gang, and I’m still not into fillies.” Rainbow’s look turned a little wistful. “Hey, Twilight… are we gonna stay like this forever?”

This certainly wasn’t the direction Twilight had expected this conversation to go, but she had plenty of time allotted for this meeting, so she was willing to go along with her friend. It had been far too long since they’d just sat and talked, anyway. “Possibly. I talked to Celestia about it when I realized we weren’t aging the way we should be, and she said it was similar back when she and Luna first bonded to the Elements, along with their four friends. Back then, though, the Elements made all six of them larger almost immediately, which obviously hasn’t happened to us, but the bonding does seem to have stopped our aging much like it did with the Princesses.”

Rainbow’s mouth twisted. “Does that mean I’m gonna grow a horn and get all big? Man, I hope not, that’d kill my airborne agility, and I don’t have the time to learn magic.”

“I don’t know, Rainbow.” It bothered Twilight how little she knew about the Elements and their effects. “When Celestia and her friends found the Elements and used them to fight Discord, the previous holders had been dead for a long, long time, and nopony really knows what happened to them. It’s hard to tell what they normally do to their holders.”

“Hey, wait, the Princesses had friends that held the Elements? What happened to them, anyway?” Rainbow asked. “I’ve never heard of them before.”

“Yes, there were six of them, just like us. Celestia was Magic, and Luna was Kindness. As to what happened to the others… they died.” Twilight’s voice was quiet. “They’re immortal, but not indestructible. They died in battles, accidents, one died of disease. They've been mostly kept out of the histories by the Princesses’ request, because Luna and Celestia don't like to remember their loss.”

Rainbow glanced down at her cybernetic forelegs, blinking her artificial eyes. “Heh. Well, I guess I know which of us is gonna eat it first, huh?” She laughed, grimly. “Heck, if it hadn’t been for some of Duran’s medical gadgets, I’d probably be dead already. That dragon got me pretty good.” She gave a wintery smile. “’Course, my Wardens got him even better, afterward. They were ticked.”

“From what I read in the reports, you could have avoided those injuries.”

The pegasus snorted. “Yeah, save my hide and lose three of my ponies. It was either take that hit myself or let the dragon get ‘em, and that’s not really a choice, is it? Not like I actually died. ‘Sides, it made ‘em fight harder when they thought their boss had just gotten gacked.”

“I suppose that isn’t really a choice, then.” Twilight cocked her head. Rainbow was clearly feeling talkative, and she might as well take advantage of it before getting down to business. “Rainbow, I’ve been meaning to ask… you replaced your left foreleg, why haven’t you done the same for your hind leg? I know it has to affect your balance.”

Rainbow Dash glanced back briefly at her only remaining natural leg. “Maybe I like being lopsided,” she answered with a crooked grin. “Keeps me paying attention, you know?” Twilight gave the Warden commander a level look, and the pegasus laughed. “Hey, it’s not like I’m still in the Wonderbolts or anything, I don’t need to worry about flashy precision stuff, I’m more than good enough to compensate in an actual fight, and the pseudo-myomer muscle boosters make that leg almost as strong as the fake ones anyway.”

“I’m serious, Rainbow.” Twilight didn’t want the conversation to linger on the pegasus’s short stint in the prestigious flying group. Even after all this time, it was still something of a sore point with her that she’d resigned in order to protect the group from the bad press her membership was bringing. “That can’t be the real reason, can it?”

Rainbow sobered, chewing her lip and glancing around the office. Her ears were turned back in tension, and she was silent for a long time. “You don’t have recorders or anything in here, do you?” She finally asked, and Twilight shook her head, puzzled. Rainbow sighed. Some of the cockiness fell away, making the other mare look about ten years older. “Okay, listen, I’ll tell you the real reason, but you gotta promise not to tell anyone else. Seriously.”

“I promise, Rainbow Dash.” Now Twilight was really curious.

Rainbow searched Twilight’s face closely, intently, and then heaved another sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. “Okay, I'll trust you.” She opened them again and regarded Twilight levelly. “Do you know what it’s like to lose a cutie mark?”

“Lose a…” Twilight repeated, her gaze darting to Rainbow’s right hip, where her cloud and prismatic lightning bolt were displayed boldly on the metal surface. She’d never really thought about that. Rainbow had come out of the hospital with her artificial legs already the same color as her coat, sporting a replica of her cutie mark right where it should be. It hadn’t really registered with Twilight that the pegasus had lost her natural cutie mark.

“Yeah, lose a cutie mark.” Rainbow interrupted, noticing Twilight’s glance. She twitched her head toward her artificial rear limb. “That one’s painted on, but it’s not the same. They had to take that whole leg off when my troops finally got me to the hospital. I mean, it was mangled, I saw the pictures. I was darn lucky not to lose the wing on that side; the hit went low, just got my face and my legs. The doctors had to cut what was left of my leg off to bond the cybernetic one to my hip joint, and when I woke up it felt like… like a piece of my soul had been ripped away.” She bowed her head, the fiery colors of her forelock hiding her eyes momentarily. Twilight could see the pegasus's ears laid back flat, telling the unicorn how upset her fried was even though her face wasn't showing it. “I know, all the doctors say it’s psychowhatsis, but it sure didn’t feel like it was just in my head.”

“Psychosomatic,” Twilight corrected absently.

“Whatever.” Rainbow shrugged, looking off to the side. “I know the ponies in the press like saying that my augments are stealing my soul, making me ‘more machine than pony’ and all that garbage, but that was the only time I felt like they might be right. The muscle boosters, the dermal armor, the interface unit, even the eyes, those feel fine, but that leg…” She shook her head, then looked up again to meet Twilight’s eyes. “And seriously don’t tell anypony this part, but I cried for hours when I finally went home. I felt like half a pony, but I couldn’t let anyone think the Warden Commander has feelings. Part of my mystique, ya know? Mare of Steel, even though that nickname came before the metal bits. So I held it all in, made jokes about them having to buy a new Commander from Rarity’s when this one broke, stuff like that all through the therapy they made me do to get used to the new legs. And the eye, that was harder. Then I finally got home, got rid of everypony, locked the door, and just curled up on the floor and cried. Felt like I was never gonna stop.” Rainbow sniffed and cleared her throat, then glanced down at her natural hip again. “I’m scared of what might happen if I lose the other one. There might not be any Rainbow Dash left, just the Warden Commander.” She blinked. “And why the heck am I even telling you this? Dude, I’m sorry, I came here for a meeting, not to whine at you.”

“Don’t apologize, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed. The mental image of her friend curled up alone on the floor sobbing was like a spike in her heart. “Why in the world haven’t you talked to me about this before? Have you talked to anyone about this?” The unicorn tried to remember the last time she’d even seen Rainbow cry. The only time that was coming to mind was almost eight decades ago, just after Duran had died. Rainbow had clearly been stricken; she’d been closer to the big alien than anypony else had been, but she’d been stone-faced and unresponsive during the public funeral, and had been very quiet while they’d started going through his home, deciding what should be done with his possessions. They’d finally wound up in his bedroom, and tears had welled in Rainbow's eyes when she’d seen the picture on his nightstand.

It had been a low-quality old photo, taken shortly after Rainbow, Twilight, and Duran had returned from their involuntary exile to the world they knew as Hell’s Reach. Just before the welcome-back party Pinkie had thrown for her friends, the three had posed for a photo, with Duran in the middle, Rainbow on his right, and Twilight on his left, his long arms hugging the two ponies’ necks. All three of them were grinning, delighted and relieved that their ordeal was finally over, none of them realizing then the knife edge that the human had been balanced upon. Twilight had barely even thought about it at the time, and had forgotten the photo completely until that day, when she’d seen it on that little nightstand. It was turned toward the bed, where she knew the crippled engineer would have seen it every morning. There’d been a small, folded piece of paper tucked under the frame.

The tears had started gathering when Rainbow had seen that picture, and she’d reached out and taken the paper, setting it on the floor and carefully unfolding it with suddenly unsteady hooves. She’d looked at the short message for only a moment before sitting down hard, tears spilling down her cheeks. Twilight had gently lifted the note from the floor, holding it telekinetically in front of her. She still remembered the short letter word-for-word.

My Friends,

If you are reading this, I am likely gone. (If I’m not, then why are you going through my house? Go home!) I don’t know if I’ve ever told you the depth of gratitude I feel toward you for rescuing me from the terrible place that was my prison for so long. I’d always intended to sit down and tell you, but somehow something else always comes up, and I never seem to get around to saying it. So here it is. Remembering what the two of you have done for me is what gives me the strength to haul myself out of this bed every morning, the determination to make this crippled, useless body contribute something, and the courage to keep going when I don’t think I can anymore.

From my heart, from my soul,

Thank you. Both of you.

Twilight had felt tears welling in her own eyes, reading that note, but she’d known that it must have been harder for Rainbow. Twilight and Duran had been friends, but he and Rainbow had been even closer, so close that there’d been widespread (untrue) rumors that they’d been lovers. He’d been the one she’d gone to talk to when the news outlets had started their horribly negative reports on her nascent Border Wardens and when she’d had that huge fight with Fluttershy, one of her oldest friends. He’d been the first one she’d told when she’d been accepted into the Wonderbolts, and the first one to know that she was quitting in order to protect the team’s reputation when the news reports had started to paint the stunt team as sharing the responsibility for the deaths of various creatures at the hooves of the Wardens by allowing the Warden Commander to fly with them. His death, expected though it was, had hit Rainbow harder than anyone else, but she’d refused to show any sign of it until she’d read that note.

Once she’d read it, she hadn’t been able to maintain her façade any longer. She’d tried to stumble from the room, to find someplace where no one could see her, but she’d been blinded by tears and had blundered into the wall. The dam had cracked, and the sobs had started, hard, wracking, agonized things that shook the athlete’s slender frame. Twilight had started to move toward her friend, but the grief had gripped her as well, and she’d sat down and started crying herself. Fluttershy, hearing them from the next room over, had come running, folding Rainbow into a close embrace and holding her while the younger pegasus sobbed and shook. Rarity had been moments behind her, hastening to hug Twilight, and Pinkie and Applejack had been right on Rarity’s heels, pulling Rainbow and Twilight closer to one another so they could form a group hug.

That had been the last time Twilight ever saw Rainbow Dash cry. Afterward, she’d wholeheartedly embraced her “Warden Commander” persona, wrapping herself in the image of the tough-as-nails leader of the toughest ponies in Equestria, sworn to defend the Principality from monsters and any other enemies that might threaten. She’d privately confessed her doubts and fears to Twilight occasionally, and to Applejack, her co-commander, far more often, but in public she never wavered, never hesitated. The “Mare of Steel” moniker had been well-earned.

Twilight shook herself, dragging her mind out of her memories to focus on Rainbow’s reply. “Who would I talk to, Twilight? Applejack has her own worries about her grandkids, you and Pinkie are busy most of the time, Rarity and I have never really gotten along all that well, and Fluttershy’s back to not talking to me again after we had to burn out that basilisk nest last year. And it’s not like I’m gonna go whine to Celestia and Luna! All that leaves is a counselor, but with the stuff the reporters have been saying about me and the Wardens, I can’t risk them finding out I’m seeing a counselor! It’d be all over the netlines, ‘Mare of Steel starting to rust!’ ‘Is guilt too much for the Wardens’ leader?’ Stuff like that, you know it would, and I’m not gonna let my problems hurt the Wardens, especially not now!”

“Rainbow Dash… I’m so sorry.” Twilight felt like a spike was twisting in her heart. “I didn’t realize… I should have made more time for us to talk a long time ago…”

“Aw, don’t apologize, Twilight.” Rainbow interrupted. “It’s not your fault. Heck, if you didn’t notice, that means I was doing a good job of keeping it to myself! Don’t worry, I’m handling it.”

“Yes, but…” Twilight couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d failed her friend, and badly.

Rainbow interrupted again. “Twilight, drop it, okay? Before I start regretting I said anything.” She tossed her head, signaling a topic change, and the cocky personality was suddenly back in force. “Listen, I know this meeting is supposed to be about the Dauntless, so let’s talk about that. Did you need an update or anything?”

“Er… yes.” Twilight struggled to shift mental gears. “Why don’t you give me a progress report on your preparations?”

The cybernetic pegasus nodded, back to the way she acted in public. There was no sign of the brief glimpse she’d offered Twilight of what went on behind the mask she wore. Twilight went along with it, but she surreptitiously pinged her terminal with a note to herself; she needed to sit down with Rainbow Dash in private and have a long talk. Oblivious to Twilight’s thoughts, Rainbow was starting her report, albeit in her own informal style. “Okay. Well, you met with A.J. the other day, so she probably told you the Falcons wouldn’t be ready by the departure date. Dumb things are having all kinds of problems.” Twilight nodded sympathetically. The heavy skimmer tanks would have been really nice to have, but the combined BoT and Warden development team had run into several technological problems that would probably take years to solve, and the Dauntless would be ready to leave in a month or so. “The Scorpions are fine, so we'll have light armor, but no heavies. The bad news she didn’t tell you, ‘cause it hadn’t happened yet, is that there’s a problem with the Thunderbirds. We thought they’d be good to go, but one of ‘em crashed during training ops on one of the outsystem moons. Turns out they’ve got a big problem with non-Equestrian magnetic fields, or maybe some kind of arcane interference. We’re talking a fatal problem, here, so they’re not gonna be coming along.”

“Are you serious?” Twilight was aghast. The Thunderbirds were the armed shuttles that she’d planned on using as the primary method of transport from the Dauntless to any planetary surface, as the starship was far too big to land. If they weren’t available…

“Yup. Dead serious. One of my best pilots was on that ship, and if she couldn’t save it, nopony could, so the T-Birds are out.” Rainbow looked haunted for the space of an eyeblink, which almost certainly meant that the test pilot hadn’t survived the accident. “The good news is that the Kestrels’ll fit in the spaces we had planned for the Thunderbirds, barely, and the new upgrade package went smoother than we thought. The new-run Kestrels are actually better armored than the T-Birds, and they’re rugged as all get out, so we will have landers, they’ll just be a little undergunned.” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, and the Commander grinned at her. “Yeah, I had some anxious moments there too, believe me.” Rainbow looked distant for a moment, probably accessing a file through her interface implant. “Hmm, what else… oh! Yeah, I got like a hundred times as many volunteers as I needed for the mission, so I get to pick and choose. From the whole Warden Corps, actually, everypony volunteered, down to the kids still in training.” Rainbow beamed with pride. “I’m stealing the gunnery crews from Thunder and Lightning both, so you’ll have weapons officers who’ve seen action already. Lightning's pilot was already slated for Dauntless, she's one of the best I've ever seen, so you've got a pilot with combat experience, too. Five Scorpions, plus a full platoon of battle armor, all vets. You’ll have about seventy combat Wardens total in the ground force, which I think was the max we could bring. Plus the shuttle pilots, of course. Eight of the troopers are dual-spec, they’ll be backup vehicle crews if they’re needed.”

Twilight nodded. That was both good and bad, for reasons that she’d cover in a moment. That issue was one she didn’t want to raise yet, so instead she asked, “Have you had any new developments about the Interloper?” The strange ship’s intrusion had been the catalyst for finally getting Dauntless built, after she’d been nothing more than theory and wishful thinking for more than twenty years. It had been almost a year now since the Interloper's attack, and everyone in Equestria had been watching the skies anxiously, waiting for it to return with its friends. It hadn't, yet, but that only lent urgency to the Dauntless mission. They had to find out where it had come from.

“Yeah, actually. Um…” Rainbow stared off into the distance for a moment. “I just realized I haven’t really told you any of the stuff we learned from that yet. Did Applejack mention it when she talked to you?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, she said since it was an active operation it was really your domain. We mostly talked about supplies and logistics for the mission, Warden maintenance requirements, things like that.”

Rainbow chuckled, shaking her head. “Good old A.J. The Wardens would have fallen apart without her, and I’m grateful every single day that she pitched in to help me out way back when, but good Celestia can she be boring sometimes.” She looked up with a grin. “Okay, I’ll be short ‘cause I know I’m taking longer than I should.” She actually wasn’t, Twilight had set aside quite a bit of time for this meeting, but she didn’t interrupt. “First off, they were doing tricks with their sensors and what we’re assuming are communications thingies that never occurred to us, using ‘em to spoof some of our sensors and stuff. The EM sensors, mostly, they didn't touch the thaumics or aetherics for some reason. We should have thought of those tricks, it’s a great idea and not actually that hard to do, but we never did. A.J.'s science teams are still analyzing it, working out how they were doing it, how we can do it, and how we can work through it, and we’ll probably have a few extra gadgets to stick on the Dauntless in a couple of weeks. The Library Core was a big help, actually, there’s a ton of data on stuff like this, under ‘Electronic Warfare,’ but we never thought to look for it. The new tech may cut down Dauntless’s cargo capacity, but we’ll need that extra gear if we run into whoever sent the Interloper. I had one of my tech-heads check her power distribution before I came down here, and she should have plenty of spare power for our new stuff.”

Twilight winced, but nodded. Huge as it was, the exploration cruiser was getting uncomfortably short on space, but they could make room for whatever it was the Wardens were developing. She contacted her terminal with a thought, horn glowing softly as she sent a message to the shipyard to speak to the Wardens’ engineers. Rainbow waited for the horn-glow that indicated an active thought-connection to fade before continuing, “What else… Oh yeah, we've been running projections on that ship, trying to get a feel for what it could do and what it couldn’t, and what we think the people who built it could and couldn’t do. We had to make a bunch of assumptions, ‘cause it pretty definitely didn’t work like our stuff does; it looked like it was closer to Library Core tech than Duran’s Tethinar stuff, and pretty far from the hybrid stuff we’ve been building. We think it was optimized as a stealth ship, and that’s why it was hitting so far below what it should’ve been capable of, big as it was, but that’s totally a guess. It would’ve stomped a ship built with Library Core tech flat, it could do a ton of stuff the NAIS couldn’t, but we think it was somewhere underneath what a warship should’ve been able to do. Current best guess is that its stealth gear was eating into its available space, and that’s why the Thunder and Lightning were able to kick it around the way they did. They really beat the snot out of it, we found pieces of hull plating, vented atmosphere, even bio traces that were probably crew before they got, y’know, vaporized. I’m a little surprised it was able to get out at all with the pounding it took; whatever stardrive they use might be smaller than ours, or maaaaybe more redundant. My ships got at least eight beam hits in, and five or six missiles, but the beams didn’t do the kerplode thing ‘cause they kept screwing with our rangefinders.”

Twilight facehoofed. “It’s called an induced aetheric cascade, Rainbow Dash.”

The cyberpegasus rolled her eyes. “Whatever. ‘Kerplode’ has way less syllables and it’s way more descriptive.” Twilight reflected despairingly that if the Warden Commander was calling an induced aetheric cascade ‘that kerplode thing’ then everypony was going to be calling it that, and braced herself in anticipation of many future headaches. “We gave the stuff we were able to recover to one of your tech teams, but I don’t think they’ve learned anything earthshaking yet. I’ll make sure to forward you a full report later.”

Twilight nodded absently, and then bit her lip. Hesitantly, she asked, “Rainbow… I have to ask you this officially because reporters have been asking me every day or so since it happened, but… did your ships fire first?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head firmly. “No. They didn’t. They sent an analog signal telling that ship to stop, that they were in Equestrian space, and the ship just started shooting. Thunder and Lightning didn’t respond until they fired the third salvo, in case the first two had been a mistake. That’s not what they were supposed to do, by the way. My protocol was to return fire immediately. I had a chat with Silver Stars about it, pretty much scared her tail off right before I offered her the captain’s seat on Dauntless.” The pegasus cocked her head. “Want me to send you Thunder and Lightning’s sensor and comm logs?”

“Yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind.” Twilight was relieved by the offer. The Wardens were notoriously reluctant to relinquish things like that; they'd had some bad experiences with the press in the past, and tended to drag their heels about giving anything to the reporters, even things that would paint them in a better light. “I could have Pinkie give them to the reporters and finally shut them up about you starting a war.”

Rainbow nodded curtly and stared off into space for a moment while Twilight felt a faint arcane emanation coming from the pegasus’s interface implant. “Done. They’ll be on your desk in an hour. The original boxes, not copies; there’s a shuttle bringing them down from the orbital station.”

“Thank you, Rainbow.” Twilight smiled. Rainbow was being much more accommodating than the unicorn had expected, but she really didn’t expect that attitude to continue past Twilight’s next request. Twilight drew a deep breath, bracing herself. “We’ve got something else to talk about, Rainbow Dash. I want to give Fluttershy release authority over the Warden detachment.”

“Nope.” The refusal was instant and flat, and the lack of hesitation or surprise suggested that Rainbow had expected it. “No way, no how. Fluttershy isn’t getting authority over my troops.”

“Rainbow…” Despite herself, Twilight felt irritation creeping into her voice. “This is going to be a diplomatic and exploration mission first and foremost, not a war expedition. You are not in charge, I am, and the diplomatic team has priority.”

Rainbow shrugged. “I know. A.J. and I are temporarily resigning our positions as Commanders so you can use the title. We’ll both be using the rank of lieutenant until we get home. But I’m not putting my ponies under Fluttershy.”

Twilight gritted her teeth. She’d been ready for a shouting match, an argument, not this stubborn, stolid refusal. Rainbow had been hanging around Applejack too much. “The diplomatic team has priority, and since Fluttershy’s in charge of that team it means that she outranks you.”

Another shrug. “I don’t care. Give Rarity the release authority then, she’s on the diplomatic team too.”

Twilight stared at her friend for a pair of silent heartbeats. “Rainbow, don’t you trust Fluttershy? I know you two have disagreed a lot, but you’re still friends… aren’t you?”

Rainbow started to reply heatedly, “I didn’t…!” But she paused, took a deep breath, and visibly forced herself to calm down. Definitely Applejack’s influence, Twilight thought. “I didn’t start this fight, Twilight.” Rainbow continued, in a calm voice. “I love Fluttershy as a friend, we’ve been friends most of our lives, but as a commander? No, not gonna happen. She doesn’t trust me anymore and she doesn’t like my Wardens. I get why, but that doesn’t change anything. If she has the authority to tell us when to act and when not to, she will never let us act, and that could get ponies killed.”

“And if I told you that you had to accept Fluttershy’s orders?”

Rainbow met Twilight’s eyes, a challenging look on her face. “Speaking hypothetically, I might just withdraw active Warden support for the Dauntless mission. You’d have no gunners, no security, and no lander pilots, plus no experienced pilots or ship crew, and you’d be up a jetstream without a feather if you got in a fight.”

Twilight’s gaze hardened. “And if I order you to do it?”

Rainbow’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, then her expression turned stricken. “Wait… you’re serious here? You’re not just getting my objections so you’d have reasons to change it?” Twilight stared silently at Rainbow Dash, not answering, and the pegasus’s stricken expression started to turn a little sick, her ears laying back flat. “Twilight… please, please don’t do this to me. You’re not in the Warden chain of command; we’re officially sworn to the Princesses, not to you, and you can’t order us to accept this. But… I mean, unofficially, you’re my friend, and I’d do anything for you. If Fluttershy’s holding our leash, ponies are going to die, b-but I don’t want to abandon the mission and leave my friends out in the cold! Please, don’t make me choose between my friends and my duty. Please.”

Twilight thought hard. She wondered who had told Rainbow about the possible command arrangement, and who had led the pegasus to believe that Twilight was on her side on the issue. This was a hard decision; Fluttershy hadn’t wanted the Wardens on the mission at all, and the only way Twilight had managed to mollify her was by promising that she would be able to keep the Warden ponies under control. Now Rainbow was saying that she would essentially fulfill Fluttershy’s original request anyway if Twilight went along with the compromise. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been upsetting both pegasi so badly, and if it hadn’t been so toxic to the mission, and Twilight knew darn well that they’d probably need the Wardens with whoever sent the Interloper hanging around out there somewhere. She rubbed her forehead with a forehoof, thinking, trying not to meet Rainbow’s pleading gaze. Finally, she sighed and looked up. “Rainbow, I need to call Fluttershy. I only got her to agree to support the Dauntless mission by promising her veto authority over Warden operations, and we need her, she’s the best diplomat in Equestria.”

Rainbow looked shocked and hurt by the statement. “R-really?” she said in a small voice. “You gave Fluttershy a choke-chain on my ponies without even talking to me about it?” Twilight had to steel herself against the hurt betrayal in the multicolored cyberpegasus’s voice. It was even harder knowing that she deserved it; she should have talked to Rainbow before making that promise. Wow, I really screwed up here, didn’t I? This was going to have to go on the list.

“I only talked to Fluttershy yesterday, Rainbow. I knew I’d be talking to you today, and I was planning to bring this up from the beginning. I didn’t realize you’d object so strongly.” Rainbow’s head drooped, her cockiness completely vanishing again, and Twilight hurried to reassure the other mare. “Listen, I’m going to call Fluttershy right now, with you listening. You said you’d accept Rarity’s authority?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, quietly, not looking up. It hurt Twilight’s heart to see her friend like this, but she wouldn’t be pushed into another hasty decision.

Twilight nodded even though she knew Rainbow wasn’t looking at her, and turned to her terminal. A thought-prompt and it winked to life, another and it established a connection with Fluttershy’s office. The screen displayed CONNECTING, PLEASE HOLD in blinking letters, then cleared to reveal Fluttershy’s large teal eyes looking into the screen.

“Oh, hello, Twilight,” Fluttershy’s quiet voice came from the terminal speakers. “Can I help you? Did you need another meeting?”

The years hadn’t changed Fluttershy in the same physical way they’d changed Rainbow Dash, but her personality had undergone a metamorphosis. She was still soft-spoken and kind, but the shyness had vanished. A quiet, hard confidence had finally grown inside the butter-yellow mare, a strength that had rarely expressed itself before. It was sometimes hard to reconcile the soft strength of the modern Fluttershy with the shrinking violet she’d been in her youth, but Twilight had always been glad for the change. That gentle strength was what had made her the best diplomat in Equestria, brokering the unification with the Zebra lands without ever raising her voice, and forging enduring ties with the buffalo tribes and griffon clans that still held strong to this day.

“No meeting, Fluttershy. I just need to modify some of the Dauntless mission parameters. Do you have a moment?”

“Oh… certainly, Twilight.” Fluttershy gave her a gentle smile. “One moment, please.” Fluttershy moved away from the terminal, and Twilight heard her soft voice speaking in one of the griffon dialects. A much harsher voice replied in the same language, then Twilight heard a door open and close. Fluttershy returned to her desk with a softly amused smile. “Oh, my. It may take a very expensive lunch to calm him down again. What did you need, Twilight?”

“This probably won’t make you happy, but I need to modify our agreement concerning command of the Wardens.” Twilight winced inside. She hated upsetting Fluttershy.

“W-we do? How? I thought we’d worked out an agreeable compromise; I don’t want command over them, I just want to be able to tell them when not to start killing everything in sight.” The yellow pegasus’s voice was quietly upset.

“Yes, well, Rainbow Dash doesn’t think that’s a very good idea…” Twilight began.

Fluttershy interrupted her. “Really? Rainbow Dash doesn’t think so?” The diplomat’s tone hardened just a trifle. “Is she there? Can I speak to her?”

“This isn’t Rainbow asking you, Fluttershy, it’s me.” Twilight’s own voice hardened now, too. “I’m not giving them free reign. Would you agree to Rarity having release authority?”

“I told you yesterday, Twilight, all I want is to keep Rainbow’s hotheadedness from sabotaging peaceful contact! I just don’t want them opening fire on another alien ship before I get a chance to speak to them…” Fluttershy temporized, and this time it was Twilight’s turn to interrupt.

“And I told you yesterday, Fluttershy, the Wardens didn’t start that fight. Rainbow’s having the ships’ recorders sent to me in just a little while; I’d be glad to share them with you to prove it.” In Twilight’s peripheral vision, Rainbow Dash’s head jerked up in surprise. Had she not expected Twilight to have defended her?

“So they say,” Fluttershy said, the faintest hint of doubt in her voice. “They said those basilisk pups were attacking them, too, and I know perfectly well that they weren't. Basilisks don't get aggressive until their egg tooth falls off.” The pegasus paused, thinking. “Well… Rarity’s going to be my second, isn’t she? Doesn’t that mean they’d be taking their release order from me anyway?”

“It… doesn’t quite work that way,” Twilight pointed out, “You wouldn’t be able to tell them anything directly; they’d have to have the go or hold orders directly from Rarity, on her own initiative if necessary.”

Fluttershy’s wings twitched in a shrug. “I… suppose that will do. I’d be happier not having Rainbow’s thugs along at all, but I know you think we might need them, and I suppose this arrangement will do. Oh, please make sure you tell Rarity that she’s going to have additional duties; she’s going to be very busy between this, being on the diplomatic team with me, and keeping the ship’s robots running. I hope it’s not too much for her.” Rainbow Dash visibly bristled at Fluttershy’s dismissive tone when referring to the Wardens, but the aggressive pegasus stayed quiet.

“Rarity loves being busy, but I’ll tell her as soon as I disconnect here.” Twilight said reassuringly.

“All right. Did you need anything else?” At Twilight’s headshake, Fluttershy smiled gently. “Thank you, then, and if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an offended griffon ambassador with a very large appetite who I need to treat to lunch. I’ll talk to you later.” Twilight nodded, and the screen flashed DISCONNECTED.

The unicorn turned to Rainbow. “Is that all right?”

Rainbow nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I can work with Rarity. She won’t be afraid to let us do our jobs if we need to.” The pegasus paused, relaxing a bit. “And Twilight… thanks. For standing up for my ponies.”

“Of course, Rainbow. I only told the truth.”

“Yeah, but sometimes ponies don’t like to listen to the truth.” Rainbow smiled, a wistful edge to the expression. “I… I miss my friends, sometimes, y’know? I miss how it used to be, back in Ponyville before we got all important and busy. It’ll be nice to have all of us on the same ship, even if we are still gonna be busy. You gonna call Rarity now?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, I need to let her know she’ll have additional responsibilities.”

“’Kay. I’ll get out of your hair, then; got more stuff to do to get ready for launch.” The cyberpegasus flashed a quick grin. “And tell her the AR-39’s are working out great. They’re way too flashy, but with those new mirage systems no one will see them anyway until they’ve already been fragged.”

“I’ll tell her,” Twilight promised. Rainbow hopped out of the chair and prowled out of the office, looking happier than she had when she’d come in. Twilight was pleased, and resolved to make more time to talk to the Warden during the voyage. They’d have plenty of time.

The unicorn commanded her terminal to call Rarity’s headquarters. She had a high-priority line, and her call went straight to Rarity’s assistant. “Rarity's Robotics, Rarity’s office,” answered a stallion even more ornamental than Twilight’s own secretary. “Ah, Director Sparkle. I assume you’re wanting to talk to Rarity?”

“I am indeed, Diamond. Is she busy?”

The red-coated earth pony stallion glanced back over his shoulder, then returned his gaze to the monitor with a smile. “She is a bit, but she’s about ready to take a break. If you can wait just a moment, she’ll be right with you.”

“Of course, I’ll hold.” She bowed her head in thanks, and Diamond Glitter smiled at her graciously. Good heavens, he’s a pretty one, she thought to herself, knowing she was echoing Rainbow Dash from earlier. Stop it, Twilight, his herd’s full and you know it. Still, she enjoyed chatting idly with the stallion for the minute or so that it took Rarity to tear herself away from whatever she was doing. He was intelligent, quick-witted, and quite funny; she could see why Rarity kept him around. Not that she’d trade Ordered Numbers for anything, and Numbers was even smarter than this gorgeous stallion, though he could be a bit dour at times.

Finally, Diamond Glitter looked up and away from the pickup, nodded, and looked back to Twilight. “Rarity’s ready for you now. Shall I transfer the call?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, please. And thank you Diamond, a pleasure as always.” Diamond inclined his head graciously, and the view flipped from him to another office. Rarity’s bright blue eyes were inquisitive, and Twilight could see the delicate threads of wire trailing from where they rested against her horn down the side of her face, to where Twilight knew a set of small, dexterous waldo arms would be folded against the elegant unicorn’s neck. She must have been in the middle of a project.

“Twilight! Darling! I wasn’t expecting your call! Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong. Well, maybe, it depends on how busy you think you’ll be on the Dauntless.” Oh, she should have talked to Rarity about this before making that promise to Rainbow and Fluttershy. She hoped with an edge of desperation that the other unicorn wouldn’t be upset.

Rarity raised an elegant eyebrow. “Hm. Well, I had been planning to work on a new fashion line in my spare time. I do miss my hobby! But I have a feeling you have something more important for me to do, darling, so out with it!”

“Well…” The Director of the BoT chewed her lip. “You see, there’s been something of an issue…”

“Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?” Rarity interrupted archly. At Twilight’s shocked nod, the white-coated unicorn made a noise in the back of her throat. “Hrm. Thought so. Honestly, I do wish those two would get over that silly feud of theirs. Pegasi. Even the quiet ones like to fight.” Rarity shook her head. “What did you need me to do?”

Twilight sighed. “Fluttershy wants the Wardens under the diplomatic team’s command, and Rainbow Dash doesn’t want Fluttershy having veto authority over her soldiers. The best compromise I could find was to give you command over the Wardens.”

Rarity’s eyes widened in surprise, and she spluttered for a moment. “Me? But… I’m not a Warden! I can’t command them, I don’t know the first thing about how they operate! I-I design clothes and build robots!”

“You don’t need to know how they operate, Rarity,” Twilight soothed. “You don’t really have direct command; that’s Rainbow Dash and Applejack’s job. All you’ll need to do is tell them when they can fight and when they can’t. It’s a veto and release authority, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Rarity relaxed. “Well… if that’s all, I suppose I could do that. Rainbow and Applejack know their jobs; I don’t think I’d be comfortable giving them orders, but telling them to go or stop? I think I can handle that.”

“Excellent!” Twilight beamed happily. “Wonderful! Thank you so much!”

“Oh, I’m delighted I could help you, dear!” Rarity glanced at something offscreen. “Honestly, though, I need to have a talk with Fluttershy. This nonsense between her and Rainbow just needs to stop.”

The lavender unicorn chuckled ruefully. “Well, if you can manage that you’ll be doing better than any of the rest of us have. I’ll talk to Rainbow, too, try to work on it from the other direction, for all the good that’ll do.” Rarity let out a silvery laugh of her own. “Oh, and before I forget,” Twilight added, “Rainbow wanted me to tell you the AR-39’s are working out great.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Rarity sighed happily. “You know, the Wardens are so difficult to work with sometimes. There’s no reason a robot can’t be camouflaged and pretty at the same time, but they always insisted on the drabbest, most boring possible appearance. No decoration, no flair. I have you to thank, darling, those mirage generators are just the things I needed to make those combat robots beautiful and still make them hard enough to see that Rainbow Dash and Applejack are happy with them.”

“Rainbow said they were too flashy, but that they’d work.” Twilight said with a slow grin.

Rarity rolled her eyes, clucking her tongue in irritation. “'Too flashy.' Honestly. A few gems and some gilding is hardly flashy. They’re positively mundane! And to think she used to be such a showmare.” The roboticist shook her head. “We should never have let Rainbow and Applejack become such close cohorts. They rub off on each other and make each other worse.”

Twilight snorted. “No kidding.”

“Was there anything else, darling?”

“Oh, since I’ve got you on the line… are there any problems? Is everything going according to schedule?” Twilight knew the question was unnecessary, but she asked anyway. It was the tension talking; trying to get everything ready for the Dauntless launch was wearing on her nerves, and it made the urge to micromanage harder to resist.

Rarity waved a forehoof in breezy assurance. “Oh, no problems at all, darling. The various models of maintenance robots have already been completed and delivered, and the last of the janitorial units will be finished by the end of tomorrow. Such cute little things. They’ll be aboard the next day. The combat drones and technogolems Applejack requested will be done by the end of the week; I’m actually ahead of schedule on those. We’ll be more than ready for the departure date, darling, and my assistants and I will be on board and waiting. Rarity's always delivers!” Rarity’s face scrunched up in an expression of glee. “Oooh, this is so exciting! I’m so looking forward to this trip!”

“Me too, Rarity. To be the first ponies to go to the stars…” Twilight had dreamed of this for years. She could barely believe it was already happening.

Neither unicorn had time for small talk, so they quickly said their farewells and disconnected. Despite all they’d done to get to this point, they still had a lot to do to get ready.

Departure

The time to the launch date seemed to Twilight to last forever. She felt like she was running just as fast as she could but still staying in one place. The time stretched, every day generating a dozen more tasks to be done, all of them urgent, and there just weren’t enough hours.

Finally, though, finally, it was time. Twilight had to fight the urge to dance with excitement as she walked up the rear boarding ramp of the big, rugged Kestrel-class shuttle, banners fluttering in the breeze all around, bearing the flag of the World Nation. Behind her, on a great podium surrounded by flying lenseyes, stood the Princesses, watching regally along with the Griffon Hetman and the current chief of the Zebra State Council. Spike, her ever-faithful assistant, now well into late adolescence and somewhat gawky with his newly-grown wings, stood next to the podium, watching anxiously as she boarded. The decision to leave him behind had been one of the hardest ones she’d ever made, but the Bureau of Technology needed someone at the helm who was intimately familiar with what Twilight had been doing, and Spike was the only one who fit that bill. He’d helped her since the Bureau’s founding, and had become a more and more integral part of it as he’d grown older.

Twilight sincerely wished her friends were walking alongside her into the shuttle. She’d argued for that very thing during the planning stages of this ceremony, insisting that that sense of togetherness was what Equestria was all about; that the mission was being undertaken by a group of friends, dedicated to going where nopony had ever been before and finding out where the attacking alien ship had come from. Pinkie and Fluttershy had finally convinced her otherwise. The other members of the World Nation didn’t operate on the same system that Equestria did, and they felt more comfortable knowing that a strong leader was in charge. Convincing them was important, Twilight’s friends argued, for the other nations were all still decades away from mounting an expedition like this, and one thing the World Nation didn’t need was tensions between its members. So no matter how much Twilight’s friends wanted to walk up that ramp alongside her, she would be doing it alone. As long as the griffons and zebras were persuaded that Equestria had the mission well in hoof, they wouldn’t be agitating for their own people to be included, something that would delay the voyage even further.

The media event and celebration Pinkie had organized for the formal launch of the Dauntless mission had gone flawlessly. The speeches by the Princesses and the visiting heads of state had been profound, inspiring, and Twilight had felt her heart swelling with the knowledge that her entire world was watching. She’d given her own speech, (which Pinkie had reviewed beforehoof and had helped her cut down dramatically) finishing up to thunderous applause of stomping hooves that echoed off of Canterlot Castle, hugged Spike, and started walking down the cleared space to the landing pad where the Kestrel waited, a silent, looming gray bulk that would carry her beyond the sky.

Twilight’s hoof rang on the metal boarding ramp, between the two Wardens who stood to proud attention on either side, looming huge in their fully-enclosed battle armor as they waited for her. It was probably nerves that made the two armored earth ponies look so enormous in their suits. Twilight felt a momentary chill, the Wardens’ presence reminding her of why they were coming along. Whoever had sent the ship that Rainbow’s ponies had driven off was still out there. Equestria had no idea who they were, where they were, or how strong they might be. Part of her mission was to find allies, but she had no idea whether there were any to find. She paused, turning, taking in the sight of the joyous crowd, the glorious splendor of Canterlot Castle festooned with flags and banners, the pride in Celestia and Luna’s faces. She felt a sudden pang, wishing that her parents, or the other friends she’d known when she was younger, could have lived to see this day. She hoped to see Canterlot again, to return in triumph, having learned so much about the universe that it would take her another eight decades to decode it all, but at the same time she knew that this mission could potentially end very badly indeed.

But that was for later, and today was exciting. Twilight quickly made her way to one of the padded takeoff seats, pushing herself against the backrest and swiftly fastening the restraints with quick telekinetic flicks. The two armored Wardens did likewise, securing themselves in the wall-clamps provided for battle-armored ponies with quick, efficient motions. Twilight could pick up faint magical traces flicking between them as they spoke between themselves, their suit systems evidently set for arcane rather than radio communications.

“Thank you both for volunteering,” Twilight said to the two Wardens, breaking the silence in the huge, mostly empty hold. “I know Rainbow and Applejack picked their detachment very carefully, and I want you both to know that I have complete faith in everyone on this mission.” She couldn’t restrain her happy grin.

There was a click from the suit on the right, and a calm female voice emerged from the intimidating metal suit. “Thank you, ma’am. We’re all honored to be along. Would you mind if I conveyed your regards to the rest of the detachment?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind at all!” Twilight said, “I’ll be making an announcement to that effect once we get on board, but if you want to send that along ahead, that would be wonderful!” The armored mare nodded, but further attempts at conversation were cut off by the pilot’s voice from the nose of the Kestrel.

“Ten seconds to takeoff. Everyone brace.” Twilight busied herself double-checking the safety restraints. As a dramatic gesture, Pinkie had suggested a hard takeoff, which Rainbow had enthusiastically endorsed. That meant those restraints were absolutely necessary.

Twilight felt her stomach lurch as the levitation systems kicked in just before the gravity generators. The shuttle lifted grandly from the pad, rotating to point its nose upward, and then the thrust units kicked in. The mild oscillations that made it through the gravity field shoved Twilight back against her seat and made the Wardens’ armor rattle against the powerful clamps that held them in place, while the shuttle rocketed upward, nose beginning to glow as the atmosphere attempted to slow its meteoric ascent.

The thrust eased back suddenly to a comfortable level. They’d only needed to impress the crowd, after all, leaving a trail of ionized air and a shocked audience in the wake of their sudden and dramatic departure. It was a good thing, Twilight reflected, that they’d found the Tethinar Imperium’s linear force generators so easy to duplicate; trying that stunt with a Library Core fusion engine’s white-hot exhaust cone would have killed thousands in the tightly-packed crowd.

The rest of the trip up to orbit was much more sedate, and Twilight took the opportunity to interface with the shuttle’s sensor systems. An illusory screen flicked to life in front of her as she cast the minor spell, the vehicle’s data feeds resolving into a display. She watched in a quiet awe that she never quite lost as the sky in front of her faded to a deep blue, and finally to black, the stars burning in brilliant pinpoints of light. She sat there quietly, drinking in the beauty of it. Luna had once told her that up on the moon, it always looked like this without air to get in the way, and that the gem-studded beauty of the night sky had given her solace during her long imprisonment inside the Nightmare entity. It was a cruel solace, the Night Princess had confided, for it was the desire, the compulsion to share this beauty with everypony that had led to her imprisonment in the first place. Up here, amidst those endless pinpoints of light, it was easy to see how it could have driven Luna to such extremes in an effort to share it.

One moving spark against the vastness of the starfield caught Twilight’s eye. A quick thought magnified that part of the view, and Twilight found herself looking at Equestria’s main orbital shipyard, rendered tiny by distance. She had the magnification just high enough that she could see the shape of the Dauntless nestled within the ragged shell of its construction scaffold. It might be far and away the largest, most powerful space vessel Equestria had ever constructed, but from this view it looked small, like a toy. The Warden construction cradles next to it were all occupied, by vessels much larger than the cutters that were currently the Wardens' entire navy; Applejack had recently been focusing a large portion of her budget (supplemented by the Crowns') on expanding the Wardens’ space presence, in order to better safeguard ponykind’s off-planet industry. Farther down the shipyard, a ways away from the Warden slips, Twilight could also just barely make out the shape of the first zebra space vessel; a mining ship, intended to prospect out in the Oort cloud. It made her chest surge with pride with the reminder that Equestria was sharing the gifts Duran and the Library Core had given them, giving their neighbors a leg up in reaching the same level. The technology-sharing program had been Fluttershy’s idea, but Twilight had thrown her own support behind it enthusiastically, and she was so delighted to see it panning out so well.

The Dauntless loomed huge in her illusionary window as the shuttle approached the shipyard. It soon filled the entire screen, even after she’d dropped the magnification back to zero. At almost three kilometers long (using the metric system Equestria had adopted from the Library Core) the exploration cruiser utterly dwarfed any of Equestria’s previous space vehicles. The Warden cutters that had driven off the intruder were only a hundred and thirty meters long, and the new class that Applejack had laid down just after the Interloper incident was only a hundred and sixty; midgets compared to the bulk of the Dauntless but also far quicker to build. They were a stopgap, intended to be built quickly to serve as an interim navy while the larger destroyer-class vessels were being constructed. As the shuttle approached the docking port on Dauntless’s starboard side, the ship became a single vast stretch of smoothly-curving metal, studded with antennae and the blisters of her point-defense emplacements. The Kestrel slid smoothly through the door and was gripped by the docking cradle, which moved it smoothly and easily into its storage cocoon along the wall of the docking bay. Twilight shook her head in mild bemusement as she unfastened her restraints. That they could launch a shuttle from the courtyard at Canterlot and fly it thousands of kilometers into the sky, meet up with the shipyard in geosynchronous orbit around the equator, and hit a target barely wider than the shuttle’s wing without so much as a bump never, ever failed to leave her slightly in awe of the accomplishments of the last few decades. And all the younger ponies just took it all for granted!

The two Wardens disengaged from their armor cradles, and she motioned for them to precede her. Now that they were aboard ship, among the crew that would be making the historic voyage together, there was no need for the extra ceremony. They stepped out with polite bows, undoubtedly heading off to get out of their armor. Twilight had heard from Applejack that Warden battle armor was fairly uncomfortable, especially the earth pony suits that these two were wearing. Unicorn armor was more responsive, since it incorporated magic-based control mechanisms, but the earth pony suits still used the feedback systems originally adapted from Library Core designs, since most earth ponies couldn’t interface with arcane controls. The pegasus suits were much rarer, since like the unicorn suits they also relied on arcane controls in order to reduce weight, and thus required all of their wearers to have interface implants. While pegasi and earth ponies with interface implants were far from rare in the Wardens (there were many, many Warden pegasi that strove to emulate Commander Rainbow Dash, despite the danger the implants posed) they were still definitely not a majority, and the pegasus battle suits were therefore given lower production priority. There were plenty of them on this trip though; Rainbow had made certain that every Warden trooper on this mission was battle armor certified, and since the heavy tanks hadn’t panned out there was plenty of spare mass for the detachment to be equipped with the powered armor suits.

Stepping off of the ramp, Twilight felt a warm virtual presence hovering next to her. She’d had her holodaemon transfer itself into the Dauntless’s data network just before heading out to the departure ceremony. Its presence was a welcome one; over the years, the expert program had molded itself until it was almost an extension of her own mind. The holodaemon pulsed a status update to her, the information racing into her brain and merging with her memories. That sensation was one that had long ago become a familiar one; Twilight could learn far more via the usage of the holodaemon than she ever could have on her own. She knew now, seconds after stepping onto the ship, that every system on board was running at optimal levels, though the engineer was a bit concerned about the Gate drive, that the navigator had received clearance for departure from the shipyard, that the Warden cutters Thunder, Lightning, and the newly commissioned Storm and Tempest were waiting to escort them outsystem, (a further update indicated that the other six Warden cutters were patrolling the outer system in pairs) and that the ship’s stores were full and the crew all onboard, all without a word being spoken. Modern technomancy; it was a wonderful thing.

Twilight’s friends were waiting for her on the bridge, and she didn’t want to keep them waiting. Twilight trotted briskly through the ship's corridors, nodding in greeting to crewponies as she passed. She made a point to notice the bands each one wore around his or her right foreleg, the color of the cloth band indicating the pony's role and specialty and the emblem indicating rank. It was a short trip to the inter-deck lift that took her “up” to the core deck, (the gravity fields pushed outward from the ship's core, making the core decks the subjective “top” of the vessel) and from there it was a brisk trot to the bridge. Dauntless’s control center was buried at the very heart of the ship, just forward of the main engineering spaces, which Twilight had considered delightful symbology when she was working on the plans for the great starship.

Twilight had to restrain herself from galloping down the bridge access corridor. Impatience was clawing at every nerve, and she was ready to go. Her friends were all waiting on the bridge, and greeted her warmly. Rainbow Dash, grinning and fidgeting with the same impatience Twilight felt, Pinkie Pie, bouncing in place with excitement, a lenseye hovering above her with the monocle that controlled it sitting on her right eye, as she’d promised to make a personal record of the trip. Fluttershy and Rarity, talking quietly off in a corner, though they both broke off their conversation when Twilight entered. Rarity was still wearing the servo-harness on her neck that she used for delicate work, though it had been tastefully inlaid with gold and silver, and with the arms laying against the collar it looked rather like a piece of elaborate jewelry instead of the tool it actually was, which fit Rarity’s personality perfectly. Applejack, lounging against the back of a control panel; the orange mare nodded amiably at the unicorn and then went back to what she’d been doing when Twilight had come in, which involved staring off into space and clearly thinking about something. She was wearing her customary brown hat, and Twilight wondered momentarily if it was the same one she’d worn in her youth. Surely not. That hat would have to be almost a hundred years old at this point! It does look awfully similar, though…

She brushed the irrelevant thought aside. The entire bridge crew and all of her friends were looking at her expectantly. She drew a deep breath, horn glowing as she pinged her holodaemon to retrieve her speech. It responded instantly, as it always did, and she felt it feeding the words to her.

Twilight couldn’t bring herself to focus on the speech she was giving. Yes, it was important, historical, all that, and yes, she’d spent hours with Pinkie and Rarity writing it and getting it just perfect, but her thoughts were three steps ahead, anticipating the moment when they would leave Equestria’s star system behind and strike out for new places.

This speech wasn’t a long one. “…and I know that you, all of you, new friends and old alike, will be giving your all. I promise to do the same! Now, my friends, let us reach out, and marvel at what we might find!” Twilight grinned brightly, an expression that was returned by all of her friends, as the sound of applause and cheers resounded through the hull of the Dauntless. “Captain Stars!” Twilight had to shout over the applause to catch the attention of Silver Stars, her second-in-command, “Take us out of the dock!”

“Aye-aye, Commander!” The ice-blue mare barked, her red eyes gleaming. “Helmsmare! Thrusters back!” The cheering gradually tapered off, the crew moving purposefully to their stations. Under the crisp directions of Silver Stars, the Dauntless eased her way carefully away from the shipyard that had birthed her, finally free and flying under her own power.

“We’re clear, ma’am!” Silver Stars announced crisply, to another round of cheers. “Quiet there!” she barked, and the cheers subsided, a more professional murmur taking their place as the crew took up their duties. “Shipyard sends their congratulations, Commander.”

Twilight beamed. “Well, it’s early yet. Get us on course for the system edge, and have everypony running the shakedown tests.”

“Yes ma’am!” Stars saluted and began barking orders at the bridge crew. Twilight turned to her friends. All of them were smiling widely, and for the moment there wasn't even any hint of tension between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

“Well, darling, it looks like we’re on our way.” Rarity observed, her eyes twinkling.

“Yep.” Applejack drawled. She glanced at the other Bearers of the Elements. “And I gotta say it’ll be nice to be with the rest of y’all again. Been too long.” The others nodded, making various sounds of assent. Even Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash agreed, though they traded a brief, uneasy look. Twilight hoped, deep down, that she’d somehow be able to heal the rift between the two pegasi during this voyage. The long-standing feud between the two had been a source of anxiety and sadness for the lavender unicorn for decades now.

Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted by a subtle vibration as the exploration cruiser’s drives engaged, accelerating the big ship smoothly. The gravity generators prevented any of the acceleration from reaching the crew, but the drives’ action still sent a gentle hum thrumming through the vast structure. Twilight glanced at the monitor, noting the position indicators for the four Warden cutters falling into escort positions around the Dauntless closeby, about eighty kilometers away. She caught Rainbow looking at the main display as well.

The cybernetic pegasus chuckled. “Hey, Commander, wanna see if those little things can keep up with us?”

Twilight traded a grin with her friend. “Well, we do need to test the engines…” She glanced over at Stars. “Captain, be ready for a full-power run.”

Silver Stars grinned. “Yes, ma’am!”

Twilight brought up an illusory screen in front of her, connecting to the engineering deck. A brown-coated unicorn mare with a red mane even messier than Rainbow Dash’s appeared on the other end. “Engineering, Monkeywrench here.” Twilight recognized the younger mare; she’d graduated with honors as the youngest graduate of the BoT Engineering Academy since its founding. No surprise at all to find her on the Dauntless; they’d gone looking for the best, and the engineer certainly fit that bill.

“Monkeywrench, how soon can we be ready for full power?”

“Right now.” The chief engineer responded promptly. “We’ve got the power cores at full capacity, and the engines are purring like griffon pups. You thinking of a stress test, Commander?”

Twilight nodded. “That and seeing if our escorts can keep up.”

Monkeywrench laughed. “They’re welcome to try!” She exclaimed proudly. “Dauntless’ll leave ‘em in the dust.”

Twilight turned to Captain Stars. “Well, Captain, let the escort know what we’re doing, and then take her up to full power. Right next to the shipyard seems like a good place to stress-test!”

“We’ll do you proud, Commander!” Monkeywrench’s voice came from Twilight’s virtual screen, just before the other mare disconnected.

Silver Stars nodded a salute, turning to her control board. “Ready when you are, Commander.”

Twilight tried to suppress the thrill she felt for a moment, then decided not to bother. A grin spread across her face, and she uttered the words that would start their voyage. “Make it so.” It felt curiously right to say.

Silver Stars grinned in return, her eyes assuming the glassy look of somepony in partial immersion. Twilight felt commands flicking through the ship’s datanet, and felt the Dauntless’s systems surging eagerly in response. A brief communication flicked outward, addressed to the Warden cutters escorting them, and Twilight’s command authority let her read the short message. She stifled a giggle at its contents, just two words.

Race you.

Good heavens, Rainbow Dash really has left an impression on her ponies, Twilight thought. Dauntless’s mighty engines pulled energy from her power core, turning it into linear acceleration at a prodigious rate. The gigantic cruiser leapt ahead of her escorts, proving Monkeywrench absolutely right as the Warden cutters struggled to keep pace only to fall further and further behind.

Twilight’s eyebrows lifted as the ship maintained the high-power drive without flinching. She’d known Dauntless was a more solid design than Equestria’s previous ships, but having it demonstrated like this was reassuring.

Finally, Silver Stars ordered her pilot to take the acceleration back down. Dauntless complied smoothly with her helmsmare’s directives, dropping to twenty percent acceleration to give her escorts a chance to catch up without blowing out their own engines. The captain turned to Twilight with a huge grin. “Satisfied, ma’am?”

“I am, indeed. She’s everything I designed her to be.” Twilight called up a graph of the ship’s performance and power consumption, and nodded in satisfaction. Dauntless had done a five-minute run at maximum power without a flicker.

Silver Stars was ginning in absolute delight, her crimson eyes sparkling. “Well, then, Commander, allow me to congratulate the Bureau of Technology, and thank you for providing me with such a beautiful ship to play with!”

Twilight laughed. “You’re quite welcome, Captain.” She turned to her friends. “Well, ladies, it looks like we’re on our way.”

Rarity nodded, speaking first. “Unfortunately, dear, I think that means we all have things to do. I, for one, need to get down to Engineering.”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash traded regretful looks. “Yeah, I oughta make the rounds, check on the rest of the Wardens,” Rainbow said.

“Yep, and I need to check in with the quartermaster again, see about maintenance schedules an' such.” Applejack sighed, adjusting her hat. “Been good seeing y’all again, catch up at the end of the first shift?” Everypony nodded agreement, though Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy traded another uneasy look. Before Twilight could speak up, the two Wardens and Rarity had already trotted off the bridge.

Twilight watched them go, sadly, though her hopes were high that they’d be able to catch up again at dinner. Fluttershy stepped toward the door once it closed, pausing to turn toward Twilight and Pinkie. “Oh, I’m sorry, I need to go talk to my ponies, too. I’ve got my linguists, and my diplomats, and my psychologists… oh, I’m just positive that if we meet up with aliens again there won’t be a fight. I’m so excited, and happy, and this time we’ll get a chance to talk!” The yellow-coated pegasus beamed with a tiny little squeaking sound before trotting out the door, a bounce in her step.

That left Pinkie, who was adjusting her camera and recording equipment via an illusory display projected by the camera itself. She closed it down and bounced in place. “Oo! Oo! There’s so many stories on this ship! Right now it’s all the ponies and their lives and their hopes, and the ship going off into space and that’s so exciting, but later it’ll be even better! Aliens and planets and exploring, oh wow!” She paused in her bouncing, looking excitedly around the bridge and its displays before turning back to Twilight. “Twilight, I’m so, so sorry to just leave you here, but there’s a million-zillion stories already! I really really really need to get as many as I can before the great big huge stories start piling up! Would you ever, ever forgive me for starting right now?”

The unicorn chuckled. “It’s okay, Pinkie. Everypony… everyone back home is going to want to know all about what we do. I’m not upset if you want to get started right away.” She flashed her hyperactive friend a smile. “Just remember, stay out of the main duty areas; stick to the rec rooms and mess halls as much as you can, okay? And don’t forget to meet up with the rest of us for dinner!”

“Okey-dokey-loki, I’ll be talking to ponies! I’ll stay out from underhoof as much as I can, but I’m just super curious about how things on the ship work, and I’m sure everyone back home will be too!” She rubbed her chin with a forehoof, thinking. “Hey, if I could convince somepony who’s off-shift to tell me what’s going on in the duty areas, would that be okay, as long as we stayed out of the way?”

Twilight pondered for a moment before she nodded. That did sound like a good idea. “That sounds fine, Pinkie. Just remember to get out of the way if the alert siren sounds.”

“Oh, you are the bestest best friend ever, Twilight! I’ve got so much to do… see ya at dinner!” The pink pony bounced happily out of the bridge. Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle again; of all of them, the years had marked Pinkie the least. She was only a tiny bit more sober than she’d been back when Twilight had met her in Ponyville, and even the fact that she, like the other Bearers, was now over a hundred years old hadn’t reduced the bounce in her step one bit.

Reaching the system edge took several hours, during which Twilight ran dozens of system stress tests and diagnostics. The shipyard had done a fantastic job of turning the BoT’s plans and blueprints into a working starship, forging the parts and pieces into a unified whole that meshed everything together. As well as admiring the ship itself, Twilight was deeply impressed by the expertise of the crew that would be serving under her; all of them knew their jobs and were expert in their roles. From the ship’s captain, Silver Stars, down to the most junior tech in the engineering department, they virtually oozed calm competence and professionalism. If Rainbow and Applejack’s Wardens and Fluttershy’s diplomats were up to this level (and Twilight was certain they were) then this mission should be a cinch.

The unicorn pulled herself out of full immersion, rubbing her eyes wearily. For whatever reason, she’d always been able to handle the direct arcane interface better than anyone else she’d ever tested; the marathon of tests she’d just run would have outright killed many unicorns, but she didn’t even have a headache, only a bit of fatigue. She blinked, having to readjust to taking in information solely through her eyes and ears; it was always a little disorienting to go from having dozens and dozens of input channels that reacted at the speed of thought down to having only a few that sometimes seemed frustratingly sluggish.

“You okay, Commander?” Silver Stars’ rough voice sounded concerned. She probably hadn’t been briefed on Twilight’s abilities; the head of the BoT reflected that she’d probably be concerned if she’d just watched somepony do what she’d done.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you, Captain.” Twilight rubbed her eyes again. “My immersion tolerance is extremely high. I’m sorry, I thought you were aware.”

“I’d been told that, yes, ma’am. But my immersion tolerance is high, and my brain would have been running out my ears an hour ago if I tried to stay under that long. Yours is closer to mythical, if you don’t mind me saying.” Silver Stars’ voice was frank, and Twilight could see the other bridge crew looking at her in awe. The blue-coated mare wasn’t speaking metaphorically, either: the Bureau of Technology had discovered that really excessive levels of immersion strain could cause neurophysical disruption. Thinking about that horrible accident, even forty years later, made Twilight a little sad.

Twilight waved a hoof modestly. “It’s nothing special. It’s not even me, really, the tests I’ve run suggests it has something to do with the Elements of Harmony. Rarity’s tolerance is almost as high as mine, and so is Rainbow Dash’s, especially after the latest update of the interface implants. We have no idea what causes it.”

“Still sounds remarkable to me, Commander.” Silver Stars glanced aside at her displays. “Actually, ma’am, you may want to go back in if you can. We’re coming up on the system edge.”

“We are?” Twilight blinked. Somehow, even with the perfect awareness of time that interfacing with the datanet provided, she’d somehow managed to overlook that fact. Ordered Numbers would be rolling on the floor laughing. Well, he'd crack a smile, possibly even grin, which for him equated to being breathless with laughter. She pulled up an information screen, projecting the feed in front of her eyes. The arcane interference generated by the sun was indeed almost down to the minimum levels to allow the Gate drive to function and let the Dauntless jump to its next destination. They’d be able to make Equestria’s first major leap outward in the next few minutes. “Oh, my, I’m not certain how I missed that! Oh, this is so exciting!” Twilight could feel the thrill running up and down her body, making her have to fight to keep from dancing in place.

A chuckle ran through the bridge crew, and Silver Stars spoke for all of them. “Yes, ma’am, it is. But we’re ready for it.”

The next few minutes were spent in a rush of final systems checks. The Gate drive had been tested extensively, first as small prototypes that weren’t supposed to come back to make sure the entry phase was working, then with automated probes that only jumped a very short distance. The sun’s interference induced difficulty, but short hops by small objects were possible, and the probes had all been recovered by the early-model space ships, flying slowly out to where the test units were supposed to be. The final stage had been jumping a small, crewed ship to the edge of the system and back, an exhilarating test that had gone off flawlessly. Still, the Dauntless was the largest thing Equestria had ever sent through the portals created by the Gate drive, outmassing the crewed test capsule by five orders of magnitude. Twilight didn’t think there would be any problems; they’d made huge strides in understanding the prototype drive that had been the last project Duran completed, but she made sure the crew double- and triplechecked every system pertaining to it.

Finally, though, they were ready. “All right, everypony. Everything checks out green, so I think it’s about time we were on our way, don’t you?”

Another wave of chuckles ran through the bridge. “Yes, Ma’am!” It was the ship’s pilot that spoke, a black-coated pegasus mare with a short, bright white mane. Twilight could see the silver of her interface implant glittering at the back of her skull. “More than time!”

Twilight grinned. “Well, then. We all know what we need to do. Alert stations!”

The lavender unicorn felt that thrill run through her again as the siren sounded three times, and her horn glowed with the light of the interface spell. She dropped into immersion along with everypony else on the bridge.

Twilight hadn’t felt excitement like this pulsing through a datanet since the very first trials of the network system. It was often possible to feel an echo of other users’ emotions in full immersion, but it was generally just a nagging feeling at the back of one’s mind. In this case, nearly everypony linked to the network was feeling some of the same emotion, and Twilight could detect it sparkling in the network, strong enough that the automatic safeguards were kicking in to mute it, preventing a runaway feedback reaction. That excitement was well-deserved, at least in Twilight's opinion.

She’d already run all the tests she needed to, so she was able to “watch” as the other crewmembers carried out their tasks. The captain sent out the orders for jump, the comm officer forwarding the information to the escorting cutters and sending both that and a more to-the-point message to the homeworld.

We are proceeding. Expect us when you see us. Short and to the point. Silver Stars was something of a pragmatist.

The reply from the cutters was equally brief. We will wait for your return, friends. Good luck, and may you bring back much to teach us all.

Twilight felt tears prickle in her eyes. She could hear her mentor’s influence in the message.

The navigator pulled up the coordinates for their destination from the painstakingly-assembled stellar database; this would be a relatively short hop to the nearest star, a small, rather cool star about five and a half light-years away. The navigator then sent the information to both the pilot and the chief engineer, and the latter prepared the Gate drive and the power core for the jump.

The pilot absorbed the information sent to her by the navigator in an instant, and started spinning together the calculations to make the Gate drive function. Twilight was astonished to realize that the pegasus in the pilot’s seat had to have been fully educated in several extremely complex arcane theories, since Gate travel involved something closer to spellcasting than the normal movement of a ship through space. The pilot, whose identity tag in thoughtspace labeled “Night Breeze,” wove together the equations and models with a deft, delicate touch that most unicorns couldn’t have managed, her thoughts utterly focused on the awesomely complex systems of the Gate drive. Standard protocol actually called for two pilots to manage the two separate drives, but this remarkable mare could clearly handle both. Goodness, she was Warden-trained, too! Well, the Dauntless project had been looking for the best ponies in the world…

Twilight shepherded her thoughts away from the detour, but she still couldn’t help but marvel at the pilot’s skill.

The Gate drive responded.

A phenomenal construction, leaps and bounds beyond the relatively crude arcane focus that Twilight had used to anchor the spell that had sent her and Rainbow careening through reality to the world they came to know as Hell’s Reach, the drive channeled incredible arcane power with the utmost control. The intricate construction of the drive, made of crystals, gems, wires, and strands of solidified energy, filled a significant amount of the huge exploration cruiser and with sufficiently accurate charts, the drive could move the massive vessel to a position with a margin of error of less than her own length. Ponykind didn’t have those charts yet, not outside of the home system, but they’d spent decades peering at the nearby stars through telescopes, exploring long-distance, and Equestrian stellar cartographers had built an accurate map of the local neighborhood. At least, accurate enough for the Dauntless to jump to any of them, from any of the others.

Twilight felt a chill shudder through her, a reaction to the invisible energy racing through the structure of the exploration cruiser. Every unicorn on board felt it at the same time, as did every pegasus and earth pony who bore an interface implant. The cold feeling built, and Twilight shuddered, even though she knew it was an illusion, her body telling her that the energy was leaking from her as a reaction to the massive oversaturation of magic all around her. She could feel the bridge crew shivering as well through the thoughtspace of the bridge net, even Night Breeze and the assistant gunner, Wingblade, for whom the sensation of cold would be odd and alien. Pegasi were ordinarily largely immune to chill, but this was no mere physical feeling.

Twilight had to strangle a flash of memory. Every time she’d experimented with Gate spells or spell-engines that replicated them, even when the spell in question didn’t produce the classic disc-gate, she saw the fractured results of her first attempt. That disc of lightning-shot nothing had imprinted itself indelibly on her mind’s eye, so vivid and clear that she suspected she’d never be rid of it. Eighty-nine years (or to be more precise, eighty-nine years, three months, and eight days since the day she opened that first portal, as the datanet helpfully told her) had done nothing to dim the image.
The power raging soundlessly through the Dauntless bent reality around the vast ship, making here into there for a brief, unsustainable instant.

The power drained away, the drive falling quiet again, and suddenly they were somewhere else.

Exploration

Being mentally connected to a datanet while the ship around her went through a Gate transition was possibly the most disorienting thing Twilight Sparkle had ever experienced in her long life.

The sensor readings turned into absolute gibberish for a frozen instant, flooding her mind with noise, light, pressure, and a thousand other conflicting sensations. She felt as though she were simultaneously being compressed into a point and expanding to encompass the stars themselves, simultaneously frozen and burning, feeling like she were both moving at breathtaking speed and standing completely still. Nausea, pain, pleasure, terror, all flooded her mind in painful spikes. Twilight kept an iron hold on herself, fighting to screen out the meaningless noise flooding into her from the network and her confused holodaemon. After that instant, an infinitesimally small stretch of time that seemed to last an unspeakable eternity, the sensor feeds cleared, resolving once again into a starfield with its attendant phenomena: radio waves, heat points, and the occasional cosmic ray, screech of gamma radiation, or flicker of arcane energy.

Twilight fought to keep her equilibrium, feeling several of the bridge crew drop out of the datanet, unable to cope with the wrenching, dizzying moment of the transition. Only one of them signaled their disconnection before severing contact, and she hoped they were okay; that transition had been a lot nastier than she'd expected. The test ship's crew hadn't been hit nearly that hard, reporting only mild dizziness and one case of nausea. Dauntless's more sophisticated sensors were probably the culprit, or possibly the vastly greater distance she'd covered. Possibly a combination of the two. While the sensors reached out, working to resolve their position, Twilight made a note in her personal file: Dial down sensor sensitivity before next jump, to avert possible side effects.

Fortunately, both the sensor operator and the navigator had endured the jump well, and they set to work. They plotted beacon stars, checked the local pulsars, and searched around for the nearest star. Their results showed that the Dauntless had jumped exactly where she was supposed to; five and a half light years from the home system, at the outskirts of another stellar system. A gas giant was nearby, passing slowly in its great, centuries-long orbit of its mother star, haloed by a collection of small, rocky moons. The telescopes had mapped this system with a fair degree of accuracy, and part of their mission here was to double-check those charts and readings.

Twilight assimilated these facts swiftly. They were exactly where they should be, the ship was undamaged and still functioning smoothly apart from the impact on the crew, and there was no immediate threat in view.

:Disengage from immersion, stand down alert status: she sent out, feeling the acknowledgment of everypony else connected to the datanet, and terminated her own connection.

The first thing that Twilight noticed as she roused from her communion with the arcanotechnological interface was the stink of bile pervading the bridge. Somepony had been vomiting, almost certainly one of those who'd been forced to disconnect by the jump shock. She looked around quickly, trying to find the source and see if her help was needed.

Behind her, the senior weapons officer was curled into a ball, shivering. The orange-coated unicorn had her eyes squeezed tightly shut and she was making a low, quiet whining sound in the back of her throat. The assistant gunner was bent over her, talking quietly, stroking the older mare's mane with her forehoof while a disc-shaped janitorial drone worked to clean up the pool of vomit next to her. The damp slurping sound of the janitor drone’s vacuum did absolutely nothing to help Twilight settle her own stomach.

“There, Amber, it's okay,” the pegasus ensign whispered, “Medical's on their way. Just hold on, it'll be all right. You're tough, Amber, just hold on.”

The comms officer was sitting with his head leaning against his panel, breathing heavily but otherwise alright, and the bridge engineer was sitting with her eyes closed, muttering a series of numbers under her breath that Twilight recognized as a Fibonacci sequence.

The assistant gunner looked up as Twilight approached. Her dark blue eyes were a striking contrast to her light grey coat. Her red foreleg band told the unicorn her position, and her rank of Ensign. “Whatever happened when we jumped hit her hard, Ma'am. I was linked to her in the datanet when she dropped; I thought she was dead for a second. Her mind, it just… It broke... I'm sorry I dropped out, but...” The pegasus looked down anxiously at her immediate superior. The older mare hadn't varied the volume or pace of her quiet, animalistic whine, and had showed no response to the gentle touch of the forehoof on her neck. The assistant gunner looked back up, meeting Twilight's eyes anxiously. “I signaled Medical the second I saw her like that, they said they're sending somepony up right away.”

“That was the right thing to do,” Twilight told the young mare. She eyed the pegasus closely. “Are you alright, ensign...?”

“Wingblade, Ma'am. And yes, Ma'am, I'm fine. Like I said, I apologize for dropping out, but Amber needed help bad.”

“Don't apologize, Ensign. The Commander already told you that you did the right thing.” Silver Stars said, stepping up next to Twilight. “The other two are okay, Commander, just some strain. We've got a couple more casualties down in Engineering, including one who looks like he was hit as bad as Amber Mist here. Medical's already scrambling, and we should have a medic here in less than a minute. They were already halfway here; Wingblade was fast.”

“Good work, Wingblade,” Twilight said quietly. “Are you certain you're not hurt?” Being directly linked to somepony who had suffered neural shock could be lethal in and of itself, and this looked like one of the worst cases of neural shock Twilight had ever seen that hadn’t killed its sufferer outright.

Wingblade shook her head once, short, dark grey mane waving in the still air. “No, Commander, I'm not hurt at all. That jump shock and what happened to Amber made my eyes cross for a second, but I'm fine now.”

Twilight tried to contain her surprise. Either the newest generation of interface implants was able to absorb a really preposterous amount of feedback without passing it along to the wearer, or this mare had an amazingly tough mind. She opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted when the bridge doors whisked open, admitting an earth pony and a unicorn in medical uniform. Wingblade bent down, whispering in Amber Mist's ear. “It's okay now, Amber. Help's here. Hold it together, you'll be okay.” The stricken unicorn's ear didn't even twitch.

The medics hustled up to the gunnery station, politely shouldering Twilight Sparkle and Silver Stars aside. The earth pony set a wire headpiece onto the stricken gunner's brow, adjusting it with a device he wore on his foreleg. The unicorn attached another device to Amber's chest, moving her foreleg out of the way to make room. Amber didn't flinch, didn't respond, didn't anything, just continued to emit a quiet whine.

The earth pony medic bit his lip, studying a projected screen from the headpiece intently. “We need to get her back to Medical, right now,” he said in a quiet, urgent voice. “Blue Rose, I need you to be a stretcher.”

“Got it,” the unicorn mare responded calmly. Her horn glowed, and a gentle force lifted Amber off of the ground. “Lead the way.”

The other medic nodded, then turned and hustled off the bridge, the unicorn following with the stricken gunner suspended in the air between them.

Twilight sighed. Another thing for the list; she should have done more studies about the effects of Gate drive travel on ponies linked to a data net. She hoped poor Amber Mist would recover. The Commander's horn glowed violet as she linked into the network once more for a status report, projecting the information onto a virtual screen that hovered in front of her eyes.

The sensor operator had continued to refine her information, scanning the system carefully. She'd found two small rocky planets close to the star that the Equestrian telescopes had missed. Neither looked like it could support life, which was unsurprising. This star was very small, very cool, and very old. Its planets were mostly ancient, frozen things, and if anything had ever lived here it had died long ago. Still, this was the first star system other than their own that ponykind had ever had a chance to explore, and Twilight meant to make the most of it. They were scheduled to spend at least a full day here looking around, even if the system proved to be as dull and uninteresting as it had looked from back home. Which, at the moment, it looked to be.

Twilight checked the crew status. Eight others besides Amber Mist had been stricken by the jump shock. Six unicorns, one pegasus, and one earth pony, which suggested that the implants didn't offer any particular protection against the phenomenon. The mission commander shook her head. Yes, this mistake was definitely going on the list.

Twilight left the bridge in the capable hooves of Silver Stars, deciding to make a tour of her new ship and get to know it better. It would, after all, be home for the duration of this mission. She went to Medical first; the ponies who’d been injured by her negligence at least deserved her attention.

Three of them were already conscious by the time she arrived, sitting up and blinking owlishly. The other six were still unconscious. The two worst cases, of whom Amber Mist was one, were still making that horrible low keening sound that made Twilight shiver.

The chief medical officer, Doctor Rosethorn, was examining a bank of neural monitors when Twilight entered the facility. The mission commander chose to wait rather than interrupting the doctor's work, standing quietly behind the green-coated earth pony and waiting to be noticed.

Rosethorn finally glanced around, possibly sensing Twilight's presence. “Ah, Commander,” she said, her voice naturally warm and currently a bit distracted, “I'm afraid I'm a bit busy at the moment, but is there something I can help you with?”

“I just wanted to check on the ponies that got hurt in the jump,” Twilight answered quietly. She glanced at the readouts in front of Doctor Rosethorn, but her specialty was magic and arcane science, not biology and medicine, and she didn't have the expertise to decipher the information. “How are they, Doctor?”

“Some of them will be fine,” Rosethorn answered, tossing her head at the three ponies who'd regained consciousness. “Others... may have more lasting damage. The two worst cases in particular I suspect will never fully recover; if they ever wake up, they're likely to have permanent neural damage. One of the hospitals back home might be able to help them, but they've got specialists and equipment that I just don't have here.”

Twilight felt a pang. “Are you telling me we need to take them back to the homeworld?”

Rosethorn bit her lip anxiously. “I’m saying they need help I can’t give them, Commander.”

“Do they need that help immediately? This expedition is supposed to last for several weeks before we head back.”

The doctor paused, thinking. “I… I’m not sure. My instincts are telling me to get them home ASAP, but I don’t think time will make them worse.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, Commander, I know I’m not helping make things clearer. If you want advice, I’d say no, their condition probably won’t deteriorate, but I would like to get them home as quickly as we can.”

“All right. Keep me updated, please; I’ll make a decision when it’s time to jump back out of this system.” Twilight made a note to herself to check back in with Rosethorn before jump. “I also need to know what caused this. None of our studies suggested a Gate jump having an effect like this!”

“We’ve been concentrating on stabilizing and assessing, so I don’t have a good idea as to the cause.” Rosethorn glanced at the banks of monitors in front of her. “Now that the afflicted ponies are out of danger, we’ll run some tests and see if we can figure that out.”

Twilight’s smile was strained, but genuine. “Thank you, Doctor. I really do need to know; I don’t want the crew to be injured or impaired next time we jump.”

“We’ll get right on it,” Rosethorn assured her. Twilight made a quick round of the medical ward, talking to those ponies who were capable of speech and checking on those who were still unconscious, and then removed herself from the medical bay to let the doctors do their jobs unimpeded.

Twilight made a tour of the rest of the ship, trying to familiarize herself with her home for the next few weeks, as well as the ponies whose lives she was responsible for. She knew she wouldn’t be able to see the whole ship, not today, nor meet the entire crew; Dauntless was as large as a small city, and had more than five thousand crew on board. (5,068, to be specific, plus the seventy-two ponies Fluttershy had brought along) It wasn’t many, considering the huge size of the ship, so everypony was quite busy, and Twilight didn’t want to interrupt their jobs. She also tried to drop in on her friends as she passed their areas; Fluttershy was holding an intense-looking conference with her team when Twilight passed, so she decided not to interrupt the kindhearted mare, and Rarity was neck-deep in the guts of some large robot that Twilight hadn’t seen before, so she passed by there as well. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were nowhere to be found, likely doing the same thing Twilight was doing and making a tour of the ship.

Applejack, fortunately, was neither deeply absorbed in what she was doing nor hard to find. Twilight found her in one of the Wardens’ equipment storage rooms, supervising several quartermaster's assistants who were putting away some pieces of gear that had been delivered at the last minute.

“Well, howdy, Twilight!” The orange earth pony exclaimed, “Nice of you to drop by!” She sounded like Twilight had just stopped by Sweet Apple Acres for a visit, rather than coming to check up on the Wardens’ preparations. It was weirdly prosaic, especially in the vast, echoing cargo space, surrounded by cranes and glowing forcebeams moving huge pallets of supplies and anonymous chunks of machinery into place in an intricate dance, and Twilight felt a strange pang of nostalgia. “Keep back a second, we’re bringin' Number Twelve through, and she takes up a lot of space!”

Twilight stood to the side as one series of heavy, ringing impacts grew closer, and an enormous metal figure loomed in the doorway next to her. It was quadrupedal, its low-slung boxy body carried by four long, insectile legs, and each foot was nearly as large as Twilight herself. It carried a pair of huge cannons on its upper pair of arms, and the lower pair was adorned with bladed talons that hung down below its torso, almost touching the ground as the giant moved. The whole thing stood nearly five meters tall. Its controller followed just behind it, an earth pony stallion with an interface implant, his face set in a mask of concentration as he carefully helped the monster to guide itself through the tight space.

The Commander's eyebrows climbed. A technogolem! Goodness, they’ve changed.

“Right, stop there for a second, Russet!” Applejack’s shout carried easily over the ringing noise. The looming technogolem halted in place, carefully keeping the talons of its feet retracted so as not to damage the deck. “Heh, you look surprised, Twi. Guess you ain’t seen one a’ the Mark Tens before?” The orange mare walked over to where Twilight stood, relieving the Commander of the need to shout to be heard.

“No, I don’t go by Rarity’s headquarters very often. The last one of these I saw was a Mark Two.” Twilight looked up at the looming figure of the technogolem, now standing perfectly still. “Goodness, I knew Rarity had been building them bigger, but I hadn’t realized quite how… imposing they had gotten. It looks like she’s eliminated the wooden components, as well.” The last technogolem Twilight had seen had had large parts of its body made out of wood or fiber, and had had control cables and motive components dangling from several places. This one, besides being more than twice the size, was all metal as far as she could see, covered by smoothly curving armored plates with almost no gaps. Even the legs looked considerably sturdier. Rarity must hate making these, Twilight thought, studying the smooth, nonreflective metal that covered the golem, which completely and conspicuously lacked any of the ornamentation Rarity loved to build into her domestic robots.

Applejack nodded. “Yep. She’s gotten all the breakable bits behind the armor, too. Don’t rightly know all the specifics, but I guess making the frame all-metal means she could get ‘em bigger, and put some bigger guns on ‘em.” She looked the looming figure over, green eyes shining in pride. “Couple a’ these things, and half of the critters we run in to will just take off runnin’. Even the big ones’ve mostly learned not to mess with these; ‘bout the only thing that can hurt ‘em is a great big hydra, a dragon, or a crystal colossus.” The Warden commander paused. “Well, that or a gemfly swarm; nearly lost one last year when a bunch of bugs got in under the armor and started eating its brain. Had to shut off the poor thing’s shields and hit it with flamethrowers, and Rarity had to just about rebuild ‘er when we got ‘er home. They’re expensive, though, we’ve only got twelve of ‘em, and they’re all coming along on this trip.” Applejack’s expression turned a little sour. “Since the Falcons up and quit on us, we needed something with heavy guns, and the Mark Tens are pretty much all we’ve got that’ll fit what we need. Ordered two more of ‘em from Rarity as it was, and Twelve here had some problems with her crystal matrix or some-such.” Applejack walked up to the silent technogolem and gave it a solid thump with her hoof. The machine didn’t budge at all. “Barely made it onboard before cutoff. We just finished running checks on ‘er, and now we’re putting her with her sisters. Heh, if you ain’t seen one of these before, you oughta see her in combat stance.” She turned to address the stallion standing next to the looming technogolem and raised her voice more than was probably warranted. “Russet! Put Twelve in combat stance!”

“Yes, Ma’am, Com… lieutenant!” The golem’s earth pony handler barely kept himself from addressing Applejack as ‘Commander.’ He frowned in momentary concentration. The technogolem shifted stance immediately with a sudden, fluid grace, adjusting its footing with a quick boom boom boom of heavy, metallic impacts, and the cannon-arms lifted and pointed aggressively while the talon-arms spread out, ready to grab and rend. A sharp stink of ozone reached Twilight’s nose, almost making her sneeze, and the blue-white lightning of a disruption field wreathed the monster’s metal claws. There was a subtle tension to the technogolem’s pose, making the thing feel almost alive. Twilight felt a sudden spike of adrenaline, which was amplified by Applejack’s reaction.

“Woah, woah woah!” Applejack yelled. “Shut those power claws down, Russet! Shut ‘em down!”

“Yes, lieutenant!” The earth pony stallion frowned again, and the diffuse lightning abruptly faded away. “Sorry, ma’am! Twelve shouldn’t have done that, I only told it to shift position.” The stallion’s voice was abashed, and Twilight could see a hint of a flush under his light brown coat.

Applejack snorted. “Better take ‘er back to the test bay, then. Move it, trooper!” The Warden nodded wordlessly, focusing his attention on the technogolem, which shifted back to a more docile pose. Its fluid grace seemed to have vanished, and it turned a bit clumsily to make its way back through the door it had entered by. The golem’s Warden controller followed it closely, watching its feet and legs with an intent expression on his face as he made sure it cleared the door without hitting anything.

Applejack shook her head as she turned back to Twilight, and the unicorn belatedly noticed that her friend had donned a foreleg band in the time since she’d left the bridge. It was bright gold, the color of the command branch, and adorned with the symbol indicating a senior lieutenant. Rainbow Dash had told Twilight that both Warden commanders would both be temporarily stepping down from their ranks during this mission, but it hadn’t really, completely registered with Twilight at the time. The Wardens all knew both Applejack and Rainbow Dash on sight, of course, but it was still a significant gesture from the two Warden leaders to let Twilight be the only pony aboard with the rank of Commander. Some of their own ponies outranked them at the moment, including both Silver Stars and Night Breeze.

“Tarnation,” Applejack said, adjusting her hat. “Sorry ‘bout that. Russet probably just got excited and Twelve picked up on it. He’s usually a lot more level-headed than that or he wouldn’t be a golem controller.” The orange-coated mare blinked, evidently remembering something. “Aw, shucks. That was my fault, Twi, I’m sorry. You’re one a’ Russet’s personal heroes, of course he got excited. I never should’ve had him put Twelve in a combat stance.” That made sense. The technogolems weren’t intelligent, but they did respond to their handlers’ emotions. It took a particular kind of mind to handle a golem; their artificial intelligence needed a very specific kind of partial guidance. A handler couldn’t give it too much direction, because that could confuse it, but too little guidance and a technogolem could become extremely dangerous and unpredictable. They also needed to have solid control over their emotions; feeding a technogolem the wrong emotion at the wrong time could be disastrous, as they’d nearly seen. It was flattering to Twilight to know that somepony with the kind of calm, even temper that was needed in a golem handler looked up to her that much. Applejack shook her head, clearly a bit disgusted with herself. “Well, I’ll let ‘im run those tests anyway. It’ll be good for him.” She looked back up again, grinning at her commander and friend. “Anyway, what can I do for ya?”

Twilight smiled, telling the orange mare with her expression that there was no harm done. “Nothing really, I’m just going around, getting used to the ship. It’s so big!”

Applejack laughed. “Yep, sure is! Whooee, it was a job rounding up all the supplies we were gonna need, let me tell you!”

“I imagine!” Twilight sobered. “Oh, there’s something else I should probably let you know about. We had a few very serious casualties during the Gate jump, including one of the Warden ponies on the bridge. Amber Mist.”

The grin fell away from Applejack’s face. “Yeah, heard about that. Doctors in the medbay called and told me, I think they told Rainbow, too. Cryin’ shame, she was a darn good officer, a darn good Warden, and a darn good pony. Had a little herd back home, no foals, though.”

Twilight sighed, wincing. “Well, that’s good, I suppose. Maybe. Uh… you know she’s not dead, right?”

“Yeah, but it don’t look good, ‘least that’s what Doc Rosethorn sounded like. Trust me, I've heard doctors tryin' not to tell me how bad a shape one of my Wardens was in.” Applejack mirrored her friend’s sigh. “It happens. Not the first good Warden whose brain’s gotten fried. Dangerous job, but somepony’s gotta do it. Rainbow Dash was right about that, way back in the day.” The orange mare looked off into space, green eyes thoughtful. “Lessee… Amber was your chief gunner, right? Who’s that leave you with…” Twilight was about to answer when Applejack did it for her. “Wingblade, right? Pegasus filly, off of Lightning? Gray coat, real dark blue eyes?”

Twilight nodded, impressed. Applejack had an amazing ability to remember her Wardens by name and personality, even without the benefit of an interface implant. The former farmpony had never wanted one, saying she’d always found the idea freaky, but she had a remarkable memory for ponies nonetheless. She claimed it came from dealing with her huge family. “That’s correct. She impressed me, actually; she handled the neural stress astoundingly well, and she was extremely quick to act.”

Applejack snorted a laugh. “Yep, that’s Wingblade. She’s a pretty dang cool customer under stress, and she doesn’t fall apart afterward the way some of ‘em do. Keep an eye on her, though; cool or not, she’s awful aggressive, and her instructors say she’s creepy in the net.”

“ ‘Creepy in the net?’ What exactly does that mean?”

The earth pony shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I can’t get into the net myself, a’course, but everypony who’s ever been in the same net as her says she’s creepy. Ask Rainbow Dash, she’s one of the ones that said that. ‘Part from that, she’s really good at her job. One of the best, actually, that’s why we put her in a ship right out of Warden training.” Applejack blinked slowly, thinking. “Aw, shucks, you got Stars on the bridge to ride herd on her, don’t you? Don’t you worry none, Stars’ll keep her from getting too aggressive. Talk about a cool customer. Level-headed as a table, and rock-solid besides.”

“Yes, that’s the impression I’ve gotten. It’s how she seemed from the report on the Interloper, too; she was slow to return fire after she was attacked, but decisive once she did so. I was glad that you and Rainbow Dash assigned her as captain.”

Applejack snorted again. “Shoot, I don’t think Rainbow would’ve let me assign anypony else, even if I’d wanted to. You should’ve heard her crowin’ about how great Stars was. She went and scared the tar out of the poor mare anyway during debriefing, a’course, but she’d’ve put up a heck of a fight if I’d wanted to give Dauntless’s command to any other pony.”

Twilight nodded, surveying the purposeful chaos still going on in the cargo hold. “Well, it looks like you still have quite a bit to do here. Is there anything I could do to help?”

“Nah.” Applejack gave the Warden logistics officers a quick but thorough examination, watching their movements and behavior. “I think we got things under control here. Be done with this stuff in a couple of hours, then we’ll probably start reorganizing the other holds. Thanks, though.”

“You don’t want my help reorganizing?” Twilight asked, a hopeful tone in her voice. It was looking like she wasn’t going to have much to do on an everyday basis as Commander, and she rather wanted to have something to do. Her organizational skills were nearly peerless, doubly so with the assistance of her holodaemon and various programs that she’d written for fun.

Applejack chuckled. “Well, if you’re offerin’… I’ll send you the manifest.”

“Great!” Twilight grinned. “That’ll give me something to work on in my spare time, besides the theoretical sorcery work I brought along from the Bureau and the doctoral studies from the Thirk Academy.”

“Tarnation,” Applejack said, shaking her head ruefully. “And I thought I liked stayin’ busy. I’ll be glad for the help, but don’t do too much, or you’ll put me out of a job!”

Twilight giggled. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that! I’ll see you at dinner, right?”

“Plannin’ on it. Oh, and Twi?” Applejack stepped closer to give her friend a hug that was warmly returned. “Darn good to see you again. Been way too long.”

“I think it has been for all of us,” Twilight said quietly.

Twilight quickly finished up her tour, and spent most of the rest of the shift coordinating with the various science specialists she’d brought along. The system they were in might be lifeless and largely uninteresting, but it was an absolute gold mine of scientific data. The opportunity to study an entirely different star and its attendant planets, along with the various moons, asteroids, comets, and dust clouds was incredibly valuable. They were only scheduled to stay for a day or so in this system, doing surveys and checking over the Dauntless’s systems while the drives recharged and they ran post-jump tests, but Twilight and her specialists intended to make the most of it.

She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she almost missed dinner. The unicorn had to rush to make it after her holodaemon pinged her with a reminder, and she was the last of her friends to show up. The unicorn worried a bit about how hurried she’d look, concerned that she wasn’t showing the dignity that a Commander should, but then, the most well-known Commander prior to Twilight had been Rainbow Dash, and the unicorn couldn't imagine Rainbow worrying about maintaining a dignified mien when she was in a hurry. As long as she looked purposeful, she’d probably be fine.

Twilight's friends were already talking and laughing with each other when she arrived. “Oh, welcome, darling!” Rarity exclaimed, “We were starting to worry that you'd forgotten! Here, I saved you a seat.”

Twilight sat in the proffered seat, between Rarity and Rainbow Dash, noting as she did so that Rainbow and Fluttershy were sitting on opposite sides of the table. Still, they weren't glaring or sniping at each other, which was something.

The Commander fell into the comfortable rhythm of banter with her friends, the pattern as familiar as ever despite the fact that it had been close to twenty years since the six of them had all been in the same room at the same time. The relaxed joking reminded Twilight of another dinner, more than eight decades in the past.

Duran had still been alive, and still in good enough health to travel. The seven of them had all gone out to a nice restaurant in Canterlot, celebrating the successful trials of Equestria's first powered aircraft. It had been a hilariously slow, lumbering thing by their current standards, but it had been remarkably impressive at the time. They'd all been joking and teasing each other, just like this, and had just been delivered their food.

The waiter who'd delivered it had seemed a bit nervous, and his uniform had fit poorly. Twilight had been a tad suspicious; several of them had been harassed by reporters in the past, and something about the young unicorn stallion had been drawing the lavender unicorn's attention.

He'd cleared his throat nervously, and then whipped out a notepad and asked in a hurried voice, “Rainbow Dash, Duran Thirk, how would you respond to the allegations that the two of you have been carrying on an intimate relationship in secret?”

Dead silence had fallen around the table, a stillness that had quickly spread to the rest of the restaurant's dining room. Those rumors had been rife in the year before. It had been a predictable matter; the human and the pegasus spent a lot of time together, and it was clear from even the most cursory observation of the two of them that they were extremely close. They weren't physically intimate and never had been, to the best of Twilight's knowledge, but she'd been able to understand why other ponies might have thought that. Still, the others at the table had glanced at each other uneasily; this was the first time anyone had asked either Rainbow or Duran about it in public.

The glance between the pegasus and the human hadn't been uneasy, though. Twilight had been looking at them, and she'd seen the sudden spark of devilish humor that passed between the two. Oh, that poor colt, she'd thought, fighting to keep a smile off of her face.

Duran had smothered the humor on his face almost immediately, so fast it made Twilight wonder for a moment if she'd seen it at all, and spoke in an absolutely serious voice. “Well, Dash? Tell the truth. Do you secretly long for me to make mad, passionate, pogo-stick love to you?” He'd turned as he'd said it, moving his left leg and the stump of his right out from under the table.

Twilight had choked, and heard Rarity do the same next to her. She often found the human's amputee jokes in poor taste, and this was no exception, though the dry delivery had been rather funny. Rarity had lifted her glass to her lips, sipping to hide the smile she was trying to suppress.

Rainbow had never been good at deadpan delivery. Instead, she'd taken the opposite approach and bugged her eyes out dramatically. “Oh, dude! How did you discover my secret?!” She'd pressed a forehoof to her forehead in an imitation of Rarity's more... theatrical moments. “How can I ever live with the shame of whoa!” The pegasus had leaned back in her chair, pretending like she was about to swoon, and had evidently forgotten that she habitually turned her chair sideways to make room for her wings. She flailed her legs and wings, trying to catch her balance, but failed utterly. In a flash of cyan and rainbow, she'd pitched over backward, emitting a choked-off yell and landing on the floor with a thump.

Rarity had choked again, except this time she'd been sipping her drink, resulting in a spray of beverage blasting out of the elegant unicorn's nose.

Duran had leaned forward inquisitively to make sure Rainbow was alright, and she'd bounced up immediately with a goofy grin on her face. “Wow, careful with suggestions like that, dude. You blew me out of my seat!”

“I have been known to have that effect,” Duran had observed with utter calm, pausing to sip from his drink. This had elicited a new splutter from Rarity, who was coughing and choking, trying to get her breath back.

“Ooo, Rarity looks upset!” Pinkie Pie had observed gleefully. The pink pony had let out a loud, fake, shocked gasp, “I think you've got a rival!” Rarity had tried to choke out a denial, but she hadn't cleared her throat and nose of the drink she'd snorted out and could do nothing but splutter and cough.

Twilight had decided at that point to get in on the fun. “She does look jealous,” the unicorn had observed, peering at her white-coated friend. “But jealous of whom?” That had made poor Rarity start laughing anew.

“Indeed,” Duran said coolly, “it seems that it is I who has a rival here. I suppose I'd better,” he paused for just a beat, “hop to it.”

Twilight had groaned. Oh, Celestia, not the pogo-stick puns. Rainbow, on the other hand, had burst out laughing, the loud, slightly squeaky laugh that meant she was really busting a gut. It had taken her a few moments to catch her breath enough to gasp out, “Oh, yeah, dude, you'd better be on the bounce!”

That had set off a punning contest between Rainbow, Duran, and Pinkie, while Twilight groaned and Rarity laughed helplessly, tears streaming from her eyes. On the other side of the table, Applejack had pulled her hat down over her eyes and concentrated on her food, determinedly ignoring the goofiness across from her, and Fluttershy had been seemingly trying to merge with the tabletop, blushing furiously and hoping nopony was looking.

They all had been, of course. Everypony in the restaurant was looking over at their table, most chuckling at the impromptu comedy show.

The poor reporter who'd set the whole thing off had been watching with a stunned expression on his face, like he'd just been hit in the side of the head with a board. He'd made occasional movements to write on his notepad, but aborted it each time. He'd clearly had no idea what to say.

Twilight shook herself, pulling herself out of the memory with an effort. That had been happening to her more and more over the years, those flashes of vivid memory that absorbed her attention for a time. She'd checked to make sure nothing was physically wrong with her, but nothing was, as far as she could tell. She privately suspected that she just had so many memories now that they sometimes crowded her thoughts. The unicorn had also been thinking about her long-gone human friend quite a lot lately; likely because they were finally fulfilling the dream he’d had for them, voyaging beyond their own solar system into the wider universe. She felt a small, not-quite-sad smile quirking the corners of her lips, and she turned her attention back to her friends, joining in the joking and the banter.

If any of them had similar flashes of memory, they didn't show it much, though at times each of them would pause and look a little distant, for just a moment, before resuming their conversations.

Surprise

The Dauntless was scheduled to leave the system the next day, a little bit after the start of the first shift. Twilight was loath to leave; they’d recorded an enormous amount of information, and there hadn’t been time to analyze even a fraction of it. There were so many things that still needed to be studied, and so much they hadn’t had time to look at! The local star was giving off some odd arcane emissions that hadn’t propagated along the gap between this star and Celestia’s sun, there were odd radio frequency noises that were probably due to tidal stresses acting on crystalline formations coming from one of the moons of the outer gas giant, and one of the rocky planets near the star was actually volcanically active, even though this system was so old that it should have cooled to a rocky ball long ago. Those things all merited extra study, and who knew what else they might find if they spent just one more day here?

But they couldn’t. Time was precious.

None of those phenomena, interesting as they were, would give them any insight into whoever had sent the Interloper. All of it had been pored over by the ship’s comm officer, Chatterbox, and the stallion had been certain that nothing they’d picked up had been sent by an artificial source. Fluttershy’s linguists and Twilight’s scientists had agreed; this was all natural, and there was no intelligent activity in this system. The Dauntless’s mission was to seek out intelligent life; therefore, with none here to find, the ship no longer needed to be here. The anomalies in this system, however fascinating, would have to be studied by a follow-up mission, probably one specifically equipped for astronomical and astrophysical research.

Regretfully, Twilight slid all the data that had been recorded into the archive, tagged it for delivery to the BoT when they returned, and disconnected from the net, stretching muscles gone sore from prolonged immobility. She’d gotten up rather early, and had been on the bridge and working since well before the nominal start of first shift. An icon glowed on the panel in front of her seat; Doctor Rosethorn wanted to talk to her.

The Commander had already gotten Rosethorn’s tentative report on the possible causes of the injuries done to her crew. It seemed that the long Gate jump had created some kind of feedback in the brains of ponies who were connected to a datanet during the jump. Rosethorn didn’t speculate on why or how, and Twilight honestly had no idea what could cause that kind of thing. It would require extensive study on a refitted Gate drive ship, and would probably take years. In the meantime, Rosethorn suggested in the strongest possible terms for nopony to be connected to the datanet the next time Dauntless made a jump. Twilight was more than a little surprised that it was evidently the jump itself that had caused the problem, rather than the sensors which she’d suspected were the culprits. It did make sense, though; how could an Engineering shipmare be injured by sensor feedback when she wasn’t even receiving a feed from the sensors, while the actual sensor operator hadn’t even dropped out of connection?

Twilight pinged the terminal for a connection to the medical bay, and was only kept waiting for a moment. One of the benefits of being a Commander, she was learning, was that others were quick to listen when she was speaking. Doctor Rosethorn’s face appeared on the screen, her red eyes serious against her green coat. “Ah, Commander. Good, I was hoping to hear from you.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Yes, indeed, we have a matter to discuss. First, though, I’d like to thank you on your work; you may have saved other ponies who might have had similar problems.”

Rosethorn nodded. “Of course, Commander. Only doing my job.”

“And speaking of your job…” Twilight brought up a status report on the two serious casualties, projecting it on an illusory screen above her panel right next to the one the doctor’s face was looking out of. “It looks like Amber Mist and Cogsteeth are stable, is that correct?” The Commander felt a knot of tension curling in her gut. This was a hard call to make, and it had been gnawing away at her since she’d left the medical bay yesterday. She had a responsibility to her crew… but she also had a responsibility to her mission, and by extension ponykind as a whole.

The doctor winced. “I’m not sure ‘stable’ is quite the proper word. They’re still badly damaged, and we are keeping them in stasis at the moment.” The Dauntless had twenty stasis pods, devices derived from some of the chronomancy spells originally developed by the unicorn mage, Starswirl the Bearded. The spell engineered into the units froze time inside the pod, keeping the contents from aging. They were extremely power-hungry, but as long as power was maintained, the occupants could remain in stasis indefinitely. “I’m not at all happy about leaving them there; leave somepony in stasis too long, and they can be a bit out of step with the world around them once they come out. Their herds and foals have aged, but they haven’t…” Rosethorn trailed off at Twilight’s raised eyebrow.

“Yes, I’m familiar with the condition.” The unicorn observed dryly. Her lip quirked up in a smile, her tension momentarily forgotten, and her young-looking face not reflecting the fact that the mind behind it had seen a full century and more roll by. She’d seen her other acquaintances age and die, while she and her five friends just continued, seemingly untouched by the passing years. “It can be wrenching, but I’m not thinking of leaving them in stasis for years. This voyage is only supposed to last a month or so, after all, and at the end of it we’ll have them home and passed over to the specialists. In your professional opinion, do you think they’ll be ill-served by spending that much time in stasis?”

Rosethorn sighed, shaking her head reluctantly. “No. None of the studies have shown any kind of detrimental effects to the stasis procedure… as I suspect you know, Commander.”

Twilight did know. She’d supervised several of those tests herself, when the stasis pods had been in development. They’d been quite thorough. The Commander nodded calmly. “In that case, unless you have some reason that Amber Mist and Cogsteeth absolutely need to be taken back to the homeworld immediately, I am inclined to proceed with the mission. Are there any such reasons?” Twilight didn’t particularly like being so firm with Rosethorn; she respected the other mare’s judgement and compassion, and she was a decent pony. But a Commander had to be decisive, and this mission was important.

Rosethorn’s mouth twisted unhappily, but she shook her head again. “No, ma’am. Apart from the fact that they’re filling two of our twenty stasis pods, which we might need in a serious situation, there is no such reason.”

Twilight nodded. “All right, Doctor Rosethorn. Thank you. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we can afford the extra time to make a detour back to the home world right now; I want to make at least three more jumps before we return, assuming we don’t find anything.”

Rosethorn nodded, still clearly unhappy, but willing to accept Twilight’s decision on the matter. “Very well, Commander. I would like to see them returned home at the earliest possible opportunity, however.”

“As soon as we can,” Twilight reassured the doctor, before cutting the connection. The Commander was genuinely concerned about her crewponies, but this genuinely was important. That didn’t change the fact that the decision left a sour taste in her mouth. Maybe if the next two jumps proved fruitless, (as she suspected they would, she wasn’t anticipating getting that lucky) then they’d make a quick stopover in the home system to get her fallen crewmares the help they needed.

Twilight brought up the mission profile. She’d been studying it last night on a smartscroll in her cabin, but going over their next stop one more time before they started the jump process wouldn’t hurt. The first jump had been short, aimed at the nearest star, just to make sure nothing went wrong. While they crew had been affected by the jump, the ship had been completely undamaged, its systems still running at full efficiency. Actually a little over what had been designated full efficiency; Monkeywrench had had time to go over the ship’s systems in operational mode over the last day, and she’d found a couple of places where they could be tweaked to give slightly better performance, so the Dauntless was currently running slightly more efficiently than when she’d left the shipyard.

The next jump was more ambitious. They’d be jumping to one of the more remote stars that had been remotely explored by Equestrian telescopes; this one was about thirty light-years away. Twenty-eight point four six, if she remembered the exact distance correctly. Still, the peering telescopes had gotten a fairly accurate survey, and as long as they didn’t try to emerge inside a planet they should be fine. Leaving a star system required the ship to be outside the star’s interference sphere, but entering one didn’t have the same concern. Even so, the plan was to jump to a point well outside the sphere’s perimeter and above the system ecliptic, just in case.

Twilight ran through the final bits of her checklist. The Dauntless was well outside of the solar interference sphere, the engines were fully pre-charged and ready, the power cores were at optimum levels, and there were no indications of mechanical or arcane faults anywhere in the system.

Twilight looked up from her illusory display, and the screen winked out the moment her eyes left it, sensing that she no longer needed it. “All right, everypony. Let’s run through the final jump preparations, and we can be on our way.” Communicating things like this verbally felt so much more clumsy and slow than a quick thoughtpulse, but she’d modified the procedures in light of the danger Gate jumps posed to datalinked ponies. Better to take a little longer to prepare than to risk having somepony still connected and risk damage when they jumped. The really tricky part was going to be the jump itself; without a direct connection, Night Breeze had to leave the calculations and the process of the jump to the ship’s daemons, so the process was going to be much slower. The pegasus mare was also concerned about possible errors; she’d corrected several while initiating the previous jump, so she was going to have to double-check the datadaemons’ output before final initiation, which would be cumbersome. She and Twilight had spent several hours off-shift going over the navigational datadaemons’ parameters and focus, and they both thought they had the problems ironed out, but Night Breeze was still going to check prior to jump. Better to be certain with something like this. They had to be very precise with their instructions; datadaemons tended to... wander when not supervised.

The bridge crew leapt into action, albeit rather quietly and calmly. Virtual screens appeared, several in front of each pony so they could look quickly from one to another, and a quiet murmur of voices filled the bridge as each crewmare spoke to the others, relaying status reports and informing the others of things like information transfers. It didn’t actually take too terribly long, but it felt to Twilight like forever after the quick responsiveness of thoughtspace inside the bridge net.

Twilight monitored the preparations from her command station, keeping a half-dozen virtual screens haloing her head and watching the information flick back and forth. Night Breeze’s preparations were particularly absorbing; the black-coated mare clearly had an unbelievably keen grasp of Gate travel equations and arcane theory. Finally, they were ready for final initiation, the drives primed and the datadaemons prepared with all the guidelines they would need. Twilight opened a shipwide channel, her voice carried by the aetheric links to every comm unit and speaker on board. “All right, everypony. We’re preparing for the jump, so all ponies should disconnect from immersion and not reconnect until I tell you it’s safe.” She sent a command to the comm net, making sure that the message was flagged for anypony who was in full link. The Commander waited several long breaths before turning to Night Breeze, nodding, and calmly ordering, “Begin the jump.”

“Aye-aye, Commander.” The sable-coated pegasus turned back to her panel, manipulating the systems with her hooves and with occasional commands from her neural implant. Regular interface, sending commands without being fully linked to the datanet, should be safe. At least, Twilight hoped so. If they couldn’t even send arcane commands to the ship without being brain-fried, then they could be in serious trouble.

Twilight shivered as she felt the energy building around her. It feels so much colder outside of the datalink. No surprise, really; the only reason it could be felt at all inside the net was that it wasn’t a purely physical feeling, and the nonphysical part bled through even under full immersion. Now, without immersion removing her physical senses, it felt much stronger, like icy needles had pushed through her flesh and were draining the warmth from her heart. She shivered, and saw the rest of the bridge crew do the same.

“Goddess, I hate this feeling,” Silver Stars muttered quietly.

“You and me both, Captain,” Wingblade replied, in a similar undertone. The gray-coated pegasus’s feathers were fluffed out awkwardly, making the slim mare look rather overweight. Everypony’s coat was ruffled, bristling in an attempt to retain body heat that wasn’t actually being lost.

“You aren’t actually cold,” Twilight said, a lecturing tone creeping into her voice despite her best efforts. “It’s a psychosomatic reaction to magical oversaturation…” She cut herself off when the ship seemed to suddenly lurch sideways, the false feeling of cold intensifying to the point where she felt like it would stop her heart. Twilight twitched in her seat, trying to compensate for the sudden moment of vertigo, and saw the rest of the bridge crew twitch similarly. Ah, so that’s what a Gate transition feels like. Interesting. Her brain felt fine, and a quick glance around the bridge showed everypony in good shape. Night Breeze looked completely fine, and she’d been the one Twilight was most worried about.

“Ah, that wasn’t so bad that time, was it?” Twilight asked with a grin. “It looks like everypony’s…”

“Uh, Commander? I think I may have something.” Oculus interrupted. Twilight’s mouth snapped shut, and she quickly pulled up a mirror of the sensor feeds. It was distorted, still hashed with interference, and the Commander couldn’t make any sense of it; it just looked like noise.

“I’m not seeing anything here, Oculus,” Twilight said, frowning. “It looks like the sensors may not have recovered from the jump yet.”

“Ma’am, this looks... familiar. Hey, Chatterbox, turn on the ECCM, will you?” The stallion at the communications station nodded, activating the systems the Wardens had installed a few weeks before departure. They’d been designed to sort through the kind of hostile jamming the Interloper had been putting out, and Twilight had no idea why Oculus would be asking for… “Celestia’s horn!” Oculus swore shrilly, terror in her voice, “Get the shields up! Get ‘em up now!”

The bridge engineer rushed frantically to get the shields raised, not even waiting for confirmation of the order, and Twilight’s jaw dropped at what was on Oculus’s screen.

The Dauntless had emerged in the middle of a fleet… an armada of starships. More maneuvering objects than Twilight could count at a glance surrounded them. Even if most of those signals were decoys like the Interloper had employed, there were still scores of ships. The jamming they had been putting out had been so intense that it had left the Dauntless completely blind until the countermeasures had been brought online. How did they know we were coming?! Twilight thought, in a moment of stunned horror.

The Commander blessed Oculus’s quick response as the first salvo slammed into Dauntless. The shields hadn’t fully solidified, but they’d come up enough to blunt the force of the missile strike, and the ship’s tough outer armor absorbed the rest. Several surface installations were damaged or destroyed, but the Dauntless wasn’t seriously damaged, and the shields slammed up to full power before more strikes could slip through.

It would be damaged before long, though. There were way too many ships out there for Dauntless to just sit and take their fire. They couldn’t run; it would take over an hour for the arcane charge in the Gate drive to dissipate, and trying to jump before then would make the drive detonate. They had to fight, and the only way they’d be able to do that effectively was to connect to the datalink. She had to try it now, they had zero time. Not even enough time to suit up; they’d have to fight in normal uniform, which could be bad if they had a hull breach.

Twilight took a deep breath, trying to ignore the terror racing through her and the feeling of her heart slamming in her chest. “Okay. I’m going to link up; you watch me, and if I look okay, sound the alert and link up yourselves.” Of all the bridge crew, the Commander was least likely to take serious injury from the jump feedback. Providing, of course, that the damage wasn’t cumulative, or worse yet, exponential. But she didn’t have another option; there were more salvos coming in, and Wingblade was going to be badly overloaded trying to shoot them down manually. The grey-coated pegasus was already frantically directing her point-defense systems without the direct link, her forehooves and wingtips flashing across the displays she called up from her panel, trying with growing desperation to shoot down as many incoming missiles as she could. There weren’t that many right now, but with the number of ships out there the amount of inbound ordnance was going to increase dramatically in a very short time. Twilight cursed the fact that they hadn’t assigned another assistant weapons officer yet, but it was far too late to change that now.

The Commander saw a similar series of evaluations chase themselves across Silver Stars’ face. The Captain arrived at the same conclusion Twilight did, and nodded somberly. “Aye-aye, Commander. We’ll watch you. Good luck.” Twilight could hear sincere respect in the other mare’s voice.

The lavender unicorn braced herself and cast the spell to send her mind into the bridge datanet. The world slowed down, information flooded her brain, and Twilight felt a palpable rush of relief despite the desperate situation. The datanet was completely clear and normal, with no trace of the sickening disorientation or painful feedback caused by the jump.

Twilight instantly went to work. The rest of the crew would follow her into immersion shortly, but their reactions would be molasses compared to hers at the moment and she had a fair bit of subjective time before the others would be available to help.

The first thing she started to analyze was Oculus’s sensor display. Twilight blanched at what she saw; there were, not hundreds, but thousands of maneuvering signals crawling in swarms across the readout, and terror gripped the unicorn. Dauntless was powerful, enormously more powerful than the Warden cutters who had first seen action, but she was nowhere near powerful enough to handle all of this. Missiles were streaking everywhere, beams were stabbing out, ships were exploding...

Wait, why were ships exploding?

She checked the vectors, and the vast majority of the shoals of missiles flashing around her weren’t headed for the Dauntless; they were being exchanged by the ships around her. This wasn’t an ambush; Dauntless had jumped into the middle of a battle! It was such an enormously unlikely circumstance that it actually made Twilight pause for a fraction of a thought to take it in.

She set the analysis datadaemons to go over several aspects of the sensor returns. There was an enormous amount to do, tasks that would normally be tackled by two or three of the bridge crew, but Twilight needed to know now, and only a fraction of a second had passed since she dropped into the net. The expert programs pored over the information, and the situation started to clarify.

First, there weren’t thousands of ships; most of those signatures were decoys. There were about eight hundred, split into two distinct groups. It was still a vast number, but not quite as overwhelming as her first impressions had suggested. Second, the smaller group, about two hundred ships, sported the same emissions signature, the same spectrograph of light reflecting from their hulls, and similar performance characteristics to the Interloper that had intruded on Equestrian space. Those were likely enemies, especially since several of them had already altered their vectors in response to Dauntless’s arrival. The other six hundred were completely and utterly different, in design, in performance, and in emissions, different enough that Twilight suspected they were from yet another spacefaring species.

Tension coiled around Twilight, “looking” like a grey mist in thoughtspace, one of those annoying virtual manifestations of emotion that persisted no matter how much the base architecture of the data systems were changed. In spite of their enormous numerical advantage, the strangers were losing, and badly. The Interloper ships were arranged in tight, disciplined squadrons that moved as one, synchronizing both their fire and their defenses, while the stranger ships seemed to act mostly independently. They swarmed together in attacks, but there was little effort to synchronize fire, and they seemed largely unable to fend off the Interlopers’ unified salvos. The stranger ships were also smaller, with slightly slower acceleration rates than the Interloper squadrons. The only thing that was saving them was the fact that they seemed to be absolutely packed with antimissile firepower, meaning that each ship took numerous missiles to kill.

Twilight watched an Interloper squadron finally fall, and was able to divine more or less what was going on. The lost squadron had been swarmed under by five times its number in stranger vessels that had closed to direct-fire range, blasting the Interloper ships with powerful beam weapons that swiftly overwhelmed the larger ships’ defenses. The Interlopers held a tremendous advantage at long range, with their synchronized fire, superior jamming, and higher speed, but the strangers were trying to use their numbers to box the Interlopers in from several sides and get in close.

It wasn’t working. For every Interloper ship that fell, a dozen stranger vessels died. Twilight watched another attempted envelopment fail drastically, three squadrons coming to the aid of the squadron that had been the target and blasting the concentration of stranger vessels, forcing them back. The Interlopers might be outnumbered three to one, but from the loss rate Twilight saw, she suspected that the original ratio had been much, much higher.

Twilight abruptly realized that she wasn’t alone in the net. A querying thoughtpulse came from somepony on another deck, somepony who had been connected before Twilight had. :Took you long enough. We took some damage. Debris strike?:

It was Rainbow Dash, which was no real surprise. If somepony needed to put themselves at risk, the cyan pegasus was nearly always the first to volunteer. Twilight wondered if Rosethorn had asked for a volunteer to test whether the feedback persisted after the jump or whether Rainbow had decided to test it on her own.

:We’re under attack: Twilight replied.

She felt surprise and shock echo back at her, a red-and-yellow tang. :Seriously? Why the heck haven’t you sounded the alert?!:

:Silver Stars will do it, as soon as she sees I’m fine. I’ve only been linked for four or five seconds.: Twilight sent a pulse of reassurance that Rainbow would probably realize was false. :Had to be sure the feedback didn’t linger.:

:It didn’t. I’ve been linked since right after jump. Why the heck haven’t you just sent the alert yourself, doofus?:

That... hadn’t occurred to Twilight; she’d been so focused on sorting out the information. She sent a wordless thought through the net to that effect linked to the data she’d already sorted, showing Rainbow what she was dealing with. :Shoot. We’re in trouble. I’ll set the alert and get outta your hair.: Twilight felt tension coiled around Rainbow’s reply, but she was grateful for the response. It was nice dealing with somepony who knew how to react in situations like this. She felt the alert racing through the network, and the rest of the bridge crew linked in so fast that Twilight suspected they’d been just about to do it anyway.

:Yes!: Twilight heard the exultant thought from Wingblade, tinged with a cold focus. :Try and get past me now.: Now that the pegasus was linked, she could direct her antimissile defenses with far greater efficiency, and Twilight could sense that the weapons officer still had plenty of focus to spare for the offensive weapons.

:Focus on these for return fire: Twilight told the aggressive pegasus, highlighting the Interloper squadrons. :The others may not be hostile.:

:Confirmed, Commander. May I return fire if fired upon?:

The clarity of the thought made Twilight pause for an instant. Oh. Goodness. I can see why Applejack said she was creepy in the network; I have trouble forming thoughts that complete. She shook the surprise off quickly. :Hold fire on others. Wait for release.:

:Yes, Commander.: The thought grumbled a bit, but there was no sense of rebellion. Even as they passed that sequence of messages, the first salvo roared out from Dauntless’s launchers, more fire than an entire Interloper squadron targeted on not the nearest enemy squadron, but one of the ones further away.

Twilight saw Wingblade’s intentions immediately. :Captain,: she pulsed to Silver Stars, :These squadrons almost in beam range: She highlighted the closest Interloper squadrons, which she realized were trying to fall back from the Dauntless’s sudden arrival, clawing frantically for distance while spitting missiles at the looming cruiser.

:They are. Helmsmare, vector change.: A series of instructions flowed from the captain to the helmsmare and the navigator, and the cruiser surged toward the retreating squadrons.

Twilight let Silver Stars direct the ship while she focused on the armada surrounding them. The strangers, the species she hadn’t seen before, had lobbed a few missiles their way, but it had been a desultory effort while they continued to focus on the Interloper squadrons. The Interlopers, on the other hoof, were clearly in the process of rearranging their entire order of battle; the squadrons nearest the Dauntless had shifted all of their fire to the Equestrian exploratory ship, and several more squadrons were breaking off from engaging the strangers and moving to support those trying to pressure Dauntless. These ships, though they resembled the Interloper in composition and performance, were much larger than the ship the Warden cutters had driven away. They were clearly more powerful as well, launching larger, faster missiles and boasting more robust defenses. They were still pygmies beside the colossal bulk of the Dauntless, but there were enough of them that the cruiser was in serious danger, especially since they clearly knew what they were doing.

Their more effective electronic warfare wasn’t as effective as it could have been, after the Wardens’ installation of their countermeasures. The sophisticated sensors and sorting daemons, patterned after designs and concepts found in the Library Core, let the exploration cruiser see with a clarity that the Warden cutters had lacked. Oculus was able to quickly pinpoint the hostile ships and feed their coordinates to Wingblade, and after a few moments the aetheric sensors recovered from the confusion of the jump, and with their aid the sensor officer was even able to make a solid effort at separating out the decoy platforms from the real ships. Three of the Interloper ships in the squadron Wingblade had targeted with her first salvo were struck by her missiles in spite of their earnest efforts to shoot the Equestrian ordnance down, and two of them were destroyed when the powerful warheads blew straight through their defenses. The third was clearly crippled, its acceleration dropping drastically as it turned to flee, bleeding air from brutal rents in its armored hull. The crippled ship’s remaining squadron-mates shifted formation in an effort to cover their wounded companion’s withdrawal. Dauntless’s second salvo, facing the reduced defensive fire of only five ships instead of eight, scored even more heavily. Four of the remaining five ships were smashed by the cruiser’s missiles, and they died in white-hot boils of energy. The squadron of eight powerful battleships had been reduced in seconds to one fighting ship and one cripple, and the operational vessel tucked itself in front of its brutalized squadron mate, its launchers shutting down in a clear gesture of surrender as it sought to shepherd its wounded companion out of danger.

The Interloper formation shifted even more radically after the annihilation of the first squadron, leaving less than a quarter of their number to fight their original opponents while every other squadron altered course to engage the Dauntless, and their missiles came in so thickly that Wingblade had to divert her focus from offensive fire to defensive for a moment as a huge, concentrated volley roared in on the heels of a spate of less coordinated fire. Nearly a thousand enemy missiles screamed toward the Equestrian cruiser, dodging and weaving in an attempt to foil the Warden counterfire. Wingblade wasn’t able to destroy the massive salvo, but she poured point-defense fire into it with a grim determination, fighting to whittle it down to a survivable level.

Despite her efforts, nearly three hundred Interloper missiles made it past the cruiser’s active defenses to slam into her shields. They detonated in a ripple, too numerous to have been completely synchronized. That many warheads would have destroyed several Warden cutters outright.

Fortunately, Dauntless was built on an entirely different scale from the cutters, and had a titanic amount of energy to put into her defensive barriers. The shields flickered, local overloads dancing at several points where the apocalyptic energy threatened to eat them away completely, the engineers struggling frantically to shunt the overloads to different parts of the system and distribute the massive blow the cruiser was taking. The shields held, not failing at any point, though several spots were dangerously weakened. The armor was undamaged, and more importantly, they didn’t lose any of Wingblade’s point-defense installations.

It was no time to relax. More hostile ships were closing in. The next salvo would be even larger.

Twilight could swear she heard an actual snarl over the network as the weapons officer redirected her attention, no longer forced to focus exclusively on swatting missiles, and saw that two hostile squadrons had been overtaken and were now in range of the cruiser’s aetherbeams. The Interloper ships were firing their own lightspeed weapons frantically, almost certainly aware that they were within the Equestrian behemoth’s reach, but the Dauntless’s superior acceleration meant that the Interlopers couldn’t hit back at this range.

Unlike the cutters, the power plants didn’t strain to provide enough energy for the aetherbeams to fire. Also unlike the cutters, who mounted two of the powerful energy weapons in a spinal configuration, Dauntless had turrets studded across her lateral line, containing a total of a hundred and ten of the weapons. Targeting brackets blossomed around the sixteen Interloper vessels, carefully measuring location, speed, and distance, and sixteen of the beams fired, spitting the gunner’s desperate rage at the Interloper warships in unstoppable spikes of arcane power.

Every single one hit.

The countermeasures and improved aetheric sensors had allowed Wingblade to determine the sixteen ships’ positions with pinpoint accuracy, and the aetherbeams did exactly what they were designed to do. The converging pulse of energy tore a hole in the fabric of reality, arcane energy pouring forth and supersaturating the material around it. The hole lasted only a fraction of an instant, but it dumped more than enough energy into its target’s hull to blow the ship apart in a massive blast of arcane power. All sixteen of the Interloper ships simply vanished, replaced for an instant by ravening balls of scintillating light. Scores of missiles were still streaking out from the Dauntless, seeking out Interloper vessels, smashing ship after ship with hammers of light and blotting another squadron away, and then another, but the Interlopers had synchronized their fire again and Twilight quailed as she saw another massive salvo come roaring in.

Dauntless, however, was not the Interlopers’ only problem.

The refocusing of their fire had drastically reduced the pressure against the strangers, and the disorganized but still large force had rallied. Only about a quarter of the Interloper fleet was maintaining fire on their original foes, and it wasn’t enough. The strangers swarmed forward, clumping together to try to maximize their missile defenses while they bored in toward the ships still attacking them. They quickly overwhelmed one Interloper squadron, and then another. They’d been spitting the occasional missile at Dauntless, but that desultory fire had stopped almost the moment the Interlopers had shifted formation to concentrate on the Equestrian cruiser. Now they tore into the Interloper ships left to deal with them, and the tide of the battle was quickly turning.

The Interlopers saw it, too. As one, their formation shifted once again, and they started accelerating outward, headed away from the battle, clearly disengaging.

:They’re retreating.: Twilight pulsed to Silver Stars, receiving a flash of confirmation in return.

:Wingblade,: the captain sent to the weapons officer, :Cease engagement. Can you hit those missiles with ours?: The Interlopers might be withdrawing and they’d stopped spitting fresh missiles, but that massive final salvo of theirs was still incoming.

:I can try.: Targeting icons blossomed anew, these trying to center on the tiny, fast contacts speeding toward them. :Every one I hit now is one less for the defenses.: The cruiser’s big antiship launchers started cycling as fast as they could, spitting out individual missiles instead of coordinated barrages. The missiles weren’t designed for this, but, well, a hostile missile was basically a tiny, super-fast ship, and it was worth a try. Twilight threw herself into Oculus’s part of the net, lending her own trained mind to the sensor operator’s, trying to help further refine the data she was sending to Wingblade and thus improve the gunner’s chances. Linked this closely, she felt the gunner’s icy focus, and the sparkle of fear the pegasus was keeping tightly contained. Wingblade didn’t bother with thanks, though Twilight could feel a trickle of gratitude from the overwhelmed gunner.

Against all Twilight’s expectations, the missiles actually scored hits. Only a few, true, but the massive bursts of energy put out by the antiship missiles tended to kill more than one of the incoming warheads. The salvo had been whittled down more than Twilight had expected when it reached Dauntless’s defenses.

Without missing a beat, Wingblade hurled herself into the point defense network, feverishly guiding the antimissile fire, and even spared a corner of her mind to designate targets for the aetherbeams. Those didn’t need to induce a cascade, simply punching a hole through a missile was enough to destroy it, so Wingblade didn’t bother with the extra effort of giving the heavy beams distance information and instead simply targeted and fired as fast as she possibly could. The pilot chipped in too, throwing the massive cruiser into an even more frantic evasion pattern, trying to force the missiles to chase her.

The gray pegasus did amazing work. The original salvo had been even larger than the first, and Wingblade had manage to destroy or decoy even more of them than she had the first time. Unfortunately, there were still hundreds of warheads left intact to slam into the cruiser.

The shields had come back to full power, and the engineers fed extra power to them as they strove to guard the ship. Warheads detonated against the shields in a glaring, white-hot inferno, blasting the barriers with so much energy that the huge ship disappeared behind the rippling blasts. The shields flickered, the engineers again fighting to dump energy around the grid, trying to balance out the strain. Twilight felt a shield relay elsewhere burst, the energy proving too much for the system to contain and too much for the surge protectors to absorb, and the relay detonated in a glare of energy. Fortunately, the relays were placed in reinforced areas of the ship, away from crew, just in case exactly this kind of thing from killing anypony. Internal shields and bulkheads contained the blast, preventing it from ripping out more systems, but the loss left a tiny weak point in the shield around the cruiser.

One warhead found that point. Only one, out of hundreds.

It slipped through the weakened shield, the arcane barrier not strong enough to trigger a detonation. The missile flashed in against the ship’s nose and detonated, a searing fireball ripping at the phenomenally tough armor, finding what must have been a flaw in the hull and tearing open a breach. The armor should have held against that much energy, but it didn't. More bulkheads slammed down, the ship’s redundant structure saving her from catastrophic damage, but some of the internal atmosphere bled out into the void. Twilight’s heart lurched as she realized that the escaping atmosphere had taken three unsuited crewmares out into the cruel vacuum with it.

She had to act fast. Faster than she ever had in her life.

Twilight linked herself to the sensor net, finding where the three ponies were spinning helplessly out into the void. She focused herself on them, part of her thoughts staying linked with the sensors while another part started weaving together threads of magic. In the silent bridge, amidst the rigidly still figures of the crew, Twilight’s horn began glowing more brightly, far more brightly than the interface spell called for. She fought to keep both parts of her mind in harmony, both parts focused on what they needed to do as she tracked the flailing ponies and built her spells. In a triple, simultaneous flash, three spheres of violet light appeared on the bridge with a quiet pop, dumping the three engineers, two earth ponies and a pegasus, on the floor of the bridge, where they gasped and coughed, dragging the air that was suddenly surrounding them into their starving lungs.

Twilight’s mind lurched. It was a terrible, terrible idea to cast spells while in the datanet. The shock dragged at her, ripping her mind back and forth in a hideous resonance. She fought, trying to maintain the link, but was unable to and the spell holding her in the network shattered. Twilight slumped to the floor, clutching her head in her forehooves, trying to deal with the phantom sensation of her head flying apart and scattering her brain across the bridge. Dear Celestia, I hope it’s a phantom sensation! Twilight thought in a moment of gut-clenching panic.

Fortunately, that proved to be the case. Twilight pushed herself upright, her head pounding, and glanced at the three crewmares. They all looked okay, but vacuum exposure could be dangerous. She pinged Medical through her panel, wincing as the act sent a burning flash of agony through her horn and head, and rasped out, “First aid to the bridge. Three ponies, explosive vacuum exposure.” She closed the channel immediately; there was no need to linger and chat.

Twilight grimaced, forcing her mind to settle down. She ran herself through meditation exercises designed to counteract arcane shock, feeling her brain slowly coming back together and falling under her control once more. She didn’t have time to finish, and gritted her teeth while she brought up her link spell again.

There was a screech of pain in her mind, and she was back in the network. Information flowed into her; the Interlopers were running, and Silver Stars was letting them. The enemy fleet was maintaining their disciplined formation as they withdrew, keeping the stranger vessels who were hounding them out of beam range. Their fleet had suffered heavy losses, but their discipline seemed little the worse for it.

:Commander,: came Silver Stars’ thought, touched with concern, :Are you all right?:

:Functional. Marginal.: Twilight was having trouble composing a coherent thoughtstream.

Wingblade didn’t have that problem. :You have got some serious guts, boss. Wow, spellcasting in the link and then linking up again after a drop. Gutsy.: The pegasus’s thought was tinged with golden admiration.

:Thanks. Status.:

Silver Stars was giving directives to the navigator and pilot, and flashed for Wingblade to fill the Commander in. The Interloper fleet had retreated beyond weapons range with tremendous speed, partially because Silver Stars had taken them away from the Interlopers at full acceleration the instant the aliens sought to break contact. The gunner composed and sent a report swiftly, showing Twilight the relative movements of the two alien fleets and Dauntless, illustrating the alien ships that had been lost, and outlining Dauntless’s damage, which was bad but not crippling. They could even still fight if they had to, though they’d used up nearly a third of their missiles and had a gaping hole in the armor on the nose. The damage to the shield network could probably be fixed from spares, but the hole in the armor would be a shipyard job.

Twilight sighed mentally. Her ship, the beautiful ship she’d helped do design, had a hole in it. At least they were out of weapons range, and thus out of danger, at least for now. :Okay. Stand down from alert status.: Without waiting for confirmation, the Commander dropped out of the link, wincing and closing her eyes in pain. She started running through the meditation exercises again, calming her thoughts so her brain could settle down while the bridge crew stirred around her. The three engineers were still coughing on the floor, though their gasps sounded far less panicked than they had right after being teleported.

Wingblade went immediately to check on the three crewmares, while the others stayed at their stations, with Oculus monitoring the chase and Chatterbox carefully picking out and recording any radio signals he could, and a couple of stray communications laser flashes that touched the Dauntless. The medics arrived, gathered up the ponies Twilight had rescued, and guided them out; all three were able to walk. The Commander felt a flash of pride; nopony else could have saved those three.

“Ma’am.” Silver Stars’ voice interrupted Twilight’s meditations. She blinked, focusing her attention outward again. She was feeling much better, but didn’t want to try spellcasting for a while, and she devoutly hoped she wouldn’t have to. Twilight looked up, meeting the captain’s eyes, and the other mare continued, “The Interlopers just disappeared, like the one we ran into did. And that other bunch is headed back toward us.”

Twilight glanced over at her screen, which appeared obediently and showed what the sensors saw; the remaining strangers mobbing up together again and heading back toward them. She sighed, rubbing her aching head. That tight formation might mean they didn’t want to fight, or it might be an attempt to concentrate their firepower. “Don’t fire,” she said, remembering after a momentary struggle that the strangers had stopped firing on them when the Interlopers had started concentrating on the Equestrian cruiser, “Let’s see what they do.”

The disorganized mob of starships moved across the screen in a blob, and Twilight found herself shaking her head. Were these soldiers, or were they some kind of civilians in armed ships? The Interloper squadrons would have pasted them if the ponies hadn’t appeared, and Twilight hoped they realized that.

“Oh, Celestia, please, let us talk to you,” the Commander heard Chatterbox whisper, his voice thick with hope.

The strangers braked to a relative stop just outside of what they’d shown their own missile range to be, which was actually well inside Dauntless’s engagement envelope. They sat there, spreading out a bit to give themselves more maneuvering room, and did nothing. They were waiting.

Her heart in her throat, Twilight turned to Chatterbox. “Send the first-contact package.”

The stallion nodded, tension in his face, and turned to his panel. Twilight knew what the package was, an unencoded, analog signal, starting with pulses of radio representing simple numbers one through ten, and then pulsing out the first few primes. After that, it was sound, also in analog, the basic phonemes of the Equestrian language, followed by a phrase that Twilight knew the aliens wouldn’t understand, but that she and Fluttershy thought was important to include. “We are peaceful, we mean you no harm.”

The package went out, flying to the alien ships on wings of invisible light, and the bridge crew waited tensely.

“I’m getting a reply,” Chatterbox said suddenly. His voice was excited, hopeful. “It... it’s just noise.”

“Play it,” Twilight ordered, and a screech resounded through the bridge speakers that made everypony wince. “Any idea what that is?”

Chatterbox hesitated. “I... it might be an audio-visual signal? We don’t know their coding, it would just be noise to us...”

Fluttershy’s voice suddenly cut in on the bridge. “Twilight! Twilight! They’re trying to talk!”

The corner of the Commander’s mouth quirked at the joy and excitement in her friend’s voice. She knew Fluttershy had been listening, the procedures she’d drafted for the mission had called for first-contact procedures to be automatically relayed to the diplomatic team. “Yes, they are, but we don’t know what they’re saying.”

“They’re trying, though!” Twilight nodded. It was a positive sign. “Maybe... maybe a face-to-face meeting? If we could see each other, talk to each other, oh, I know we could be friends!”

A face-to-face meeting... well, it was possible. Twilight turned to Oculus. “Is there a rocky planet in this system that we could land on?”

The unicorn nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. Hold on...” She brought up a screen and peered at it for a moment, manipulating the readout. “Um... There’s one about the same distance from the star that the homeworld is. The temperature should be survivable, but there’s no life and an inert atmosphere. We’d have to wear breathers at least if we landed there.”

Twilight felt a thrill. That was perfect, better than she’d expected, and she turned to Chatterbox. “Chatterbox, can you whip up a visual suggestion that we meet there?”

The stallion nodded. “I sure can. Give me just a minute or two.” He turned to his station, and several screens lit up. Chatterbox’s horn glowed as he quickly manipulated images, building a quick, simple cartoon. “Okay, ready. Permission to use the illusion projectors?”

“Granted.” The projectors had been part of the Dauntless’s design from day one, arcane machines that were able to project illusory images of colossal size, dozens of kilometers across. They were useless in combat; the illusions glowed, but they were too dim and too ephemeral to hide the ship or to create decoys, but this kind of situation was exactly what they were made for.

The projectors activated, projecting a vast, glowing arrow that pointed at the world Oculus had found. That morphed into a graphic of the planet, which then zoomed in to show a cartoon Dauntless and a crude image of one of the aliens’ ships sitting in orbit. A Kestrel-class shuttle left the Equestrian cruiser, and a simple airplane-shape did likewise from the alien ship. The image zoomed in further, following the two shuttles down to the surface, where they both landed, next to one another. The ramp of the Kestrel descended, and a cartoon pony stepped out. The image rotated, clearly intending to represent the view from the aliens’ shuttle, and the pony walked closer to the camera, raised a forehoof in greeting, and faded out.

“Oh, I like it!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

“Let’s hope they do, too.” Twilight said. The alien ships sat there, motionless, not transmitting, for a long time. Twilight chewed her lip. “Play it again,” she ordered, and the projectors lit anew, letting the cartoon run once more.

This time, at the end of the cartoon, the ship at the center of the alien formation flashed its running lights once. Every ship in the formation followed suit, their running lights flashing without coordination, looking like a swarm of old-style flash cameras. Twilight tensed, wondering if that meant “yes” or “no,” and the lead ship turned, accelerating insystem, headed for the barren world the cartoon had suggested.

Twilight’s breath left her in a heavy sigh. They’d accepted. She thought. “Follow them, but keep us at a distance until we arrive in orbit,” she ordered. Silver Stars nodded, turning to address the crew, and Twilight closed her eyes.

Well, here we go.

Elsewhere, later.

The chief of staff scurried into the Admiral’s office, the door whispering open ahead of her. “Courier report for you, sir, marked urgent.”

“Ah, indeed?” The Admiral’s chair swung around, and his desk screen lit at a tap of his finger. The chief of staff fought not to step back, a habit she’d been struggling with ever since she’d joined the Enforcement branch. So many of the other Council races were larger than hers. Even sitting, the Admiral could look over her head, and his shoulders were three times as broad as hers. She remained in place, though, at rigid attention, showing no sign of discomfort. “So I see. Care to summarize for me?”

The chief of staff saluted. “Sir, Admiral Hurzz reports an unsuccessful engagement against Tazaft forces. He was engaged by a third party, and suffered heavy losses in exchange for about half the Tazaft force before he was driven off.”

The Admiral sighed. “Blast. I’d hoped to take out more of their fleet with that trap. It’s going to take forever to force them to back down at this rate, and both sides just keep losing people.” He paused, frowning. “What third party? Has one of the Council races gone completely mad and decided to throw in with the Tazaft independently?” There were rumors that the Admiral had close ties with one or two of the probationary members of the Council, who would not be pleased with something like that. At all. His reaction certainly hinted that those rumors might have substance.

“No, sir.” The chief of staff shook her head, imitating the Admiral’s species’ body language. She’d always been a gifted mimic, and had studied both of the Council’s founding races extensively back when she was an adolescent. She’d been utterly fascinated by the beings who had decided to cooperate to build an interstellar government. Still was, really. What she’d learned in her adolescent fascination proved to be a useful skill now, helping her interact with the somewhat temperamental Admiral. “Admiral Hurzz reports that a single, enormous ship appeared in between his fleet and the Tazaft forces after he sprung the trap. It was chiefly responsible for disrupting his squadrons and allowing the Tazaft to inflict serious losses, and he says that it just absorbed a huge number of missiles without noticeable damage. His report sounds troubled.”

“Good heavens, I can imagine why.” The admiral’s eyes widened in surprise. “Does he have any idea whose it was?”

“Yes, sir.” The chief of staff pulled out her datawand, instructing the admiral’s terminal to highlight the relevant part of the report. “The ship’s signature looked Equestrian.”

“Equestrian?!” the admiral exclaimed in shock, his voice harsh.

“Yes, sir.” The infiltrator service had been delivering reports to Fifth Fleet HQ on the recently-encountered civilization on an almost daily basis, and the Fifth Enforcement Fleet had a pretty solid idea of what their ships looked like. It was very odd, getting information directly from the infiltrator service; they almost never worked directly with the enforcement branch. The chief of staff found it slightly worrisome; they had an unpleasant reputation, and having them showing up at the Fleet’s base left a nasty taste under her tongue.

The admiral’s jaw clenched, a subtle indicator of tension among his species. Subtle, but not rare; the mannerism was one that three Council races shared. He read the final portion of the report quickly, his eyes flicking across the screen, and let out a heavy breath at the end. “We knew they were sending a ship out, but I didn’t expect to see it this soon, or for it to be this formidable. And I... expected it to be more traceable than this. This changes things." The admiral's expression hardened. "Well, I shall have to commend Admiral Hurzz on his initiative; he’s set some decent bait, and done it subtly. Hopefully not too subtly.” The admiral’s fingers tapped his screen, quickly issuing a set of orders to the ship’s computer. “I’m dispatching reinforcements to make up his losses, plus Third Task Group as reinforcements. Hopefully, he manages to pull it off.” He turned to look directly at the chief of staff. “If he doesn’t, though, I intend to activate Plan Eighteen. As of this moment, the Tazaft are no longer our primary concern.”

The chief of staff felt a chill in her chest. “S-sir? Eighteen? Are you sure about that?” Shock almost made her slip into the trilling tones of her native tongue, a serious faux pas aboard an Enforcement ship, were every crewbeing was expected to converse in one of the Senior Council members’ languages for clarity. Perhaps it was a little unfair; the chief of staff would have had to learn an alien language, while the Admiral was conversing in his native tongue, but perhaps the species who had cooperated to found the Baltornic Council could be excused for making their languages the interstellar lingua fraca. She settled her tongue, and continued, “Sir, this… it could be a misunderstanding. An accident. The Council is still debating…” Regardless of what the debate settled on, the chief of staff doubted, seriously, that they would go this far.

“I’m aware of that, and I’m aware of the controversy over the Equestrian issue,” the admiral interrupted, coldly. “I am also aware that I am the commanding officer of this region, and that I am responsible for directing the efforts of Fifth Fleet. Send couriers to recall the other elements of the fleet; if Hurzz fails, I want to be ready to move on Plan Eighteen immediately.”

“I… I…” the chief stammered blankly for a moment, then her voice firmed as she made a decision. “Yes, sir. I’ll send the couriers right away.”

“See that you do.” The admiral nodded.

The chief of staff saluted, holding the pose until the admiral returned it, then turned smartly to leave. She hurried down the corridor, headed to her office to send the messages the admiral wanted… and one more. She had to send a courier back to Baltor, even though she might be court-martialed for it. She had to.

Planetfall and Strife

Dauntless loped along toward the rocky world where they planned to meet with the strangers, holding her acceleration down so as not to leave the aliens behind and maintaining a safe degree of separation, on the order of a little over a million kilometers, just to be on the safe side. Pretty much everypony agreed that it would be best to let the aliens grow more comfortable with the presence of the Equestrian ship, and vice versa, before either side dipped into firing range.

That, however, was almost the only thing everypony agreed on. At their current speed, it would take a little under two hours to reach their destination, and it was starting to look like the expedition’s leaders would waste all of that time arguing.

“Look,” Rainbow Dash said, irritation coloring her voice. She was starting to get louder again. “I’m not saying we’ll start shooting, ‘cause we won’t unless there’s a good reason. I’m just saying you should have my Wardens along, just in case they decide to. It’s the whole freaking reason we’re here!”

“Yes, I know that’s what you’re saying, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy responded with elaborate patience that showed her own emotions as clearly as Rainbow’s rising volume. The rainbow-maned Warden visibly ground her teeth at the other pegasus’s tone. “What I’m saying is that I’d rather not have seventy ponies surrounding me who are all on a hair trigger and might decide that dropping a writing quill means ‘blow them all away!’ I want to keep the initial party small and try not to threaten our new friends, which means I don’t need dozens of hulking armored thugs with tanks and golems all pointing huge guns at them!”

Rainbow growled. “Yeah, and I’m saying I’d rather have enough force nearby to keep you all safe!”

Fluttershy started to reply, but Rarity cut her off. “That is enough, both of you!” The unicorn’s voice cracked like a whip across the table, drawing sharp looks from both pegasi. She glared from one to the other, blue eyes flashing. “Shouting at one another is accomplishing precisely nothing, darlings. We’ve been here for twenty minutes now and you two have taken up all of it. I am sorry, but our time is not unlimited, so I’d like to propose a motion; that the two of you don’t talk directly to one another for the duration of this meeting. Perhaps then we could actually get somewhere. All in favor?” Twilight raised a hoof immediately at the question, feeling a surge of gratitude toward the other unicorn. She knew that, as the expedition leader, she really should have cut her two friends off before now, but she’d just been so hoping that they might be able to work out some of their animosity. It wasn’t working at all, instead they seemed to be just getting angrier and more frustrated with one another.

Applejack raised her hoof with a sigh, drawing a fulminating glare from her fellow Warden which the orange mare resolutely ignored. Pinkie tentatively raised a hoof as well. Fluttershy sighed and raised her own hoof, and finally Rainbow rolled her eyes, huffed, and did the same. “Fine. Whatever. You guys talk, but I’m not gonna shut up; I really do want to send the whole ground force down with us.”

Fluttershy started to respond, but Rarity poked her sharply in the side and shook her head. The unicorn turned to face Rainbow. “Darling, I can understand your concern, I really can, but honestly, seventy soldiers in battle armor, twelve technogolems, and ten light tanks sounds like a bit much for a diplomatic meeting, don’t you think?”

Applejack answered before Rainbow could. “It does seem a mite overkill, ‘specially since y’all are only gonna send down, what, ten diplomats?” Rainbow aimed another glare at the orange mare.

“And four technicians,” Fluttershy replied. “We’ll need them to manage our translating equipment.”

“This group of aliens hasn’t been hostile since they realized we were fighting the same enemy,” Twilight added, quietly. She’d been trying to stay out of the center of the discussion, mostly because, as Commander, she knew her words would carry authority. She’d been planning on letting them all hash it out and choosing her course based on their advice, but she was starting to re-evaluate that path. “It’s possible that guards won’t be necessary at all.”

“Yeah, it’s possible,” Rainbow shot back, “It’s also possible that they’re not picking a fight ‘cause they know we’re stronger than them. If they see a few of us on the ground, they might decide to try and grab us to see if they can get some of our tech! Look, after the way that fight went, we look strong, and they’re acting nice. I want us to keep looking strong so they stay nice.”

“Rainbow, dear, I understand where you’re coming from,” Rarity said in a conciliatory tone, “but I think there’s more involved here than just strength, and in this case I’m inclined to agree with Fluttershy. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and I think we’d be better off being sweet in our first meeting than being harsh.”

The cyan cyberpegasus ground her teeth in frustration, eyes narrowing. She spoke slowly, emphasizing her words. “Look. This is a huge risk you’re talking about taking. Listen to me, here, ‘cause I know about taking risks, and taking risks when you don’t have to is stupid. I’ve learned that the hard way; you take risks with ponies’ lives, and sooner or later you wind up getting them killed.” Twilight was watching her friend’s face closely as she spoke, and she saw the flash of guilt and grief the pegasus tried to conceal. “Please, you guys, listen to somepony who’s learned that lesson so you don’t have to learn it the same way.”

Twilight bit her lip, and interjected herself into the discussion again. “Rainbow, we’re not ignoring your advice. It just may be that this is less of a risk than you’re thinking; these creatures know we’ve helped them, they have to, and they responded positively to our first-contact attempt. I agree with Fluttershy that we have a little good faith to build on, and showing a little trust now may pay off in the long run.”

“Look, sugarcube,” Applejack said, interrupting her fellow Warden, “Let’s try a compromise here. Fluttershy, you’re sending fourteen ponies?” The yellow pegasus nodded. “Howsabout we send down fourteen Wardens. That’s one for each. Plus one golem to keep ‘em company in case these critters feel like gettin’ frisky. It’s a decent bit of firepower, but not so many that y’all’ll feel surrounded. How’s that sound?”

Fluttershy fidgeted. “Oh, it still seems like so many, though, especially since they’re so big with their armor on. And those golems… they don’t give the right impression at all, with the guns and claws, they look so mean…”

Rarity spoke up again, interrupting Fluttershy. “Your armor squads are five, right? How about two squads. That's ten Wardens, and no golem. I’m concerned about having one in a potentially tense situation like this could become.”

Rainbow eyed the white unicorn angrily. “Are you suggesting my golem handlers can’t take the stress?”

Rarity shook her head. “No, darling, not at all. But I know better than anypony how finicky those things can be at times, and I think having a technogolem in a possibly hair-trigger situation could possibly be one of those unnecessary risks you were just talking about.”

The pegasus stared for another few seconds before she dropped her gaze in acquiescence. “Fine. Ten troopers, plus me. If there’s only ten, then I’m going armored. And we have the golems ready for hot-drop, and all the other troopers armored up aboard ship.”

Applejack nodded. “That sounds fair to me.”

Fluttershy fidgeted again, a reluctant expression on her face. “Oh, I don’t know… do we really need armored soldiers here? We’ve gotten off to such a good start with these people, I’d hate for them to think we don’t trust them…”

“They did fire on us at the beginning of the battle,” Twilight said. “They stopped later, but they were firing at us for a bit. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to have a small escort, just in case.”

“If you do wind up needin’ ‘em, you’re gonna need ‘em right away,” Applejack added. “We’ll keep the rest on alert, but havin’ a small group that don’t have to come all the way down from the ship and can cover you if things go all pear-shaped ain’t a bad notion.”

Fluttershy sighed. “Oh, all right. But they’d better behave!” She shot a hard look at Rainbow Dash.

The other pegasus gave a crisp nod. “You won’t even know we’re there.”

Applejack nodded too. “Our troops’ll stay out of your way, sugarcube.” She pushed back from the table. “I’ll go get the shuttles prepped. Have your ponies send their gizmos down to the port hangar, okay, Fluttershy?”

“Wait… shuttles?” Fluttershy interjected, before Applejack could get out of her chair. “As in more than one? I thought we were only sending one.”

Applejack chuckled. “Can only fit so much in a Kestrel, darlin’, and battle armor takes up a lot of space. Ten troopers in armor, fourteen a’ your ponies plus all their equipment and the six of us won’t all fit in one, not by a long shot. That equipment of yours is gonna fill one shuttle by itself and then some.”

“But our invitation only showed one shuttle!” The pegasus protested, ignoring Rainbow’s eye-roll. “It’s important to establish that we’re honest; we don’t want to say we were sending one shuttle and then send two!”

The orange-coated mare chuckled again. “Now don’t get your knickers in a twist, Fluttershy. Two shuttles ain’t exactly a squadron; we’re not exactly gonna be crowdin’ ‘em down there with a whole empty planet to walk on.”

“I’m reasonably certain it will be all right, dear,” Rarity said, patting Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Honestly, if they decide to take offense at us sending two shuttles instead of one, then they’re likely to take offense at nearly anything we do anyway. We can work past it, you and I.”

Fluttershy looked unhappy, but she nodded, albeit reluctantly. Twilight hid a smile, delighted that they’d managed to work out a compromise that both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were okay with. It gave her a sense of hope, both for her mission and for her friends.

Now it was Pinkie’s turn to speak up. She’d perked up considerably since the tension between Rainbow and Fluttershy had abated somewhat. “Oh, Twilight! Twilight, Twilight! You’ve got to let me come along too! Oo! Oo! This is exactly the kind of thing that I’m here for!” The pink-coated earth pony was getting more and more excited as she spoke, bouncing in place on her chair. “I’ve got some stories and they’re so neat, but this is the biggest big story ever! We’re making friends from space! Oh, please please please let me bring some party favors!” She was almost vibrating in place by now. “I know they’ll have to be small, we can’t have a great big party yet and I don’t have all the things I need anyway because Applejack wouldn’t let me bring the stuff I wanted…”

“You wanted to bring six tons of streamers, Pinkie Pie.” Applejack’s voice was level and unamused. “Six. Tons. Darn tootin’ I wouldn’t let you bring that much stuff.”

“Aw, Applejack, you’re no fun.”

“Yep. Rainbow says the same, often enough. But I still ain’t bringing six tons of streamers on a spaceship. Rather have six tons of food, or ammo, or a spare missile.” The orange earth pony gave her pink friend a hard look. “More like a dozen spare missiles considerin’ all the other stuff you wanted to bring. No party stuff. Space is gonna be tight as it is.”

Pinke Pie pouted briefly before turning her attention back to Twilight. “But even if I don’t have my party stuff, I’ve still got me and cambot here!” She waved a hoof at the floating lenseye, beaming happily. “Even if he can’t give me Rocket Number Nine, he can still record this, and we need to record it!”

Twilight blinked. She’d never heard anypony but Pinkie refer to a lenseye as ‘cambot’, and she had no idea what Rocket Number Nine was supposed to be, but that only set her back for a moment. “Of course, Pinkie. This is an historic moment, and it needs to be documented. Besides,” the Commander flashed a grin, “I’m pretty sure all the rest of us are going, so it wouldn’t be fair to leave you out!”

Pinkie hopped out of her chair and started bouncing happily around the table, her ever-patient lenseye trailing calmly in her wake.

With the logjam between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy broken up and the issue of personnel arranged, the rest of the meeting turned toward preparations for the contact mission. Twilight had helped conjure several of the holodaemons and less flexible datadaemons that the diplomatic team would be using, and both Fluttershy and Rarity wanted her advice about configuring and instructing them, while Rainbow and Applejack conferred about which squad they would take.

Despite the ponies deliberately holding down their acceleration, Dauntless arrived at the rendezvous location well before the alien fleet. Twilight made the snap decision to go ahead and send the contact expedition to the surface; they could get their equipment set up and ready while they waited, and Fluttershy thought it would look good for the Equestrian delegation to be willing to wait for their new friends to arrive. Twilight just thought it would be more efficient to get the translator systems set up instead of sitting in orbit twiddling their hooves.

In light of Fluttershy’s dislike of the Wardens, and the assumption that her team likely shared her views, Applejack had elected to load all of the soldiers and most of the diplomatic gear on one shuttle, and the six Elements, the diplomats, and the rest of the gear on the other. Thus, Twilight found herself riding packed in with her friends and the experts, with the rest of the shuttle’s cargo space occupied by the various sundries they hadn’t been able to fit aboard the other Kestrel with the battle armor squad. It wasn’t terribly comfortable; they’d had to pack the seats in close together, and Twilight was rubbing one shoulder against Applejack and the other against a linguistics expert named Jabber Wocky as they descended. Rainbow Dash, enclosed in her customized suit of pegasus battle armor, rode in a clamp in the cargo area, next to the equipment.

Pegasus armor was different from the earth pony armor that Twilight had seen upon boarding. The earth pony suits were massive, plated in heavy, dense armor. They’d been designed to draw on their wearers’ innate magic, enhancing the strength of the battle suits to tremendous levels and allowing them to carry huge amounts of armor and extremely heavy weapons. Earth pony suits were walking tanks, able to be armed with an assortment of weapons only a step down from the cannons of the Scorpion light tanks and able to resist a similar level of firepower, while still moving almost as quickly and easily as an unarmored pony. The pegasus suits projected a different image entirely. Like the unicorn suits, they lacked the enormous, crushing strength of the earth pony suits and were more lightly armed and armored, but they used a direct interface with the wearer instead of the feedback system employed on the earth pony suits. Instead of moving in response to the wearer, they effectively became part of the wearer, the pony inside moving the suit’s legs as though they were her own. An experienced pegasus or unicorn armored trooper could move her suit with almost frightening grace. Both pegasus and unicorn suits incorporated arcane shield systems to boost their protection, though the pegasus suits’ shields couldn’t be strengthened by the pony inside. Their power cells didn’t last nearly as long as a unicorn or earth pony suit’s, either.

The reason the pegasus suits needed those shields was that they couldn’t be completely enclosed. Twilight could see Rainbow’s wings folded against her armored sides, the cyan feathers encased in the reflective shimmer of her armor’s shields and the leading edges guarded by armature-like field projectors that both generated the shield enclosing her wings and created a blade of disruptive force in front of them. While the pegasus armor wasn’t as robust or well-armed as the earth pony suits, and lacked the endurance of unicorn armor, it compensated by amplifying the greatest advantage of its wearer; her ability to fly. Pegasus armor was fully flight-capable, and incorporated a series of linear thrust generators that an experienced user could employ to perform maneuvers that were flatly impossible for an unsuited pegasus. They could fly in space, perform higher-G maneuvers that would kill an unarmored pony, and even fly faster than they could naturally, and the disrupter fields on the suit’s wings provided a deadly close-in weapon. Wearing her armor, Rainbow Dash could actually outpace the Kestrel she currently rode in if she chose to. In an assault landing, she and the other armored pegasi would be doing exactly that, diving in to secure a landing zone for their more numerous unicorn and earth pony brethren.

Rainbow’s personal suit was modified slightly over standard-issue pegasus armor. There were openings in its forehooves that would allow the pegasus to extend her cybernetic claws and additional power packs that made the suit heavier, which was only possible because of Rainbow’s enhanced strength. She’d been freakishly strong for a pegasus even before her implants; now she was substantially stronger than even most earth ponies, and her armor had been modified to take that into account. The suit also had an extra gun on its back, mounted on an independent turret. A resident datadaemon that the cyberpegasus generally kept in her interface implant aided her in targeting, enabling the Warden commander to fire at two targets simultaneously. The thing had been conjured specifically for her decades ago, and like Twilight’s holodaemon, it had molded itself to Rainbow’s thoughts, giving her tremendous benefits when she was wearing her armor.

Rainbow currently had her helmet open, the upper part of the armor’s metal head lifted up and back to lay against the pegasus’s armored neck, leaving her face free and allowing her to breathe the more pleasant air of the shuttle interior. Rainbow’s expression was one of concentration, and she had three screens projected in front of her, her armor systems doing what Twilight liked to do and generating an illusory holoscreen for her to view. Twilight could see a sensor projection from Dauntless on one of the Warden’s screens, showing her that the strangers were approaching orbit. They wouldn’t have to wait long.

Fluttershy and Rarity were speaking to two of their linguists and their senior technician, the conversation sounding a bit bizarre to Twilight’s ears. Fluttershy had learned a surprising number of languages during her career as a diplomat, and the linguists were clearly comfortable in multiple tongues as well. The three multilingual ponies shifted languages repeatedly as they spoke, sometimes in mid-sentence. Rarity and the tech were clearly annoyed by this; the roboticist only knew a couple of different languages, and couldn’t shift as quickly as the others, but she compensated by speaking “tech” nearly as well as Twilight did. She and Fluttershy were going over potential setups for their data gear, discussing how best to adapt it to different phonemic structures and brainstorming about how much assistance they could expect the aliens to provide in translating their language.

“All right everypony,” the pilot’s voice came over the cabin speakers, “we’ll be landing in about two minutes. You’d better suit up.”

The conversation about the translating systems broke up, and everypony picked up the breath masks that they’d brought onboard. A further survey of the planetary environment as the Dauntless approached had showed that the surface temperature was a little on the low side of comfortable and wouldn’t require any special suits. There wasn’t any kind of corrosive gas or skin-absorbed toxins in the air either, though the planet’s atmosphere wasn’t breathable. The ponies would be fine with simple breath masks that covered their mouths, noses, and eyes, with a small tank worn strapped to the foreleg that supplied breathable air. Everypony had donned the air tanks before climbing into their seats, but they’d all left the masks off, since they weren’t terribly comfortable to wear. Now they each hooked the strap of their mask over the backs of their heads, each making sure to press the mask against their face so the adhesive gel on the rim could form a seal against their skin. Twilight was quite proud of that gel, actually; it didn’t stick to the hair of a pony’s coat and didn’t leave residue behind when pulled off, but it did push through the hair to form an airtight seal against a pony’s skin. It needed regular cleaning, sure, but it was otherwise fairly low-maintenance and non-failure-prone.

Rainbow watched the rest of the shuttle’s passengers closely, not dismissing the screens she was looking at or doing anything to secure her own air supply. When everypony had gotten their masks secured, the pegasus shut down her screens and lifted an armored foreleg to point at one of the diplomats. “You.”

The diplomat blinked, her ears swiveling back and her eyes getting big with uncertain fear at being the center of the Warden Commander’s attention. “Um. Me?”

“Yeah, you.” Rainbow lowered her foreleg. “You didn’t secure your mask after you put it on. Check it. Your mask is your life out there.”

“Oh.” The unlucky unicorn lifted her forehoof and pressed her mask more firmly against her face, then pushed at the rim to make sure it didn’t come off. “Sorry, I’m not used to these.”

“You’d better get used to it,” Rainbow told her, ignoring the apology. “If you’d gone out there with a loose mask, you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything until you passed out, ‘cause I bet if you don’t check your seal you wouldn’t be checking your gauges either. Would’ve had all your breathing air leak out and then just boom, you start gasping and drop. How do you think it would’ve looked to those aliens to have somepony go unconscious while they’re trying to talk to her?” The pegasus glared, her rosy eyes flashing as the diplomat cringed. “Worse, how do you think it would’ve looked to me or my Wardens? One of the ponies we’re supposed to keep safe just drops. We wouldn’t even know at first if you were unconscious or dead. My first thought would be that they got you somehow. That would be awesome, huh, starting another war because you didn’t bother to take a second to secure your freaking mask.”

“That’s enough, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy interrupted acerbically. “She just made a mistake, there’s no reason to blast her for it.”

Rainbow transferred her glare to the yellow pegasus. “It was a stupid mistake that could’ve caused major problems. Heck yeah there’s a reason to blast her for it. There’s a reason to blast you for it, too, since she’s one of yours and you didn’t notice it.”

“That’s enough, Rainbow,” Twilight interjected, trying to head off another fight. “You’ve made your point, now back off.”

Rainbow snorted derisively and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. I just didn’t want you guys blaming me when one of your talky-ponies passed out and my troops reacted to it.” Rainbow’s ears folded back, and the helmet faceplate resting on her neck slid smoothly forward, locking into place with the non-retractable rest of the helmet that enclosed the pegasus’s chin and jaw and forming a smooth, uninterrupted armored surface that covered the mare’s entire face. Amusingly, the top of the helmet was painted in stripes that matched Rainbow’s polychromatic mane. “But whatever,” she continued, her voice now coming through the armor’s external speakers, “I mean, if you actually want to start a fight, I’m totally game. You should have let me bring the rest of my troops if you wanted that, though...”

“Rainbow!” Twilight snapped, “I said that is enough! You pointed out a mistake, the mistake was corrected. Now drop it.”

Rainbow Dash paused for a long second, before grumbling “Yes, Commander,” and falling silent.

Twilight shook her head as the shuttle’s nose lifted in its final landing approach. Rainbow was not used to not being the pony in charge, and it was clearly proving difficult for her to adapt. The unicorn sympathized, but at the same time she couldn’t afford to have the Warden disrupting things on a regular basis. Twilight made a quick note with her holodaemon; she would seek Rainbow out next time they were both off-shift and have a conversation about the chain of command. Rainbow understood the concept of command, and perhaps if Twilight talked to her about it she could help her friend adapt.

The Kestrel settled smoothly to the ground, the pilot setting the shuttle down so gently that Twilight didn’t even feel a bump. The floor swayed slightly as the Kestrel’s landing legs adjusted to keep the shuttle level before locking down, and the rear hatch opened with a soft hiss.

Rainbow started to disembark first, but paused on the ramp. The armored pegasus turned and gestured for Twilight to precede her, saying, “After you, Commander.”

Twilight nodded, swallowed hard, and stepped past her friend. Her heart thudded with excitement in her chest and her breath came quickly, and she gingerly set foot on the dust of the alien world, the first pony ever to step on a planet outside her home system. The dust was dry, and fine, and Twilight was curiously disappointed to find that it was a dull, boring grey-brown color. It felt sort of halfway between dirt and sand, not quite like anything she’d ever stepped on before.

Twilight walked a short distance away from the shuttle, noting the curious way her hooves slid in the lifeless dust, and gazed out at the horizon. They’d picked a relatively flat spot to set down on, and the land around them was a mass of low, rounded hills. The unicorn also noticed as she walked that she felt curiously light on her feet; the gravity here was a bit lower than the homeworld’s, something that felt different from what she’d expected. She’d been out to the moon, and to some of the outsystem planets, but this place’s gravity wasn’t so light that she felt like she was in danger of floating away if she jumped.

She turned around, grinning goofily with the sheer exhilaration of walking on a truly alien world. The other ponies were already debarking, Rainbow hovering several meters off the ground and watching as the second shuttle came in to land, the others spreading out around the landed Kestrel. Pinkie was watching Twilight, grinning widely at the expression on the unicorn’s face, and Twilight was sheepishly aware that the pink pony was almost certainly recording. Several of the diplomats were bouncing on their hooves, marveling at the feel of the light gravity. From their antics, Twilight suspected that they’d never been offplanet before; Rainbow’s harsh reprimand suddenly didn’t seem so unnecessary. She wondered if Fluttershy had sent them to hostile-environment training. Surely she had.

Twilight decided to find out. She walked up to one of the diplomats, a rather plain-looking earth pony stallion with a dark blue coat. “Excuse me, but is this your first time on another world?”

He looked up with a happy smile and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve all been through the training, but there wasn’t any time for us to go on any offworld expeditions.”

Twilight nodded absently. Good, it was just a momentary lapse instead of poor preparation. She relaxed a bit, and chided herself for thinking that her friend would have been any less prepared than she herself was.

She glanced over at the other shuttle, settling on its landing legs and opening its ramp. Several dozen Warden recon and weapons drones lifted away from the shuttle, starting to spread out before they vanished behind the rippling distortion of mirage fields, as had probably already happened with the first shuttle. The Wardens exited from the ramp, and to Twilight’s surprise from both side doors as well, sweeping the horizon quickly. The three pegasi on board (an unusually large number, from what Twilight knew; most Warden armored squads only had one, if they had an aerial component at all) flew up to stand on the tops of the shuttles, heads moving restlessly as they looked all around. Twilight could feel tiny threads of arcane energy flicking between the Wardens, and tuned herself into their communications via the shuttle’s relays.

“…on’t see any activity, Boss.”

“Looks clear.”

“Right.” Rainbow’s voice cut across the Warden’s reports. “Okay, you,” the pegasus sent a datapulse that contained the ID’s of the three unicorns in the squad, “help the geeks unload their gear. The rest of you continue survey and tac analysis. Fluttershy thinks everything’ll be candy and roses, but we’ve gotta be ready in case she’s wrong.” Affirmation pulses pinged back to the pegasus in response. The four earth ponies moved out from the shuttles in a square, watching the terrain around them while the unicorns ducked back into the shuttle.

The power-armored unicorns re-emerged, carrying large pallets of equipment suspended in the soft glow of telekinetic fields. The loads would have been too much for an ordinary unicorn to handle, but where pegasus armor incorporated flight assistance systems, unicorn armor instead carried arcane amplifier matrices. The three mares carried two large, heavy pallets each, and it wasn’t a substantial load for any of them.

The Wardens set the equipment pallets on the ground and turned to retrieve more, while Fluttershy’s technicians busied themselves unpacking the gear. Twilight wasn’t sure what most of it was for; there were screens, data-hubs, cameras, and all manner of input devices ranging from optical to arcane to physical keyboards, but she couldn’t really see how it all fit together. From the way the techs were shifting things around, most of it was probably modular, designed so it could be arranged in different ways to accomplish different things.

She was watching the unicorn Wardens carry out the next load when a completely unexpected voice spoke up right next to her ear. “Hey, Twi, check the feed from the ship.”

Twilight started so hard she nearly levitated in place, spinning around to face the blank visage of Rainbow’s helmet. The pegasus had managed to come up behind her in total silence, which was an incredible feat to manage in power armor. The smooth, blank face of the helmet made Twilight jump again, her heart hammering in her chest.

Rainbow didn’t even snicker. “Check the feed from the ship,” she repeated, in a quiet, urgent tone.

Twilight blinked, then a chill gripped her chest. Rainbow would have at least chuckled at startling her friend unless something was wrong, and from that tone in her voice it had to be serious. She quickly linked in to the shuttle’s net, pulling up a feed from Dauntless and projecting it onto a screen in front of her.

Her belly lurched. The alien fleet had taken up orbit near the Equestrian cruiser, and that meant Dauntless had a great view of the shuttles launching, headed for the planetary surface. Not just one or two… but over a hundred. Twilight fought to hold in a gasp at the sight of the swarm of icons descending on them.

“We’ve gotta go, Twi,” Rainbow said urgently. “They’re trying a grab, just like I warned you they would. We need to get out of here, now.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, Rainbow,” Twilight replied in a similarly urgent tone, trying to hide her concern. “We have a little time to make a decision while they’re descending. Check with your Wardens on the ship, make sure they’re ready to go if they’re needed.” The unicorn turned and raised her voice. “Fluttershy? Could I speak to you for a moment?”

“Twilight,” Rainbow said, not moving, “ they’re ready, but if they have to drop against an enemy who’s already here, it could get really bloody. We need to leave, and we need to do it now.”

“Let’s take a moment to assess,” Twilight responded as Fluttershy trotted over. “If need be, we can have everypony run and take off before they land. We could leave the gear behind if we had to.”

“Yes, Twilight? What did you need?” Fluttershy shot a quick glance at Rainbow, but didn’t say anything. Rainbow Dash, for her part, backed up a pace, and Twilight could sense communications over the Warden net.

“Fluttershy, we may have a problem. Take a look at this.” Twilight moved her illusionary screen so the other pegasus could look at it.

Fluttershy peered at the screen for a moment before what she was looking at registered, and she blinked in surprise. “Oh. Oh my. That’s quite a delegation!”

“I don’t think it’s a delegation at all.” Rainbow interjected flatly. “It looks like an assault force to me.”

Fluttershy gave the other pegasus a withering glare. “You would think that.” She turned back to Twilight and her voice softened again. “Look, they weren’t acting unified, so it would make sense that there would be multiple delegations involved. I wasn’t expecting this many, but it’s not that much of a surprise.”

“You nearly flipped out because we were sending two shuttles instead of one, and now there’s a freaking hundred of the things coming at us and you’re fine with it?” Rainbow sounded aghast.

“I’m a little surprised, but not too worried.” Fluttershy’s soft voice sounded surprisingly calm. “There’s not more than one shuttle coming from each ship, is there?”

Twilight ran a quick backtrace on the sensor feed, and was surprised to discover that Fluttershy was correct. “No, it appears that the ships that launched shuttles only launched one each. It looks like the ones launching are in the middle of the alien fleet, too; there aren’t any launching from the edges.”

The yellow pegasus nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. They’re not as unified as we are; I expect that these are group leaders or figures important to particular subgroups. That there are this many is going to be challenging, but it’s hardly unexpected.”

The armored pegasus shook her head. “You’re ignoring that there’s a hundred shuttles coming down at us. They could have whole regiments on the way down. That’s way more than I was expecting to have to deal with, and there’s no way I can keep you all safe from that many.” She turned to face Twilight. “Twilight, please, take Fluttershy, Rarity, A.J. and Pinkie and head back up. If you still want to try to meet them, I’ll stay here with my troops to try and guard the geeks while they talk, but I want you guys out of danger.”

Fluttershy’s eyes flashed and she bristled a bit, probably because Rainbow was referring to her specialists as ‘geeks’. “What, and leave you as the pony in charge?”

Rainbow’s head drew back. “What? No! I mean, I’d be in charge of the Wardens, but I already am, sort of. I just…”

“…Wanted to be the only one in charge so you could start shooting again. I remember that dragon. And what you did with his head.”

Rainbow darted forward, getting right in Fluttershy’s face, her wings spread threateningly with disruption fields crackling in front of them. “I don’t care what the dragons said,” she snarled, her voice thick with anger, “He was not there for any kind of talk, or anything like that. I had to do what I did. The townsponies backed me up on that.”

“Maybe because seeing what you did frightened them. Intimidated them. Like you’re trying to do to me right now.” The other pegasus’s voice was calm.

“I did not…”

“Stop! Both of you!” Twilight interrupted, using the same tone Rarity had used in the conference room. The two pegasi paused. “Fluttershy, how confident are you that they’re not hostile?”

Fluttershy shrugged. “I can’t be positive, of course, but they’ve seemed reasonable, and like I said, the large number of shuttles isn’t surprising considering how we’ve seen them act.”

Twilight nodded. “Rainbow, we are going to wait to see what they do.” She held up a hoof to forestall the objection she knew was coming. “I’m not ignoring you, and I am taking your advice into account, but this is my decision and it’s final. No more argument.”

Rainbow was silent for a pair of heartbeats. “Twilight… I’m gonna ask you to reconsider. They’re gonna outnumber us by a stupid amount once they land. These guys were shooting at us at first. I don’t want all five of you down here where you could get hurt if they decide to do it again. If they trap us, I’ll get us out… but I don’t know for sure that none of you will get hurt in the process.”

“We’re staying here, Rainbow.”

The armored pegasus went silent again for an uncomfortably long time before nodding curtly and turning away. She flew up to the top of one of the shuttles, settling there and clearly directing her ponies. Twilight turned back to Fluttershy. “I hope you’re right, Fluttershy. I want these aliens to be peaceful too, but…”

Fluttershy was looking at Rainbow Dash, perched on top of the shuttle. “Twilight… keep an eye on her. She’s worried and angry, and when she gets like that… it can be bad.”

“Angry? At me?” Twilight frowned. “I know she’s not pleased that I’m not following her advice, but I didn’t think she was angry at me...”

Fluttershy’s voice was soft. “She’s not angry with you. She’s just angry. She’s always angry. I’m not sure if it started before Duran died or not, but it’s always there, and has been for a very long time.” She shook herself. “I need to talk to my ponies. How long do I have?”

Twilight blinked. She hadn’t noticed Rainbow being angrier than usual… (well, except for blowing up at Fluttershy, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary when the two of them were in close proximity) but if Fluttershy wasn’t exaggerating, then it had been going on so long that she’d probably be seeing it as normal. She glanced at her screen, pulling up the vectors to get an ETA. “You’ve still got about twenty minutes; they’re not coming in particularly fast.” Fluttershy nodded and trotted back to her specialists, and Twilight turned to gaze thoughtfully at Rainbow Dash.

The minutes ticked by quickly as the diplomats hustled to assemble and organize their gear, and the Wardens stood around the shuttles, waiting. Finally, the alien landers appeared in the sky, a rash of dark spots against the bluish sky. They grew rapidly, finally settling in a huge wave that sent dust billowing out. Twilight was glad for the breather she wore; she’d have been coughing and choking on the dust otherwise.

She noticed as the ships began to settle that traffic on the Warden network had picked up considerably. Curious, she used her command access to tie herself into the Warden tactical link. Twilight blinked, realizing that she was actually sporting a tag in the overlay, and felt a chill when she realized what it was.

Twilight Sparkle was tagged Disable/Capture. So was Rarity. A Capture tag hung on Fluttershy.

“…sure you want to do this, boss?” The Warden sergeant who led the squad was asking.

“I really don’t,” Rainbow’s strained voice replied. “But if it’s the only way to keep ‘em safe…”

“Unknowns grounded,” one of the pegasi observed. The mare was tied into the recon drones’ feed. “Ramps opening.”

“I guess now’s when we find out.” Rainbow said. There was silence for a moment, and Twilight wondered if she was misinterpreting those tactical tags. She dearly hoped so. Then Rainbow spat a curse. “They’re armed. All of ’em. Dammit to ice. Okay troops, we’re gonna get everypony out of here whether they want to go or not. Hold off until they get to this range,” a line appeared in the overlay, “then execute the objective. Maximum force, maximum speed, go for surprise and shock, then grab and go. Big D'll nail their shuttles from orbit with the PD lasers if they try to follow, but 'till then we can't risk a shot that close. Let’s see if we can make them back off while we evac, ‘cause there’s way too many of ‘em to fight straight-up.” Twilight’s tag updated, indicating she was the primary target.

Twilight finally found her voice. “Cancel that order!” She used her command override to cancel the tags on herself and the other ponies, and to erase the line Rainbow had marked. She also cut Rainbow’s transmitter out of the squad network, to keep her from subverting Twilight further. “Do not fire!” The unicorn spun to face the armored pegasus, who was still perched atop one of the shuttles. “Rainbow Dash, you are relieved of duty! You two,” she pinged two of the pegasi perched on the shuttle with their commander, “take her into custody and take her back to the Dauntless aboard the second shuttle. She’s confined to quarters once you get back on the ship.” Twilight had read up on command procedures and military discipline for months before embarking on this voyage, but she’d never dreamed she’d need to apply it this way! She was fighting chills and trembling with adrenaline at the idea that Rainbow had been planning to... disable her. “Maximum force”... why did Rainbow want to hurt her friends?!

The two pegasi that Twilight had told to arrest Rainbow looked at each other, and Twilight felt another chill. The rainbow-maned mare was a hero to the Wardens, all of them, but especially the pegasi. She was the model of a fierce pegasus warrior that many of the Warden aerial soldiers sought to emulate. It was more than likely that those two mares were fiercely, personally loyal to their commander... and the probability that they’d obey Twilight’s orders over Rainbow’s was scarily low.

Rainbow jumped off of the shuttle, gliding down to land in front of Twilight, and the Warden pegasi followed, forming a line behind their commander. The cyan pegasus pinged Twilight’s link with a private comm request, and when the unicorn accepted, the Warden’s voice was soft. “Twilight, don’t do this. Let me get you out of here. Let me...”

“Stop! I’m not interested in letting you do anything more, lieutenant.” Tears were pricking at Twilight’s eyes at her friend’s sudden, shocking betrayal, and the feeling made her voice harsh. “Get on that shuttle, now. Do not speak another word. You two! Do as I told you!”

Rainbow didn’t move. Her helmet stared blankly at Twilight, and the unicorn wondered what emotion it was concealing behind its smooth visage. Pain? Embarrassment at being caught? Pleading for understanding?

...Rage?

Twilight was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that Rainbow was standing very close to her. Very close. The unicorn wasn’t accustomed to thinking of her friend this way... but she was probably the deadliest pony in Equestria, possibly even including the Princesses. Rainbow Dash had spent close to a century fighting off the most dangerous creatures Equestria’s borders saw, and in that time she had become an absolutely deadly killer. The combination of her augmented strength and her natural lightning speed was beyond formidable, as was the ruthless attitude that drove it. When she went into a fight, she did so with the intention of ending it, permanently. The news reports on the creatures Rainbow had killed suddenly scrolled through Twilight’s brain, and it was a sobering list. Topping it was the incident Fluttershy had referred to minutes ago, when Rainbow was alleged to have killed a mature adult dragon, singlehoofedly, only a few years ago. There was a lot of speculation about that, including many theories that it hadn’t actually happened, or that it had been different from what the Warden press release had claimed. Rainbow herself hadn’t talked about it at all, which honestly lent evidence to the “it never happened” theory, but on reflection, Twilight could believe it, regardless of whether it was true or not. The Warden Commander was probably capable of it.

Twilight was also aware, keenly aware, of the armor the pegasus wore. Not just the guns, which at the moment weren’t pointed at her, but the arcane dampers, the counterspells woven into its structure, the magical sinks built into its design... if Rainbow decided to go for her, Twilight wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop the pegasus. Not before Rainbow could get to grips with her, at least, and if that happened then it would all be over.

Rainbow was still for what seemed like forever. Finally, after several frozen moments where the diplomatic team and the other Elements stared in mute, uncomprehending shock, the pegasus’s armored head drooped. She turned, silently, closing down the channel she’d spoken to Twilight on without speaking further, and started walking slowly to the shuttle.

The Wardens were utterly still. None of them moved, except for several uneasy glances at each other. When Rainbow was halfway to the shuttle, the squad leader’s voice came over the network. “You heard the Commander.” The sergeant’s words were spoken softly, her voice unusually deep for a mare. “You two, escort Comm... Lieutenant Dash back to the ship. Move it.”

The pegasi traded another uneasy look. “M- Sergeant, are you sure about that?” One of them asked.

“I absolutely am. Go. Now.” The sergeant’s voice was controlled, but she was clearly not happy about this state of affairs.

Reluctantly, the two armored pegasi turned and followed their former leader into the shuttle. The ramp closed, and the Kestrel silently lifted off, turning to point its nose skyward. Twilight sighed in relief, though she still felt spikes of guilt and disbelief at what had happened. “Thank you, sergeant.”

The Warden sergeant, who Twilight realized was one of the armored earth ponies and whose ID tag read Wintergreen, opened a private channel to her. “Don’t you dare thank me for that, Ma’m. That mare is like family to me, and I hated doing that. Commander Dash was wrong, but that doesn’t mean you needed to destroy everything she’s built.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight frowned at the armored mare, puzzled.

Wintergreen lifted a foreleg, pointing, and Twilight turned to see what she was indicating. The Warden sergeant was pointing straight at a wide-eyed, shocked-looking Pinkie Pie. Or more precisely, at the lenseye hovering over her shoulder. “When that recording gets home, the Wardens are done, ma’am. The press will rip us apart, and the ponies who have always hated us,” the sergeant didn’t mention Fluttershy, but Twilight knew she had to be thinking about her, “will finally have the justification they’ve been looking for to disband us completely. So don’t you dare thank me for doing my job when you’ve just destroyed the organization I’ve given my entire life to.”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “So I should have just stood by and let her destroy this contact operation, and hurt me and Rarity?”

“You could have handled it with more discretion…” Sergeant Wintergreen’s voice on their private channel was interrupted.

“Hurt you, ma’am?” The question came from one of the unicorn troopers, and Twilight realized she’d been speaking out loud rather than sending her words via the link, which meant that everypony on the field had been hearing every word she’d spoken. “That was never an objective. The Comman... the Lieutenant would have skinned us if we’d hurt anypony.”

Twilight turned to face the Warden who’d spoken, knowing she should be paying attention to the approaching aliens but needing to restore order in her own ponies first. “Was I or was I not tagged ‘disable,’ trooper?”

“You were, ma’am,” The soldier’s voice was confused. “Ma’am... disable isn’t neutralize. We were just supposed to hit you with endust to keep you from fighting while we got you on the shuttles and evacced.” The unicorn glanced at her sergeant before continuing in a rush. “Ma’am... endust doesn’t hurt at all. I’ve been hit by it myself, accidentally. You just feel sort of numb for an hour or so.”

“Cut the chatter, trooper,” Wintergreen growled. “What’s done is done. Focus on your quadrant.” The Wardens didn’t outwardly move, but Twilight could detect their sensor activity focusing on the aliens again. Still, what the unicorn trooper had said had given her pause. Endust, also called null-dust or BANC and properly referred to as Biological Arcane Nullification Compound, was a substance that inhibited magic in living things. It had originally been developed as a medication for mental hospitals, to keep mentally unstable unicorns from hurting themselves or other ponies, and had later been adapted for use against a wide range of magical threats. Most Warden armor was equipped with airburst endust dispensers, and it had proven to be a huge boon on the Crystal Desert frontier.

Twilight blinked, uncertain of how to respond. When she’d seen that ‘disable’ tag on herself, she’d thought Rainbow had intended to hurt her, but endust was genuinely harmless. It prevented spellcasting for between thirty and seventy-five minutes, depending on the dose and the target, and reduced a unicorn’s magical ability for about another two hours, but beyond that it had no lingering effect. Had she misinterpreted?

She shook herself. Regardless of whether Rainbow had intended to hurt her or not, she had drastically overstepped her authority. Twilight would deal with that later.

She stepped up past the group, muttering, “I’ll explain later,” shoved her pain and turmoil into the back of her mind, and caught her first glimpse of the aliens.

Contact and Outcomes

The creatures coming toward them over the dusty plain weren’t quite what Twilight had expected. She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. The aliens were bipedal, a tiny bit taller than a pony, with wide, heavy torsos and long arms. They wore enclosing suits that looked partially armored, and only a few were helmetless. On the ones without helmets, Twilight could see tufts of long spines or quills arranged in clusters on their heads, curving back and laying against their heads in odd patterns. Their eyes were deeply recessed, and their faces behind the breathing masks they wore looked flat and vertical, without any hint of a nose or snout. Their suits were fairly uniform, patterned black and brown, with insignia on their shoulders that Twilight presumed indicated rank and duty much like the bands of cloth each pony wore on his or her foreleg. The long arms ended in four-fingered hands that looked surprisingly apelike. To the unicorn’s surprise, they were actually advancing in a fairly ordered group, with nearly uniform spacing, and though their gait was odd and slightly rolling due to their relatively short legs they were coming very close to marching, though it didn’t look like they were making any attempt to formally do so. It was quite a contrast to the disordered mob that their fleet had formed. They were all armed, to a degree that was almost silly. Most of them had two long weapons slung over their shoulders, and a host of sidearms and knives depending from various locations on their suits. It was almost comical, honestly, they looked like some of the cartoon caricatures of the Wardens that showed up in certain net publications. (Minus the blood-dripping leer, of course)

The alien in the lead was dressed a little differently. Her armored suit had golden stripes going down the front of both sleeves, a large sun insignia glittered on the center of her chest, and she was wearing a wide-brimmed hat with rows of what looked like feathers running down the sides, sporting the same golden sun logo in the center of the hat. She was also even better armed than the others, and her weapons were more ornate.

Twilight spared a quick glance at Rarity, who was staring at the lead alien with shining eyes. She caught Twilight’s look and whispered, “I want that hat!”

Twilight giggled, in spite of her own tension. “Maybe we can negotiate an exchange.”

The creatures rumbled up to the pony delegation, stopping about six meters away. The alien leader stepped closer, drew itself up tall and lifted its chin, and jabbered out something in a language Twilight had never heard before.

Excitement and a strange sense of disappointment chased through the unicorn. Not that there was anything disappointing about peaceful contact, but that these aliens spoke a language that was, well, alien. Duran and the N.A.I.S., two different alien groups from two entirely different universes had spoken perfect Equestrian, but this creature from her own reality didn’t? Bizarre.

Still, that didn’t make this moment any less special. Twilight drew a deep breath. “In the name of Equestria, the Diarchy, and the Unified World Nation, I greet you in peace, as friends. It’s good to meet you!” She’d planned that greeting in detail, and was pleased that she got it out without stumbling. She beamed at the creature, who blinked at her slowly.

One of the creature’s arms lifted, and its hand went slowly to one of the weapons belts festooning its body. Twilight heard a motion behind her, and as the creature carefully drew a blade from its sheath one of the armored earth pony Wardens stepped smoothly and quickly between Twilight and the alien, her footfalls thumping heavily in the dust despite her graceful movement and the cannon on her back pointing directly at the creature. The Warden mare loomed enormously in her armor, and she didn’t say a word as she stood between the alien and her commander. There was an uneasy susurration of noise from the alien group.

“Wait!” Fluttershy cried, “Don’t shoot!”

“I’m not planning to.” Twilight recognized the calm voice coming from the armored mare as that of the squad’s sergeant, Wintergreen. “But I’m concerned about the fact that she’s drawing a knife, and I want to be in a position to stop an attack on my unarmored commander.”

Fluttershy stared at the alien, clearly thinking hard. After a brief pause at Wintergreen’s sudden intercession, the creature very slowly pulled the knife the rest of the way out, holding it loosely by the blade in its long fingers. It took a single step forward, held the knife out in front of it, and stood still, waiting.

The yellow pegasus glanced around. “A knife!” she blurted abruptly. “Does anypony have a knife? Or anything that looks like a knife?”

There was a click of activating speakers from one of the power-armored unicorns. “Uh… I’ve got a pair of them.”

Fluttershy stared at the soldier for a moment. “Why in the world do you… never mind, i-it’s a good thing. Give one of them to Twilight.”

The unicorn glanced at Applejack, the senior Warden still available, and the orange mare nodded. “Go ahead, Dusty Roads. I won’t even fuss at ya for havin’ nonstandard gear on your armor.”

“Uh, thanks for that, ma’am.” The trooper’s voice was hesitant. A blue-green glow enfolded a boxy protrusion on the unicorn’s shoulder, and a long, handleless blade slid out. It was slim, and looked wickedly sharp. The blade slid slowly through the air toward Twilight.

Twilight almost balked. That color aura was creepily close to what a Changeling would have produced. They’d had major problems with the shapeshifting bug-ponies a few decades ago, and had even caught a few shapeshifters who’d managed to sneak into high positions in the Equestrian government. Others had even been found in the Zebra government, when the Zebras had been approached in the early efforts at unification. There’d been serious concerns about what the creatures had intended, especially since most had fled and escaped after being discovered. Two had been captured, but oddly enough both had suicided in captivity, employing some strange method that destroyed their bodies and left nothing to examine.

The Commander shook her head. The tension was playing tricks on her mind; that aura was bluer than Changeling magic. The Wardens screened extensively for shapeshifters, anyway; there was no way one of the creatures would have made it onto this mission.

“I’m not a Changeling,” the armored unicorn’s voice murmured. She sounded a little different; there was a quiet, tight anger in it. “I was born this way. I don’t know why my magic’s this color.” Perhaps it wasn’t just the tension getting to Twilight after all. An old, quiet pain lurked in the Warden’s words.

Twilight blinked. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No one does.” The armored unicorn shook her head, and her voice went back to the way it had sounded before. “Uh, sorry. I, uh, it gets awkward.”

“I imagine.” Twilight gave the Warden a kind smile. “I appreciate you letting me use your knife. I’ll replace it if we wind up losing it.” She reached out with her magic, her telekinetic field gently pushing the other unicorn’s aside to enfold the slender blade.

The unicorn Warden nodded once. “No need, ma’am. I’ve, uh, got spares.” She stepped back.

Fluttershy stepped close to Twilight, biting her lip. “Okay, Twilight, you need to approach the creature and offer the knife to her. When she reaches out to take it, you should take the knife she’s offering, but don’t try to take it if it looks like she wants to hold on to it.”

Twilight glanced askance at the yellow pegasus. “Are you sure about that?”

Fluttershy flashed her a smile. “No. But it feels right.”

The unicorn snorted. “Okay. Here goes.” She stepped forward. “Sergeant, stay behind me, but stay close, please.” She didn’t need the Warden’s protection; Twilight could throw up a shield spell faster than some ponies could blink, but having the armored mare nearby might dissuade the aliens from trying anything… rash.

“Yes, ma’am.” Twilight could feel the heavy thumps of the armored suit’s footfalls through the thin dust against her hooves. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The front rank of the aliens actually fell back a bit as Twilight approached, though their gazes were fixed on the fearsome figure of the armored earth pony following her. Some of them reached for weapons, but at a harsh command from the alien leader their hands fell back to their sides.

The alien leader didn’t budge, holding her head high and keeping the knife held out. Twilight felt a stirring of hope that this contact might actually go as well as Fluttershy was expecting.

The unicorn had held the knife close to her side as she walked, and when she stopped close to the alien leader she hovered the blade out and sent it very slowly gliding toward the creature.

The aliens stirred, voices rising in conversation, and the leader turned her head to bark another order. Gingerly, slowly, the ornately-dressed alien reached out a hand, pausing just before it reached the purple glow that surrounded the blade. A few of the quills on her head twitched in an odd motion.

The alien paused, its hand centimeters from the knife Twilight was holding out for it. It extended its other hand, its knife still held by the blade, gripped so loosely that it was barely holding it at all.

Guessing at its motives, Twilight simultaneously pulled her telekinesis away from the back of the knife she was offering (it had a blunt area at the back, though it had clearly been designed to be wielded telekinetically and had no handle) and enveloped the blade of the alien’s weapon in a purple glow. The alien actually flinched a bit at this, though she steeled herself and took of the back of the Warden’s knife between her finger and thumb. She released her grip on her own knife at the same moment, jerking her arm back and leaving the blade suspended in midair. Twilight released the Warden’s blade and brought the alien’s gliding back toward her, and the alien leader followed the motion of the floating knife intently.

Twilight carefully tucked the alien’s gift into her gold rank band, making sure not to slice it by accident, and the alien gingerly slid the Warden blade into its empty scabbard, taking care to seat the razor-sharp, hiltless knife so it wouldn’t fall out.

There was an almost palpable relaxation from the line of aliens, several of them sharing glances though the leader didn’t move.

Fluttershy came trotting up next to Twilight. “You handled that very well,” the pegasus observed, admiration in her voice.

“Thank you,” Twilight smiled at her friend, then turned back to the alien. “Excuse me. We have machines,” she gestured widely to the small mountain of gear Fluttershy’s team had brought down, “that might help us,” she motioned to herself and then to the alien, “talk to one another.” She mimed something coming from her mouth, hoping the alien would interpret the gesture as speech rather than vomit or some other emission. Twilight didn’t bother speaking slowly; she knew perfectly well that the creature couldn’t understand her. She hoped her gestures and tone carried her meaning sufficiently.

The alien made an odd motion with its shoulders, the quills on its head rustling under its ornate headgear, and turned to face its compatriots. It jabbered something, and a small knot of aliens quickly emerged. The one in the center looked different; it was shorter and slimmer than the others by a small amount, its arms were a bit longer, and it had a subtly different attitude that Twilight couldn’t put her hoof on. It was surrounded by other aliens, who seemed to have a protective attitude toward it.

The new arrival spoke briefly to the alien leader, receiving a similarly brief response, and stepped forward. It (He? She? Was the smaller one male, female, or a different race?) looked at Fluttershy and spoke slowly, pointing first to herself, then to her eyes, then to the equipment. “Oh, yes, of course you can look at it! Here, come along!” Fluttershy made a gentle ushering gesture with her foreleg, stepping toward the translating gear. Rarity stepped up next to the translating systems as well, eager to help out.

The smaller alien followed immediately, its escorts moving along with it and prompting two of the Wardens, an earth pony and a unicorn, to step up next to Fluttershy, shadowing her in a similar manner and keeping a watchful eye on the aliens.

Twilight waited in front of the alien leader, giving it an uneasy grin to which it didn’t respond. She hadn’t seen much expression from under the creature’s transparent facemask, and she wondered if it was simply stoic or if its species didn’t have a mobile face like ponies did. It simply stood, waiting patiently and silently as it watched the other alien poking around with Fluttershy’s team’s equipment while the ponies activated and demonstrated various aspects of it.

She remained where she was while the smaller alien dashed off with its escort, returning with armfuls of gear of their own. It started taking things apart, stringing wires everywhere and linking them back together to place near the Equestrian systems. Rarity watched with interest, occasionally stepping forward to hold something or rewire something with the waldo-arms around her neck, since it seemed extremely skittish about her telekinesis. The unicorn mare’s delicate touch was perfect for working with the small components, and its hesitancy quickly dropped away in the face of Rarity’s helpful assistance. While it worked, Fluttershy and her senior tech came back to Twilight with a report.

“This may take a little while, Twilight.” Fluttershy told her in her soft voice. “I don’t think our equipment will interface directly with theirs, no matter what we do, and they don’t seem to have the kind of specialized adaptive translator systems we brought. Their engineer,” she nodded her head to indicate the alien, still furiously rewiring and disassembling components, referring occasionally to what was clearly some form of datapad while his escort stood watchfully, “looks like he or she is trying to build everything from scratch.”

“How are you going to set this up?” Twilight asked.

“Combination optic and radio system, ma’am, since direct connection won’t work.” Fluttershy’s technician, a unicorn stallion with a bright orange coat, spoke up. “We’ve already set up our interface, they’re just trying to match it.” The stallion brought up a screen in front of himself, swiveling it around to let Twilight look at it. “This is the basic architecture we’re using.”

Twilight examined the system diagram carefully, analyzing the system that the technician was proposing. “Hm… it looks good. Which daemons are you using?”

“These, ma’am.” The symbols indicating eight of the powerful, flexible, more self-directing holodaemons and thirty-three supporting datadaemons flashed on the screen, along with the components the virtual entities would reside in. Datadaemons were ubiquitous; the entities were responsible for running most of the more complex bits of spellware in the Equestrian technical base, but thirty-three was a lot. This system was designed for maximum function and flexibility, and even then there was a lot more physical equipment than it looked like it needed.

“It looks okay. You’ve got a little too much hardware for the spellware you’re running, you could probably remove these,” she highlighted the redundant systems, “but having them attached won’t hurt your performance.”

The stallion shrugged, giving her a grin. “I like to build a little redundancy into my systems, ma’am. Just in case.”

Twilight laughed. She could understand that. “Okay, then. Go see if you can help the alien, if your systems are all set up.”

“I was hoping you’d ask that, ma’am. They use electronics, and I minored in that at the Academy. I’ll see if I can squeeze in next to Miss Rarity.” The stallion dismissed his screen and trotted happily off to assist the laboring alien.

Twilight turned back to the leader, who was looking at the spot the engineer’s screen had vanished from with wide eyes. The creature blinked, returning to its stolid waiting.

It took over an hour for the alien engineer and Fluttershy’s technicians to finish their work, and Twilight stood in front of the alien leader all the while. It wasn’t a total waste of time; she spent the time mentally reviewing several theoretical sorcery problems she’d been chewing on for a while, and even came up with a couple of ideas she really wanted to test.

Finally, the technician came trotting back up. Twilight glanced up; the sun had moved closer to the horizon, and this world had short days. They had a few hours of daytime left, but not many. Fortunately, the alien seemed utterly unbothered by the fact that it had stood still for all that time, only moving to turn and trade the occasional word with the others behind it.

“We’ve got a basic setup working, ma’am.” The engineer beamed happily. “It’s rough, but it works, and it’s adaptive so it’ll work better the longer we talk. Mostly our gear; their stuff's... not as good.” The Commander sensed a diplomatic understatement in that last sentence.

“Outstanding!” Twilight grinned. “Are there any limitations I need to know about?”

“Not on your end; activate the translator and speak, and it will do its best.” The tech snorted. “Their end is a little more primitive; their technician is going to have to transcribe their leader’s words in order for it to translate.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay, so it’s ready to go?” At the tech’s nod, she turned back to the alien leader with a smile. “Greetings! I am Twilight Sparkle, representative of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, and commander of the starship Dauntless.”

The spines on the alien’s head stirred. It spoke, the smaller being behind it tapping furiously at a pad it held. “I am Seelith Eklsee, Warrior Commander of the Salinoth nation of the Tazaft. I greet you.” The voice emerging from the translator was belated, in addition to being flat and uninflected, but Twilight could get used to that. “We thank you for your help.”

Twilight grinned. “We were happy to lend it! The beings on those ships attacked our home system, so we’re glad to defend someone else from them.”

The spines rattled. Clearly, they carried at least some of Seelith’s emotional expression. “They attack you? Truly?”

Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Well, yes. Two of our ships confronted an invader in our home system, and they opened fire without responding. Why? Didn’t they attack you?”

Seelith made a sinuous gesture with one hand. “We find them here. Attack them. Were more than we thought.”

The unicorn blinked. “But they started it, right? Attacked your home system first, like they did ours?”

Seelith turned to speak to her technician, and Twilight took the opportunity to speak to hers. Carefully not activating the translator, she asked, “Not very articulate, is she?”

The stallion shook his head, examining a screenful of scrolling data. “Actually, she’s very articulate. The translator doesn’t know most of the words she’s using yet, so it drops them or simplifies. I’m using this pause to try to update the database again, she should be better-spoken after that.”

“They have not attacked our home system yet. They probably will soon.” Selith spread her hands out. “We try to destroy their ships, but Warriors out of practice.”

“Hold on, ma’am,” the technician interrupted. “There was an important word in there that didn’t get translated, let me try that again.”

The translator spoke again. “We seek to destroy their ships, but the warrior caste is out of practice.”

Twilight blinked. “Warrior caste? Your people have a social class of warriors?” She wanted to make sure the translator had gotten that right.

Quills rustled. “Yes. Three castes, leader, warrior,” she turned to indicate the technician typing, who paused and waved. “Worker.”

This was interesting. “Oh, he’s a worker?”

Seelith spoke again. There was a long pause while the technician tapped at his pad. “The brilliant and handsome creature typing out this message, which is entirely faithful to my words and contains no additions? Yes, it is a worker.”

Twilight stifled a snicker. At least it seemed they had a sense of humor, or at least the little one did, and the translator had been surprisingly eloquent for that sentence. Still, something stood out. “It?”

There was a long pause, and Seelith turned to speak to the technician. She turned back. “Did you ask a question?”

The unicorn flushed a little. “Oh, the translator called your worker an ‘it’. I was just wondering if it meant male or female.”

There was another pause, and another consultation. “Your pardon, much of what you said did not translate. What were you asking?”

“Change the subject, Twilight,” Fluttershy whispered. “We don’t want to frustrate them.”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Well, Siluth Uhlsie,” she knew she’d mangled the alien’s name, but it was the best she could do and she hoped the being wouldn’t take offense, “we’ve helped each other. Would you be interested in an alliance, so we could help one another further?” The unicorn knew she was moving a little fast, asking for an alliance already, but she felt justified in light of the alien’s (she had called herself Tazaft?) polite behavior and clear gratitude.

There was another long pause. “Perhaps,” the alien finally said. “I cannot speak for the leaders, or the Tazaft people, but the warriors would be interested in coordinating with you in fighting the Baltornic Council.”

“The Baltornic Council?” Twilight asked, “Those are the people you were fighting?” She felt another thrill; being able to put a name to the faceless ships felt like an odd relief.

“Yes.” Quills rustled, in a pattern Twilight was starting to associate with a nod. “They angered the leaders, and the warriors were called up to show the Council that we were angry.” A pause. “I have a question. You asked about the warrior caste; do you not have warriors? Is the large metal one not your protector?”

Twilight blinked, unsure of how to answer, but Fluttershy stepped in. “We have guardians, but we don't fight wars, so we don't really call them 'warriors.'”

Eklsee made an odd head gesure. “I think this may be another translating problem. Warriors do not only fight wars.”

Twilight cocked her head. Since Fluttershy had presented the Wardens as their example, she decided to run with it. “Our guardians, such as the mare behind me,” she tilted her head to indicate the armored Warden sergeant, “guard our borders and keep our people safe from threats. What do yours do?”

“The warriors fight when fighting is to be done,” Eklsee stated, and Twilight could tell the translation was getting better. “That has not happened in a very long time, though. When no fighting is needed, we take the risks.”

Twilight blinked. “I'm not sure I understand.”

“Risks. When risky things need to be done, it is a warrior who does it. Dangerous jobs in many factories, risk. Keeping peace, risk. Exploring, risk. Things like that. If there is physical danger involved above a low level, we do it. Things that involve little risk, workers do. It is our task to keep leaders and workers safe.” Eklsee pointed to herself with one finger. “I was master of those who put out fires and rescue those in danger in Ekrsa City before it became necessary to fight. I hope I can finish this fight soon to go back to that.”

That brought them to something Twilight really wanted to know about. “This fight you're in, with the, what was it, Baltornic Council? How did it start? Is it going well?”

Spines rattled. “Start? The Council made our leaders angry, like I said. They wished to show them our anger, so they called the warrior caste to fight. We were to blow up ships, destroy the Council's things, get to Baltor to burn their meeting place if we could. That would be a powerful gesture.” The Tazaft made an odd rattling noise with her tongue, accompanying an exhalation. “It is not going well. There have been no wars since before we left our homeworld, Kheles. The warriors have never had to fight in space. It is very different from fighting on the ground, or at sea, or even in the air with planes. The way we are fighting is not working well, and the Council is very good at fighting, it seems. I may never put out fires again.”

Twilight exchanged a frown with Fluttershy. Their new allies had started their fight? That was... unsettling.

Eklsee was speaking again. “Your ship is very powerful, and your arrival saved many of my warriors. If you had not appeared, we would all have died. We owe you a great debt, and we recognize that you may be a powerful ally. Would you be willing to fight beside us? You have said you wanted an alliance; if you fight with us, then the leaders will hear of it and know that you are friends to the Tazaft people and all our nations. It would please me greatly to call you friend.”

Twilight bit her lip, sharing another glance with Fluttershy. “Do you mind if I speak to my friends before I answer that question, Uhlsie?” She again tried her hardest to pronounce the alien's name, but was aware that she'd mangled it. There was a trill and a sort of glottal sound in the name that Twilight's mouth and tongue simply couldn't shape.

“Of course, Ttlaaht Shkukaaal.” Ouch, if Twilight had mangled Eklsee's name as badly as the alien hand mangled hers, then the being was behaving with commendable restraint. “I will wait here happily to hear your decision.”

“Thank you.” Twilight shut down the translator and turned around. Fluttershy did likewise, ensuring that the aliens wouldn't be able to read their lips, assuming the creatures were capable of doing so. “Fluttershy? What are your thoughts? I mean, this is exactly what we came here for, to find friends and allies.”

“Yes,” Fluttershy said uncomfortably, “I was hoping they'd want to be friends, rather than just wanting to beat up the people we both dislike together.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose we'll have to take what we can get. They might be able to tell us more about this 'Baltornic Council,' too, which would probably help. She mentioned ‘Baltor’… I wonder what that is, a world, a species, a city?” The pegasus smiled sadly. “I'm still hoping that we'll find a way to talk to them, too, but after today that seems a lot less likely.”

Twilight nodded. “More or less my thoughts. It would be nice to know we had friends out here.” Fluttershy nodded, pleased with the idea much like Twilight was.

The two trotted back to their friends, and put the question to them as well.

Applejack was strongly in favor. “Seems like a good notion to me. They've probably got bases 'n such around here, and they may know somethin' about these Council fellers and where we could find 'em.”

Rarity nodded. “I have to concur with Applejack; coordinating with these... creatures would be helpful. Even just knowing we aren't alone is enough reason to accept their offer of friendship, I think.”

Pinkie nodded, too. “I think it'd be great for the ponies back home, too,” she added in an unusually sober tone. “There were a lot of ponies that were scared before we left, griffons and zebras too. Knowing we've got friends out here would be a great, big, huge, enormous help, I think, even if they're not all that tough.”

Twilight drew a deep breath. “Okay, then. I'm going to accept her offer.” She cocked her head. “Her offer? His offer? Do we know if she's male or female? I don’t want to offend them.”

“I think neither,” Rarity's senior tech spoke up behind her. “There's no gender case in their language, as far as I can tell. I've been trying to find the terms for male and female on their side of the translator link, but I'm coming up with nothing.” The linguists, who had been working on the translator system alongside the tech, nodded in support.

The Commander blinked in surprise. “A monogendered species?”

“Hermaphrodites, we think.” The stallion glanced at a display that was following him around. “We've found words for mating and birth, so I'm pretty sure they do both, but nothing on different sexes.”

An interesting fact, but irrelevant. Twilight filed it away in her memory, and trotted back to Eklsee. She reactivated the translator system with a quick thought. “We would be delighted to call you friends and allies, and we would be glad to help you in your struggle and to accept your help in ours.” In spite of what the tech had said, Twilight couldn’t think of the Tazaft as an ‘it’, the label seemed too disrespectful. She decided to think of the alien as female instead, to help her identify with the strange creature.

Quills rustled, and Eklsee’s shoulders moved subtly. “Excellent.” The translator was flat, but Twilight could hear animation in the alien’s voice. “That is splendid news. We will give you coordinates of our bases and what we know of the Council, in exchange for the same information from you. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes, very much so.” Twilight was thrilled by the alien’s response.

“Excellent,” Eklsee said again, “If you would give us information on where you think you will be, we could seek you out for help if we need it, and in exchange we could offer our help to you if you should need it. Is this also satisfactory?”

“Extremely.” Twilight glanced at Fluttershy, who looked a little troubled.

The pegasus leaned in and whispered in her ear, “She’s being awfully generous. Ask her if she’s actually got the authority to make these promises.”

That was a good point. “Pardon me, Uhlsie, but how are you able to offer terms this generous?”

The alien made a sinuous movement of her hands. “I am the fleet leader. I led this attack, as is my responsibility, but all warrior caste ships and bases are under my command, not just these.”

Twilight blinked. “So this isn’t all your ships?”

The creature’s quills stirred in a circular motion, something she hadn’t seen before. “No, this was supposed to be enough for the fleet we saw. We meant to outnumber the eighty ships we saw by ten-to-one, but there were three times as many as we thought. As you saw when you arrived, it was going poorly.”

They brought eight hundred ships? “How many ships do you have?”

“Six thousand when this fight started. We have lost a third of them by now. We are building more, but it takes time.”

A chill gripped Twilight’s belly. “And how many does the Council have?”

There was a pause before the alien answered. “We do not know. More than we have. Maybe many more.” There was another pause, and Twilight shared a tense look with Fluttershy. “Your ships are very powerful, though, they may be enough to tip the scales. How many do you have?”

“Just the one.” Twilight hated saying that.

Eklsee stared at her for a silent moment, and then shivered, her quills rattling. “It is more than we had yesterday. Your ship is powerful; we could use it to break the enemy’s organization, and then we could do great damage, as we did today. Are you building more?”

“Six more ships, a bit smaller than the one you’ve seen,” Twilight confirmed. “They should be ready in a month or so.” The Warden destroyer-class ships would actually be substantially more powerful combatants than Dauntless was; they were pure combat designs, without all the extra systems for exploration that the cruiser was fitted with. Finding crew for all of them, though, was going to be very difficult.

The quills rattled in what Twilight was starting to think of as a nod. “It will be a help. We will give you information about where our bases are; come find us if you need us, and tell us where you are going so we can find you if you are needed.”

Twilight glanced aside at Fluttershy, and received a nod and a soft smile from the diplomat. “It’s a deal.”

“Excellent.” Eklsee turned and barked something at the ranks of Tazaft warriors behind her, and they let out a unified, hideous screech that laid Twilight’s ears back and made her eyes water. She flinched a bit, but they didn’t move; perhaps this was their version of a cheer. The unicorn glanced back and saw everypony wincing to various degrees, with the obvious exception of the Wardens whose helmets had sound dampers.

“We are pleased to greet our new allies. May we have many successes and end our fight swiftly.” Eklsee made a flourishing motion with both hands, and Twilight answered it with a gracious nod, hoping the Tazaft wouldn’t be upset that she wasn’t trying to imitate her mannerism. “Before we depart, might I ask you something?”

“Of course! I would be happy to answer!”

A nod of the quills. “Your technology… it is very powerful, very capable. I have seen this. I admit that I am very curious about the weapons your guardians carry. If I demonstrate mine, will you do the same?”

“Certainly!” It was a minor thing, and an easy request to grant. Besides, the Wardens loved to shoot, and she was certain they’d appreciate the chance to do so. Eklsee gave another quill-nod, and unlimbered one of the long weapons on her back. She cradled it in her arms, looking down the barrel, carefully pointing the weapon away from both groups. There was a strange, high-pitched chirp and a loud crack, and a smallish boulder shattered from the impact of the weapon.

Twilight nodded, not terribly impressed. She could honestly have done almost that much by picking up a rock and using an explosive acceleration spell; the Warden cannon should come as a bit of a shock. She turned around to address the Warden sergeant. “Would you mind demonstrating your weapon, please, Sergeant?”

“Ma’am, that… may not be a good idea.”

The unicorn quirked a brow. “Why not? That’s an accelerator gun, isn’t it?” She peered more closely at the cannon mounted on the mare’s battle armor. “Oh, wait, no it’s not…” She hadn’t gotten a good look before, but there was a lot of unfamiliar equipment attached to that gun.

“No, Commander. It’s a celestian cannon.”

“A what?” That term wasn’t familiar, and Twilight thought she knew all the Warden gear pretty well.

“A mark two levincannon. We’ve been calling ‘em celestians, since they shoot a piece of the sun.”

Twilight reared her head back in shock. The basic levincannon was one of the earlier Warden weapons, a gun that accelerated a solid projectile to supersonic speeds and wrapped it in a destructive magic field. The mark two, on the other hoof, combined that concept with fusion theory from the Library Core and plasma manipulation technosorcery, wrapping a more powerful destructive field around a packet of fusing hydrogen plasma and firing it as a bolt downrange. It was a phenomenally powerful weapon, and Twilight was unaware that it had been so scaled down. “You stuck one of those on your battle armor?” That sounded a little crazy; the full-size mark two levincannon could often cause fatal flash burns as much as ten meters away from the bolt. Of course, those weapons were also so large they required custom vehicles to carry them, and would never fit on a battle suit. Perhaps the downsized version was less… indiscriminate.

Wintergreen didn’t move, but Twilight had the sense that she was looking abashed. “Yes, ma’am. Lieutenant Dash wasn’t sure what we’d be facing, so she wanted one of us with a gun that combined hard-target kill capability with a large soft-kill radius and had me carry this beast. This unit’s brand-new, just out of prototype phase; we were only able to shrink them down this small recently.”

“How were you planning to keep from frying us if you decided to fire it?”

“We’re not total idiots, ma’am. It’s got a heat shield generator to cut down on collateral damage. I just had to make sure I was in front.” Which was exactly what the big earth pony had been persistently doing, Twilight realized. Placing herself where she could step in front of everypony and thus shield them from her weapon’s side effects. Well, that answered the question of whether the downsized version was less dangerous.

“Well, there’s the solution, then. I’ll modify and augment the heat shield spell to contain the thermal bloom.”

“You can do that, ma’am?”

My, it must have been a long time since I last worked with the Wardens. Twilight quirked a smile. “Yes, sergeant, I can do that easily.” She turned back to Eklsee, activating the translator again. “We will demonstrate, but you shouldn’t look when we fire. When you hear me shout, you should all look away, understand?”

Spines rattled. “It is that powerful?”

Twilight nodded firmly. “Yes, it is.”

“Interesting.” The alien turned and gave what were probably brief orders to her people. “We are ready.”

Twilight nodded. “All right, sergeant. Are you ready?”

“Yes, ma’am. Just tell me when.”

Twilight focused her thoughts, her horn glowing as she interfaced with the solid-state spells built into the armor’s weapon capacitors. She could have modified the generators themselves; it was a very, very tricky thing to do, but well within her skills. There was no need to do that, though, so she instead spun out an extension composed of her own power, tightening and extending the cone that contained the weapon’s vicious thermal pulse and setting it up to mesh with the cannon’s own field. She glanced back at her ponies. “Shield your eyes, everypony.” Most of them turned away, though the Wardens with their reactive visors didn’t bother. Twilight brought up a virtual panel, modifying it into a copy of the Wardens’ eye protection. “All right, sergeant,” she called out, loudly enough for the Tazaft to hear and was satisfied to see them turning away, “fire!”

The screen across Twilight’s face went nearly black as it blocked the searing light of the plasma bolt that spat from the weapon on Wintergreen’s back. She felt the radiant heat of the shot smash into the spell matrix she held, and felt it reflected forward, harmlessly, missing both the Tazaft and the Equestrians. The bolt moved at a significant fraction of lightspeed, looking more like a hideously intense laser pulse than a packet of plasma and drawing a ruler-straight line between the Warden sergeant and a large boulder she’d selected as her target. The disrupting spell struck first, crumbling the boulder to powder faster than could be seen before the plasma bolt smashed into it. Much of the rock evaporated, spraying outward and recondensing on the fused glass that now surrounded it. The thunder of the shot echoed off the distant hills and mountains, and a shockwave of warm air smashed into Twilight’s face, though the heat-shield spell robbed it of some of its force and much of its temperature.

There was total silence and stillness from the Tazaft group in the wake of the shot. The technician who had been transcribing Eklsee’s words for translation stared dumbly at the expanse of rippled glass where the boulder used to be, the pad it used to translate dangling loosely in its hands. Eklsee stared from the Warden to the impact site and back again, her quills lying still and close to her head.

The Tazaft leader finally spoke, her voice cracking oddly. There was nothing from the translator, and she finally turned to prod the technician, who shrank back behind the warrior leader and tapped at the pad in quick, jerky motions. “I am suddenly very glad I have tried so hard to be polite while talking to you.”

Twilight shook her head, not even having to look at Fluttershy for the response to that . “We wouldn’t have attacked you for being rude. We only would have fought in self-defense.” She very, very carefully did not mention that Rainbow had been planning a pre-emptive attack, something she’d been trying very hard not to think about yet. The thought sent another spike of pain into her chest; she needed, badly, to speak to the multicolored pegasus when she returned to the Dauntless. It would be the first thing she did.

A few of Eklsee’s spines twitched. “They really started their fight with you? You did not start it?”

Twilight shook her head. “We don’t start fights.”

The Tazaft leader was very still. “They will destroy you.”

Twilight blinked. “What?”

“They have to. They start a fight like this, against people as powerful as you who do not like to fight? You have but one ship, but it was enough to rout one of their fleets. Your weapons,” the alien gestured to the fused dust of the crater, “are like nothing I have ever seen. So powerful, so small, and so controlled, to do all that without even giving me a burn while I stood only paces away. Your computers, your tools,” Eklsee gestured in the air with both hands, clearly referring to one of the illusory screens, “are made of air, and you use them with a thought. Your ship is huge, yet it dances like a mote of dust in the air and is incredibly hard to hit. If they do not destroy you, if they give you time to build and find your feet, you will burn them to ashes and strike their names from the roll of history. They were mad to start a fight with you.”

A chill gripped Twilight, strong enough to make her shiver. She glanced at the other members of the landing party and saw quiet horror on their faces, especially Fluttershy’s. The yellow mare cleared her throat, pushing her dismay aside. “We would never go that far. Never. We didn’t want this fight, and we want to end it as soon as possible. All we really want is to talk to them!”

Eklsee’s quills stirred in a slight nod. “I understand. It baffles me that they have not spoken to you, but perhaps they think they do not need to. Whatever happens, I wish you the best of luck; you will need it. We have already pledged to give you what information we have, and if you need our aid you have but to seek us out.” The alien paused. “I must ask… your home. Is it safe? If they wish to destroy you, that is where they will strike.”

Applejack decided to answer that question before Twilight could. “Our home’s as safe as we could make it. Don’t you worry none.”

The homeworld’s defenses were indeed powerful. The Princesses alone were a formidable deterrent, each boasting as much arcane power as an entire civilization of unicorns. Since the Interloper’s attack, their already considerable might had been boosted by a series of thaumatechnological mechanisms that had been built specifically for the Sisters, systems they could energize and control to project a vast, planetary shield. Other installations could be activated with other defensive functions, and the whole system was tied together in a vast network that could potentially harness the full power of Equestrian civilization, unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi all contributing to the defense of their homeworld. Dauntless would never have left home undefended. Even if the Council struck their home, Twilight and her crew should have time to find someone they could talk to.

Eklsee nodded again. “Very well. Unless there is something more to discuss, I would like to return to my ship. My crew will send you the information we have promised you.” The alien paused. “You may keep my blade, as a gesture of trust.”

“Thank you,” Twilight replied. “You may keep mine as well. Consider it a gift, between friends.”

The Tazaft patted the handleless knife. “This will be a treasure of my family in the future. It will sit in a place of honor in my family’s home, and in the years to come children will point at it and say my name and yours, wishing they could have been here today. Thank you, and may courage attend you when you walk among dangers.”

“And you, Uhlsie.” Twilight was genuinely touched by the Tazaft’s words. The creature flared her quills out, and then turned to walk back to her shuttle. The other Tazaft stayed in place until Eklsee passed through their ranks, then turned as one and followed.

Twilight called for another shuttle to drop from the Dauntless to help retrieve their equipment and personnel, and waited impatiently while the Wardens and the diplomat team (who were looking a bit downcast that they’d had so little to do beyond run the translators) packed up their gear.

Twilight tapped her hoof impatiently the entire ride back up. She needed to talk to Rainbow, badly, and the flight seemed like it took forever.

It did give her time to talk to her friends about the situation, though.

“Rainbow wouldn’t a’ hurt y’all,” Applejack put forward, tentatively, as they flew up through the thinning air. “She’s just been a mite… antsy lately.”

“She tried to sabotage our chance at peaceful contact!” Fluttershy retorted indignantly. “She could have cost us friends… would have cost us friends!” The pegasus shook her head. “I’ve been worried about her, but this is too much. Twilight, I hope you leave her under arrest until we get back.”

“That will depend on what happens when I talk to her,” Twilight said, quietly. “I haven’t decided what to do yet.”

Fluttershy’s teal eyes flashed. “I don’t want her on any more landing parties with my diplomatic team. She’s too dangerous, and too reckless. I don’t want her or her Wardens anywhere near another contact.”

“Now be fair, Fluttershy,” Applejack said soothingly. “You ain’t sayin’ I did anything, are you? I’m just as much a Warden as Dash.”

“You’re one of the sane Wardens. You don’t start fights, don’t go out intending to hurt some innocent creature…”

The orange mare interrupted her. “The critters that get hurt by us ain’t innocent, and I’ll back Rainbow to the hilt most days, even if she was wrong today.” Applejack’s conciliatory manner hardened. “I’ve heard all the stuff you go out and say about us, and most of it flat ain’t true. We only start fights when ponies are in trouble. Or buffalo, or griffons, since we’ve been helpin’ ‘em out since Unification. Rainbow Dash may’ve been outta line, but don’t go generalizin’, the rest of us didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

“Didn’t you?” Fluttershy’s voice had gone dangerously quiet. “You mean those two pegasi arrested Rainbow Dash when Twilight told them to? You mean the rest of the squad didn’t go along with what she planned?”

Applejack’s jaw set stubbornly. “Careful now, Fluttershy. I ain’t lookin’ for a fight…”

“Stop.” Twilight’s voice cut across her friends’. She’d had enough. “Fluttershy, this has nothing to do with the Wardens as a whole. This was Rainbow Dash’s mistake, and it was a mistake. It could have been bad, but I caught it and fixed it, and despite what she did I’m sure she had the best intentions. I will speak to her when I return to the ship and decide what I am going to do then. Until that happens, please do not antagonize the Wardens; they were trying to keep us all safe the best way they knew how, and I’ll point out that they were entirely reasonable once they saw that the Tazaft meant us no harm.”

Fluttershy looked mulish. “I still don’t want them on any more contact missions.”

“We’ll talk about that when it happens. Until then, stop demonizing them. They all think you hate them.”

The pegasus blinked. “What? I don’t hate them! I think they’re wrong, and I want them to change, but I don’t hate them!”

Rarity spoke up quietly. “Constantly and loudly insisting you think they want to kill everything that breathes gives a rather convincing impression that you hate them, darling. Not to mention some of the things you’ve said about Rainbow Dash on the newslines.”

The muscles in Applejack’s jaw bunched. “Some a’ those things hurt her, Fluttershy. She don’t show it… but it did. You might oughta think about using some a’ them diplomatic skills with us sometime.”

Fluttershy blinked rapidly. “But… but I… I never meant to hurt anyone! I just get so frustrated at her for not listening…”

The shuttle finally docked, and Twilight left Fluttershy with Rarity and Applejack, hoping they could talk the pegasus into lightening her stance toward the Wardens a bit. As they were walking out of the hangar, Twilight waved Pinkie over. The bubbly pink mare was much less bubbly than normal; having her friends fight always upset Pinkie, and she’d been quiet the whole way up. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since Twilight sent Rainbow back to the ship, actually.

“Pinkie,” Twilight started to say, but the earth pony interrupted her.

“You want me to get rid of that stuff I recorded, where you and Rainbow Dash had that fight.”

Twilight sighed. “Yes. I do. Honestly, I can’t see any good coming of that, and as much as I hate to delete information…”

“I’ll do it.”

The unicorn blinked. “You will?”

“Yeah.” Pinkie looked downcast. “I mean, I can’t see that video making anypony smile, except some really nasty ones and I’m okay with them not smiling. I can cut that part out, no problem.” She looked up, tears in her blue eyes. “I don’t know how to fix this. A party won’t work, getting everypony to laugh won’t work, singing, dancing, jokes, games, I can’t think of anything that will make all my friends smile again.”

“Oh, Pinkie.” Twilight hugged her friend, pulling her close. “We’ll find something that works.”

“I hope so,” Pinkie whispered back, hugging the lavender unicorn as hard as she could.

The door to Rainbow’s cabin was just like all the others in the ship. Quiet, gray metal that didn’t gleam and didn’t shine. Twilight had toyed with the idea of painting the inside of the ship a more cheerful color, but she hadn’t gotten around to it before launch. She wondered what she should have picked? Blue, maybe? A quiet green?

Twilight shook her head. She was stalling.

Taking a deep breath, she signaled the door, only to find to her surprise that it wasn’t locked. Steeling herself, she stepped up and let the door whisk itself aside, allowing her entry.

Rainbow’s room was almost shockingly empty.

That was the first thing to register in Twilight’s mind. The walls were completely bare, the desk was almost empty, there were no dress clothes of any sort in the closet, only a few spare rank-bands. Apart from a cybernetics maintenance kit and a manipudrone at the foot of the bed and a single picture frame that Twilight couldn’t see the contents of from the door, the room was empty except for the pegasus sitting on the floor, staring fixedly at the opposite wall.

Rainbow glanced back at the sound of the door opening, and gave Twilight a smile so rigid and unnatural it almost qualified as a rictus. “Hey, Twi. Guess it’s that time, huh? Gonna blow me out the airlock?”

“Of course not.” Twilight’s voice came out harsher than she meant it to, so she softened it for her question. “Why, Rainbow?”

The pegasus snorted a strangled laugh. “Well, duh. You’re the Commander. I was trying to go behind your back and do stuff you wouldn’t have wanted to do. I betrayed you, and I betrayed the Princesses. That’s either exile or execution, and the nice thing about a spaceship is that they’re pretty much the same thing.” Rainbow’s smile slipped, just for a moment, and Twilight could see the pain in her eyes, artificial though they were. “I’m… I’m sorry, Twilight. I was way, way out of line. Way out.”

Twilight swallowed hard, trying to clear her throat. Even the thought of watching her friend hurled out into pitiless vacuum to gasp out her final breaths was painful. Whatever she decided, whatever happened, that was not an option and never would be. She thought Rainbow had meant it as a joke, but if so it wasn’t funny. “That’s not what I asked, Rainbow Dash. Why? Why were you acting that way?”

Another strangled laugh, this one so harsh it almost sounded like the pegasus was choking. “Maybe Fluttershy and the press-ponies are right. Maybe my augments are making me crazy. Crazy as he was.” She tossed her chin at the framed picture.

Twilight stepped further into the room so she could see, and felt a moment of surprise. The frame had an old, old picture, yellowed with age and fragile-looking. It showed the two of them, along with the human they’d rescued, smiling and laughing at the camera. I wondered where that picture had gone.

“Rainbow, what do you mean?” Twilight asked softly. She was confused; Rainbow had never called their friend "crazy" in anything but joking terms before. “He was certainly eccentric, even before he started falling apart the way he did, but he wasn’t crazy.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow choked, “he was. Found out when I was visiting him, those last couple of weeks.” She swallowed hard, lowing her gaze to the floor and letting her forelock hide her eyes.

Twilight remembered. Duran had been taken to the hospital, the last few weeks of his life. The gradual deterioration of his health had suddenly accelerated, and he’d no longer been able to take care of himself. Everypony had known what was coming, and they’d been trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Twilight had visited as often as she could, as had her friends, but Rainbow had stayed. She’d even slept at the hospital, making sure he was never left alone. It had been hard, brutally hard, on the rainbow-maned pegasus. Maybe harder than Twilight had known.

“He wasn’t himself,” Twilight told her friend. She knew he'd been delirious off and on, and assumed that he'd said something to hurt Rainbow's feelings. “You know that. His mind was falling apart at the same time his body was.” She wondered with some puzzlement why the pegasus had brought this up.

“I know. It’s not…” Rainbow paused. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Twilight felt a sudden rush of anger. “You’d better talk about it,” she snapped, “Especially if it has something to do with what you did out there!” She growled in frustration. “Rainbow, you nearly did exactly what Fluttershy’s been accusing your Wardens of doing, starting another war. If you don’t talk to me, tell me what you were thinking… I don’t know what I’ll have to do.”

“I get you. And yeah, you deserve some explanations. It’s just…” Rainbow paused, taking a deep breath. “I’ve spent so long not talking about this. Not saying a word, trying not to even think about it.” She ground her teeth. “I was so mad at him.”

Twilight was puzzled. “Mad? At Duran?” Rainbow nodded. “For what?”

“For making me a liar. For…” She trailed off, gritting her teeth. Whatever this was, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

Well, not talking about it wasn’t an option, especially after a statement like that. “How did he make you a liar, Rainbow?”

The pegasus snarled suddenly. “When I told you he was safe to bring back! When I said he wouldn’t hurt anypony!” She smashed a forehoof into the floor, putting a dent in the deck plating. Her voice rose to a shout. “He made me a liar and I can’t even hate him for it! Because I cared too damned much about him to let it get out!” She sagged in place, looking suddenly exhausted. “I cared too much to hate him.” Rainbow’s voice fell almost to a whisper. “Crazy or not, he was my friend. And he was dying, I couldn’t get mad at him then.”

Twilight frowned. She felt a bit confused and upset, and had no idea what in the world Rainbow could be talking about. It had to be bad if she was cursing; she’d picked that habit up from Duran and had never quite shaken it. “Rainbow, what are you talking about?” Rainbow looked up, miserably. “I was his friend, too, Rainbow! Besides the fact that, as your commander, I need to know what’s bothering you, if it was something about Duran, I have a right to know! Next to you I was his best friend!”

“Yeah,” Rainbow whispered, “you were. That was the problem.” She heaved a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was killing ponies, Twilight. Nine that I know of for sure, maybe a lot more that I’m not sure of.”

“What?” Twilight blinked. That was hard to believe, but Rainbow clearly believed it, so it was hard to doubt. “How? Why?”

“How was those robots of his. He was building stuff that he could link with inside of two months. Network hubs, super long-ranged repeaters… some of the stuff he built we still can’t build, he was trying to show you how everything worked, started from the basic stuff and tried to teach you and the other smart ponies, but he just ran out of time. With the stuff he had, he could reach halfway around the world without leaving his workshop.” Rainbow shook her head sadly. “Why… why was us, Twilight. You and me.”

The unicorn frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You know that he looked up to us, right? You and me. He would’ve done anything for either of us.”

Twilight nodded. “You more than me, I think. You were always closer to him.”

The pegasus shook her head again. “Yeah, I might have been closer, but there wasn’t any further he could go. I’m serious, Twilight, he would have done anything for you, or for me. Absolutely anything. That was the problem.” Rainbow rubbed her face, surreptitiously dashing tears from her eyes. “I think something was wrong in his head. Something made him think that anypony who might be trying to hurt our feelings was trying to hurt us. Those were the ponies he killed.” Rainbow sniffed, and Twilight stayed quiet, letting her friend speak. “Remember Red Letter?”

Twilight fought back a creeping, chilling dread. The unicorn’s brow furrowed as she tried to remember, but drew a complete blank. “I’m sorry, the name isn’t ringing a bell.”

“Pegasus reporter? About… shoot, eighty-six years ago, I guess.”

Twilight didn’t remember at all, but that was no surprise after that long. She accessed the ship’s database and ran a quick search. “Oh… here she is. Wrote some rather ugly things about you, when you were just starting the Wardens, I see. Killed in an accident?” Twilight felt a chill in her belly, reading those words and realizing what they could mean.

Rainbow nodded. “That’s her. It wasn’t an accident. Duran decided she was trying to hurt me, so he went after her. Watched her for a couple of weeks, then planted a fake letter from one of her sources saying they had something urgent and asking her to meet them right away. It was in the middle of a storm, but he’d written it like a life-or-death thing, so she flew out to meet ‘em. One of his robots followed her, then grabbed her in the middle of the storm and dragged her under a lake. Held her there until she drowned, then took off and flew back. Wasn’t a mark on her, looked like an accident. Everypony thought she’d just done something dumb, gone flying in the storm and crashed in a lake.”

Twilight shuddered. That was a hideously cold-blooded way to kill someone… but it fit frighteningly well with Duran’s personality. The human had spent what was probably more than a decade living alone in the wilds, and for him to patiently stalk someone and then lure them out and go after them in an ambush like that… it really did fit with mentions of the way he’d hunted that she remembered from his journal on Hell’s Reach. She felt a sudden pang of sick sympathy for the long-dead reporter; it took a long time for a pegasus to drown or suffocate. They had tremendous lung capacity. “Celestia’s name.” Twilight whispered. It was getting harder and harder to deny what the Warden commander was saying.

Rainbow wasn’t done. With the dam of silence cracked, words poured forth. “She wasn’t the only one. Remember Blueblood?” Twilight felt almost sick as she nodded. The arrogant noble unicorn stallion had blocked her efforts to build a university to study the new technology she’d been developing… until he’d died in an accident. Another accident. Rainbow closed her eyes. “He was another one. Duran knew how important that school project was to you, and he knew that Blueblood was deliberately getting in the way and gloating at you about it. So one night, his robots went in with some kind of decay-things. Weakened his house’s supports.”

“And they collapsed,” Twilight finished. This one she did remember. It had been a major thing at the time, a wealthy noble’s home suddenly collapsing, killing him and several other ponies. There had been an investigation, but all that had turned up was poor maintenance leading to a weakening of the supports. The unicorn shook her head, bewildered pain rising in her chest. “How did you find out about this?”

Rainbow sighed. “A journal. He had it with him in the hospital, and I looked at it a few times when I was bored waiting for him to wake up. There wasn’t anything real clear, but there was a bunch of stuff that made me wonder. I asked him at one point, and he told me. Didn’t even bother to talk around it, just flat-out told me about some of the ponies he’d killed. It was like he thought I’d thank him for it.” The pegasus closed her eyes, shivering all over. “I didn’t believe him at first. Thought he was messing with me. He did that, y’know, had a weird sense of humor sometimes. When I figured out he was serious, I was… oh, Celestia, I was mad. I was mad, I was hurt, I was scared… I wanted to blow up at him, to shout at him, but… I mean, I didn’t want that to be the last thing I ever said to him. You remember what it was like, the doctors’d all told me that any minute, he could be… gone. And I was mad, but at the same time I couldn’t forget all the stuff he did for me. For all of us, yeah, but especially for me. He was such a huge help setting up the Wardens, made all that gear for me when I was just starting out and never asked for anything in exchange. Not once. Gave me advice, gave me gear, gave me money when I needed it, and whenever I had a problem he’d sit and listen for as long as I wanted to talk. So I started to yell, but I cut it off.” Rainbow coughed, swiping more tears from her eyes. “And then, later, right when I decided to talk to him about it and was winding myself up to have an argument about it… You ever see someone die, Twilight?” The unicorn shook her head numbly. She’d had friends die over the years, all of them had, but she hadn’t been present when it happened. Rainbow swallowed hard. “I’ve seen it a bunch. Sometimes it’s really messy, sometimes it’s quiet, but it’s always horrible. I was telling myself, when he wakes up next time, I’ll talk to him about it, and sitting there waiting, getting all mad ’cause I was working myself up thinking about what I was gonna say, and he made a couple of little gasps, then he just breathed out and didn’t breathe in again. Like this long, slow sigh that sorta rattled right at the end. At first, I didn’t believe it, then… would you believe I was mad?” The pegasus let out a strangled laugh that sounded like it was half sob. “How messed up is that? He’d just died, and I was mad at him for it! Then it started to hurt.” A few tears rolled down Rainbow’s face, and this time she didn’t stop them. “Oh, it hurt,” she whispered, “It hurt that he was gone, it hurt that he did all this stuff and it was my fault, it hurt that I was mad at him and didn’t get a chance to work it out, and it hurt knowing how you guys would feel if I told you.” She sniffed, looking off to the side. “So I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. I took the journal, and all the others, and I got rid of ‘em. That was all I needed to do; he was really slick about it. Nopony would have ever suspected. Heck, I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t seen it written down.”

“You should have told us, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said quietly, trying to hold back tears of her own. She wished she'd known. How could she not have known? “You should have reported it, told the Guards or some other authority…”

“Why?” Rainbow interrupted, looking back at Twilight. “What would be the point? What good would that have done? He was… he was dead, you couldn’t exile him, or put him in prison to figure out what was wrong with him, and it wasn’t like he was going to hurt anypony else. It wouldn’t have brought those ponies back. All it would’ve done would be to make ponies hate him, and make it harder for you to get all that stuff built that made everypony’s life better.” She sniffed, hard. “So I kept it secret. Never even mentioned it, not even to A.J.” Rainbow chuckled, bitterly. “Y’know, it’s kinda surprising how good it feels, not being the only pony who knows anymore.”

Twilight blinked, shaking her head, feeling the same pain constricting her chest that she was sure was in Rainbow’s. It was hard to take in, hard to reconcile with her mental image of her deceased friend.

Rainbow interrupted her thoughts. “Thing is, today, I think I understand where he was coming from. Maybe. Almost.” Rainbow took a deep breath. “I think, in some messed-up way, he was worried about losing us. Worried that we’d get hurt. I mean, I saw all those aliens coming off the shuttles, and every one of ‘em was armed. I knew there was no way that I could keep them away from you guys with just me and one squad, no matter how hard we hit ‘em. And you guys were just ignoring me, acting like there wasn’t anything dangerous going on. I was so scared I was gonna lose you guys. Maybe that’s how he felt.” She sniffed. “You guys, you, Pinkie, A.J., Fluttershy, Rarity… with this not-aging thing you’re the only friends I don’t have to lose. The only ones I can care about that won’t get old and die. So I panicked. I told the troopers to grab you and run, while I held them off with the rest of the troops. I figured I’d probably kick it, but you guys would be okay.”

“So you made a mistake.” Twilight summarized quietly. She wrapped her feelings up, the feelings of shock and pain, and bundled them away. She had something to do, something important. This mission needed Rainbow Dash, just like it needed all of them. Her feelings, her pain, could wait for later.

Rainbow’s chin lifted defiantly. “A mistake? I don’t think it’s a mistake to try and keep my friends safe!”

“So you think the right thing to do would have been to open fire and risk us getting caught in the crossfire?”

“I…!” The pegasus sagged again, her mechanical limbs emitting a quiet whine as she drooped. “I don’t know. Maybe I was right, maybe I wasn’t. But in the end you and Fluttershy were right. Whether I was right or not, I did it wrong.” She looked up, pure agony in her face. Her voice cracked when she spoke. “And I may have lost you guys anyway because of it.”

Twilight rubbed her head, thinking. How to handle this? “You didn’t lose us, Rainbow. We’re upset with you, yes, but we’re still your friends. I wish you’d talked to us about this.” Having this conversation sometime in the past eight decades would probably have been better, Twilight mused in irritation. That anger Rainbow had been carrying had festered and affected her judgment; Fluttershy was partially right, and the Warden leader had developed a pronounced tendency to lash out when she saw a threat. “Rainbow, I have to ask this, and please answer honestly. Is Fluttershy right? Do you enjoy killing things?” If that was the case, Twilight couldn’t afford to put her back in command. If not…

Rainbow’s mouth twisted. “No. I’m good at it, yeah, but I don’t really like it. Fluttershy mentioned that dragon a couple of years ago, I still have nightmares about that sometimes.”

“I’d… actually started to think that was just a rumor.”

“What? Me killing that dragon?”

Twilight nodded. “Well, it would be an impressive feat, and you never mention it. I’d assumed…”

“That I’d brag?” Rainbow interrupted. At Twilight’s nod, the pegasus looked away. “No. I’m not gonna brag about that. I don’t even like thinking about it, ‘cause it makes me a little sick. Yeah, I killed him one-on-one, without my guns or armor…”

“What?” Twilight gasped. That was the most extreme version of the story, the one that pretty much only the Wardens ever told. Nopony else believed it. The unicorn groped for words, finally coming up with, “…How?!”

Rainbow didn’t look up. She lifted a foreleg with a whine of actuators, and the long metal talons slid free, glinting wickedly in the light. Energy crackled around them, the disruption field tearing apart the molecules of the air and filling the room with an ozone stink. “With these. It was all I had. These and my speed. The nearest Warden unit was half an hour away, and that dragon would have wrecked Orangeseed and killed everypony there by the time they arrived. It was just me.” She swallowed hard. “It took a long time. I shredded his wings first, that was easy. Those big membranes of theirs are tough, but once you get a blade in ’em they tear like paper that’s full of blood. Then I started going after the tendons on his legs.” The pegasus’s voice was hollow, empty, and her words were horrifically matter-of-fact. “It took three or four passes each to cut ‘em. Dragons are big. Dodging his fire was hard, too, but he never tagged me with it. He was mad at first, talking up a storm about all the stuff he was gonna do to me when he caught me, about how my rep was all hot air… he changed his tune after I cut both his hamstrings. He couldn’t fly, couldn’t run anymore, and he hadn’t even touched me. I think he started to realize he was losing at that point, and he started begging me to let him go.” Rainbow gritted her teeth. “I couldn’t let him go. I couldn’t. You know how dragons are, how they hold grudges. He would’ve gone home, healed up, and been back in a few years. He’d’ve hit some other town, killed ponies because he’d know it would hurt me, except this time he’d make sure I was nowhere nearby. So I didn’t listen. He got more and more scared when I crippled his front legs, and he was screaming by the time I latched onto his neck.”

Twilight felt sick. “Goddess, Rainbow…”

The pegasus didn’t even pause. “I grabbed onto his spines and just started sawing. You know how thick the scales on the back of a dragon’s neck are? I didn’t until then. They’re crazy. Even with the disrupter fields it took me a long time, especially with the way he was thrashing, trying to get me off. He was screaming the whole time, screaming and babbling, even,” she hiccupped, “even calling for his mom. I nearly let him go then. I didn’t want to…” She paused for a second, and Twilight saw a tear fall to the floor. “I finally made it through the scales and the muscles. Cut his spine, and he finally stopped moving. I got off him, went around so I could see. He wasn’t breathing, but he wasn’t dead yet, his eyes were still moving. I told him,” she hiccupped again, “told him I was sorry. It was stupid, I mean, I just killed him, and I was telling him I was sorry. What the heck is wrong with me.” She cleared her throat, shaking her head. “Then, once he was dead, I hacked his head off. Took it to one of the big nesting grounds, threw it on the ground, and asked them who wanted to be next.”

“That’s hideous, Rainbow Dash.” Twilight had to fight back her gorge. Somehow, the pegasus's tone and the faraway look in her eyes made the story even harder to listen to.

“Worked, though. They’d been pushing us for a while at that point, harassing Warden patrols, showing up to bully towns when we weren’t nearby and then ducking back across the border when we showed up. At least that stopped. All they did was send an ambassador to whine at us, and Fluttershy had been trying to get them to do that for years.”

“There were better ways to do that!”

“Were there?” Rainbow’s gaze lifted, and anger glinted in her rose-colored eyes, the same shade that her real eyes had been. The hideous scar marring her face gave her glare a barbaric, dangerous look. “Then how come no one was using them, huh? I’d told Fluttershy about what was going on. She kept saying she’d talk to the dragons and they’d back off, but they kept not doing it. I kept warning, and they kept getting nastier and nastier and no one was doing anything. The only one that ever listens to me is A.J., and you guys never listen to her either! So yeah, I do my own thing, and yeah, I do nasty stuff that disgusts you. But it works, and no one else will do it!”

There, finally, was the crux of the problem. Rainbow felt ignored, felt like her advice was being cast aside and marginalized. She’d gotten used to acting almost in a vacuum, because she felt like she had to.

“We weren’t ignoring you down there, Rainbow.” Twilight shifted to look the pegasus in the eyes. “We were paying very close attention to what you said. I admit, perhaps I should have sent some of our friends back to the ship, but I thought that it would upset them to be cut out. Besides, we trust you to keep us safe, and I’m certain that if things had gone badly you would have found a way to get us out, no matter what.”

Rainbow perked up a tiny bit, her ears lifting from where they’d laid flat against her neck since Twilight had entered. “Really? You mean that? You’re not just messing with me?”

“Of course I mean it, Rainbow. I take all of my friends’ advice seriously. All of you are smart ponies, good at what you do.”

Rainbow snorted. “Some of us are smarter than others,” she said, a dry, self-deprecating tone in her voice.

“Stop that,” Twilight said firmly. “You’re all bright. It’s just that, this time, Fluttershy was correct, and you weren’t. Nopony can be right all the time, Rainbow.”

The pegasus sighed, grimacing. “All right. Okay. I’ll admit it. She was right and I was wrong.”

Twilight smiled. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash. I tell you what, I will promise not to ignore your advice,” easy enough since she hadn’t been ignoring it in the first place, “if you’ll do something for me."

“What’s that?” Rainbow asked suspiciously.

“I want you to promise me,” Twilight stared Rainbow in the face, her eyes steely, “never to go behind my back like that again. Ever. You may give advice. You may command your ponies as you see fit, so long as you do not counteract my orders. For as long as this mission lasts, I am the commander. Is that clear?”

Rainbow nodded firmly. “Crystal, Commander. I promise not to do that again.”

“Excellent. One more thing.” Rainbow cocked her head, waiting. “I want you to apologize to Fluttershy.”

“For what?” Rainbow asked indignantly. “It was you I went against, not her! She doesn’t have anything to do with this!”

“Exactly,” Twilight responded levelly. “You ignored her. You brushed her advice aside, exactly as you felt we were doing to you. If you want us to change the way we treat you, then I want you to apologize to her for it.” Small steps. Twilight didn’t expect this to heal the rift between the two pegasi, not on its own. But it was a step.

Rainbow sighed heavily. “Fine. Okay, you’ve got a point; I’ll apologize to her.”

“Good.” Twilight nodded decisively. “In that case, you’re no longer under arrest, and you’re reinstated to your position.” Twilight pinged the ship’s network, removing the arrest order and reactivating Rainbow’s clearance and rank. She’d get Fluttershy to apologize for some of the things she’d said about the Wardens at the same time as the cyan pegasus made her apology. “On a more personal note, Rainbow,” the unicorn continued in a softer voice, “thank you for sharing all those things with me. It’s good to know you still trust me.”

“It’s funny,” Rainbow said with a small smile of her own, “I… actually feel a lot better after saying all that. So I should be thanking you.”

“Glad to help, Rainbow Dash.”

Excursions

Twilight left Rainbow Dash in her quarters, pinging a message to Rarity about what she’d arranged and asking the other unicorn to get Fluttershy to cooperate. She included the fact that the Warden felt ignored and marginalized, mentioned that she’d mostly worked it out, and sent a summary of the apology she wanted Fluttershy to offer in response to Rainbow’s. She received a quick reply from Rarity, telling her that the white-coated unicorn would take care of her end and, satisfied that things with her two pegasus friends were well in hoof, threw herself into her immediate business. They’d gotten a flood of information from the Tazaft fleet, and even better, they’d gotten the aliens’ electronic data coding methods down on the planet, so they could actually read it. Eklsee had provided as complete a map of the border the Tazaft shared with the Baltornic Council as she could assemble, complete with data on fleet movements and major staging areas. They’d also been given basic data on Council electronic communications, codes, and best of all, languages. They would actually be able to talk to the Council next time they encountered them, or at least take a shot at talking to them. She looked at samples of the languages provided; there were at least five species represented there, given the massively different phonetic structures involved, and none of them sounded even a bit like Modern Equestrian. That was a bit of a disappointment; Twilight had hoped that she might find representatives of Duran’s people during their voyages, but that was looking less and less likely. Other interesting facts stood out; the Council used electronic tech like the Tazaft did, rather than arcane tech like Equestria used, and they used a different kind of drive. The Tazaft used a system very like the Library Core’s K-F drive, making instantaneous jumps of limited distance with long charging periods in between, but the Council instead used some kind of wormhole system. It didn’t have to be charged like the Tazaft drive, or Equestria’s Tethinar-derived Gate drive, but it actually had a speed rather than being instantaneous.

The Tazaft dossier told Twilight vastly more about their erstwhile enemies than ponykind had been able to assemble on its own, but it only raised more questions. This was clearly a multispecies government, and the Tazaft records showed that their initial contact had been peaceful. Why had that changed in Equestria’s case? There had been numerous nonviolent contacts between the Council and the Tazaft before the latter had started a fight, but there had been none with the ponies, only missile fire. It was baffling, frustrating, and disheartening. Why was their behavior so inconsistent? Did the Council just hate them that much? Why?

Twilight called her friends together once more in the meeting room, planning to present them with her findings. She’d made sure to route the information to the various experts aboard the Dauntless before doing so, hoping that it would prove useful.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was far more relaxed than the last time they’d all gathered. The tension between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, though still present, was greatly reduced, and the others all seemed happier about it.

“Well,” Twilight began without preamble, “I’m sure you all know that we got a great deal of interesting data from our new friends.” She nodded thanks to the yellow pegasus. “Thank you, Fluttershy, for helping make that work.”

Fluttershy ducked her head modestly. “Oh, I didn’t do much. It was mostly you that time; I just gave you a few nudges.”

“They were good nudges, though, and I think it made everything go much smoother than it might have otherwise. So thank you.” Fluttershy smiled again, accepting the thanks. She looked around the table in a quick glance, her manner a bit shy like she’d been in her youth. The others all smiled or nodded, acknowledging her contribution. Even Rainbow Dash gave her a sober nod, a fact that seemed to set the quieter pegasus aback.

Twilight cleared her throat, reclaiming her friends’ attention. “What we need to decide is where we go from here. This,” she brought up a projection of Baltornic space, assembled from the Tazaft data, “is the area we know they consider theirs. These,” red dots appeared on several star systems, “are fleet bases. And these,” arrows drew themselves from system to system, “are the fleet movements our allies are aware of. Suggestions?”

“Is this all of their territory?” Rarity asked, examining the map closely.

Twilight shook her head. “Almost certainly not. This is just the part the Tazaft are aware of, and there are only two heavily developed systems in this grouping.” Two of the stars glowed gold, at the far edge of the mapped space. “These two. Given that, if the languages they’re known to employ are any indication, there should be at least five species on the council, that suggests that there are a bare minimum of three more heavily developed worlds out there somewhere, assuming that these two are homeworlds rather than mature colonies, which they may very well be.”

Fluttershy nodded. “This may just be frontier space, then, assuming they even think in those terms.” She sighed. “It’s hard to figure out how they think when we can’t get any firsthoof experience.”

“I know.” Twilight had already experienced that problem herself, trying to figure out the bizarrely contradictory behavior the Council had already exhibited. “Does anypony have suggestions about how to contact them that might not result in an immediate battle?”

Rainbow Dash coughed. “I may have some ideas.” Her voice was a little tentative, like she half-expected to be expelled from the meeting.

“Let’s hear them, then.” Fluttershy’s voice was calm, her manner interested. The others nodded, and Rainbow drew herself up, a bit of her normal confidence creeping back in.

“Well, the thing is, if this is a frontier we probably don’t want to show up at the major bases.” The indicators for the Council fleet stations and depots flashed in response to Rainbow’s commands to the network. “Those are their homes, and they’ll want to defend ‘em. I would, at least.”

“Yep,” Applejack put in, “Besides, they may have heavy-duty defenses and stuff that we don‘t want to get close to. Our frontier bases sure do, and they’ve got some pretty strict rules about comin’ and goin’, and who can do it.”

“Exactly.” Rainbow nodded. “We really want to stay away from here,” the two gold dots that represented the developed systems flashed, “because if they’ve got a lot of squishies there they’re gonna be even more defensive.”

“Squishies?” Fluttershy asked, arching an eyebrow.

Applejack cut in before Rainbow could respond. “Normal folks. Not fighters.” She glared at her fellow commander. “It ain’t a term we encourage.”

The cyan pegasus’s grin was a little abashed. “Oops, sorry. Slipped. So anyway,” she raised her voice a hair, clearly hoping everyone would forget what she’d said, “I think the best idea would be trying to run into one of their patrols. Meet ‘em somewhere like here,” several systems along the illustrated Council patrol routes flashed, “someplace with no development. If there’s nothing to defend, and they haven’t gone looking for us ready for a fight, we might run into someone who won’t be hostile. It’ll depend on the local commander.”

“That’s not a bad thought, actually.” Rarity’s voice was contemplative as she looked at the systems Rainbow had marked.

“Oh, um, another thing,” Fluttershy added, “if the Council and the Tazaft are fighting, shouldn’t we pick someplace away from the Tazaft? They might be less jumpy then.”

Rainbow nodded. “Good point. So what do you guys think, here maybe?” She highlighted a system on a Council patrol route far away from the Tazaft border. “I mean, this place is marked as having life, so even if we don’t run into any Council ships it might still give us someone to talk to.”

“That sounds good to me,” Fluttershy remarked. The other three nodded.

“So you’re all in agreement, then?” Twilight asked.

“I think so, darling,” Rarity said thoughtfully. “It sounds like a good plan.”

Twilight smiled. “Right. Then let’s get to it!”

The unicorn kept to herself how delighted she was that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were working together. They weren’t completely out of feud-mode yet, but they were heading that direction. It made her happy.

They sent the information about where they planned to go to Eklsee before the Tazaft fleet began accelerating, and received an acknowledgement in response. The aliens still didn’t think it was a terribly good idea, especially since their destination was several jumps from the nearest Tazaft base and would thus be out of range for quick reinforcement. The aliens asked them to check in with one of their outposts in a few days, just to be sure their new allies were still alive. Twilight agreed, thanking the alien leader for her thoughtfulness.

The run outsystem didn’t take long; the star was small, and its interference radius correspondingly reduced. They reached the edge of the sphere without further incident, powered up the Gate drive and disconnected everypony from the link, and jumped out.

The system they found themselves in looked quite a bit like home. The star sitting in the center was a yellow dwarf just like Celestia’s sun, though a tiny bit larger and brighter. There were gas giants on the outer edge of the system, and a survey found several rocky worlds closer to the star. One of them had the spectrographic indicators for liquid water and atmospheric oxygen, and was almost certainly the life-bearing world the Tazaft charts had indicated resided here.

Dauntless made a careful circuit of the system, taking more than a day cruising slowly around the perimeter and keeping her acceleration and velocity relatively low, searching for any signs of a Council patrol they could contact. There was no sign of any such activity, however, the system proving completely devoid of radio activity apart from that generated by natural processes, and the few thermal traces they found proving only to be slightly warmer-than-normal asteroids that had passed close to the star and hadn’t yet shed the heat they’d accumulated to the void.

After long consideration and consultation with Captain Silver Stars, Twilight Sparkle decided to move into the system to investigate the life-bearing world.

They proceeded carefully and slowly, their sensors sweeping the system as they moved further inward, but still they saw no sign of other ships. That wasn’t terribly surprising; from what the Tazaft dossier had reported, Council ships swept through on patrol on about a weekly basis. The Tazaft scouts had seen a patrol here when they’d surveyed the system, but that was by no means a guarantee that they were here constantly.

Still, it was a chance to investigate. Though there was no signal traffic, there was still a chance that there was something on the world ahead. Twilight privately hoped for some kind of civilian outpost: a mine, a research station, something along those lines that would give them a chance to speak to Council noncombatants. Even something like an automated refueling depot, storage center, or agricultural station would tell them something about the society they found themselves at odds with, though Twilight rather suspected that any such installations would be constructed up in space rather than on a planetary surface.

Nothing showed itself during their careful approach, and they found no traces of the Council on the world once they reached it.

“No traces of the Council,” though, did not mean “nothing at all.”

“This is fascinating.” Twilight magnified the projection over the meeting table, examining the small, neat village. “Not to mention unexpected!”

“And pointless!” Rainbow exclaimed in exasperation. “Look, the guys we’re looking for have spaceships and FTL. These guys live in freaking huts with grass roofs. They aren’t going to know anything, and trying to figure out how to talk to them is a total waste of time! We should head out, check the next-best location.”

“We don’t know that they know nothing, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy retorted. “If they live on a world whose system the Council patrols, they may have been contacted. We can’t be sure until we try talking to them.”

“If these Council guys had talked to them, wouldn’t they have better stuff than stone tools? I mean, there’s not even any metal down there, is there?”

“No refined metal,” Twilight corrected, and Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“Right, ‘cause iron ore is so useful when you’re chipping freaking flint. Fine, no actual metal that anyone could use for anything, just red rocks that have metal in them. Seriously, they’re not going to know anything, we should head out.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Fluttershy said again. “Even if they don’t, though, it could be good practice. Talking to people like this, who don’t have any kind of technology that could help to communicate, would be the most difficult thing we could do.” The yellow mare smiled gently. “Besides, I’d like the chance to meet new people. I’ll take a small team down; most of my ponies are busy looking over the information we got from Eklsee.” Fluttershy did a surprisingly good job of pronouncing the Tazaft fleet leader’s name, something that Twilight just absolutely could not manage. “Studying that could give us a better chance at talking to them once we meet them, and we might as well just orbit here for a few days while they do it.”

Rainbow looked at Twilight, and the unicorn shrugged. “She’s got a point. We may have gone ahead a little faster than we should have, and it shouldn’t hurt us to take a few days to study the information we have. She might as well try contacting the creatures who live down there, on the off-chance they might know something.”

Rainbow sighed, resignedly. “Yes, Commander. I’ll put a team together.”

“No.” Fluttershy interjected flatly. “We won’t be taking any of your ponies along.”

The other pegasus frowned. “Fluttershy, I get that you don’t like my crew, but we’re here to keep you and your ponies safe. Look, I understand that you might be worried about me being there. If you don’t want me there, I’ll stay up here,” Rainbow was clearly not happy at the prospect, but she swallowed it and kept going, “but you should have at least some guards.”

“No,” Fluttershy said again. “I don’t want any Wardens along this time. These aren’t dangerous aliens; they’re simple creatures, they won’t be dangerous. If things go badly, we can just run for the shuttle and lift off.”

Applejack shook her head. “Darlin’, I’d think twice about that plan if I was you. Those folks got spears, at least; they ain’t harmless, and if they decide to take offense to something you say I don’t know for sure you could get away.”

Fluttershy pointed to one of the aliens in the village. The creatures were vaguely reptilian, with brilliant, colorful scales and patchy clothing that was dyed in similar brilliant colors. “We’ve watched them from up here, Applejack. We know how fast they can run, and we can run faster. We also know that they don’t have anything like a bow; once we get out of reach, we’re safe. Honestly, we’ll be fine.”

Twilight rubbed her eyes. Fluttershy had a point; they’d clocked the aliens’ running speed, and it was significantly slower than the average pony, and they hadn’t seen any missile weapons. “Fluttershy has a point, girls. If her ponies run, there’s a good chance that those creatures won’t catch them, and she is generally good at not making strangers mad.”

Rainbow Dash and Applejack leveled frowns at Twilight so identical that she had to stifle a snicker. “Sugarcube, the chance may be low… but it could be nothin’ with an armored Warden or two along for the ride.”

Fluttershy shook her head adamantly. “No. We saw before that a Warden can potentially hamper my work, and I don’t want them there.”

“That was me, Fluttershy, not the other Wardens,” Rainbow said quietly. “If I hadn’t been there, there wouldn’t have been a problem. I admit it, I screwed up. Please don’t let that make you do something dumb.”

Fluttershy’s eyes flashed. “I am not doing anything dumb. I am making a considered, reasoned decision. Just because it doesn’t agree with yours doesn’t make it dumb.”

“That’s not what I…” Rainbow started, but Twilight cut her off.

“Rainbow, Fluttershy’s presented her reasoning, and it seems sound to me. I’m going to authorize it.” She looked at Fluttershy. “As long as you make sure that your entire team can keep up if you have to run, and you leave any heavy equipment on the shuttle where it won’t slow you down.” Fluttershy nodded.

The cyan pegasus stared at her blankly, then sagged in defeat. “I… yes, Commander. I won’t send any Wardens along.” Applejack looked troubled, but she nodded with a sigh. The two Wardens shared a glance that Twilight couldn’t interpret.

“Oo, can I go along?” Pinkie Pie bounced up from her seat. “I already got to record one bunch of aliens, and now I could record another! Oh, this is gonna be so much fun!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure you can keep up, Pinkie?”

“Abso-super-duper-lutely! I can run zoomy-fast when I need to, don’t you worry your purple mane about it!”

The unicorn nodded. “Okay, you can go along. But I want both of you to be careful.”

Fluttershy nodded. “We’ll be careful, Twilight, don’t worry. I’ve even been able to go into griffon settlements without making them angry; I’ll be able to handle this.”

“All right. I’m going to go back to studying the Tazaft data, but I’ll be on the bridge when you land.”

The group broke up, heading in their various directions, though Rainbow pulled Rarity aside for a moment to talk to her. The pegasus looked troubled, as did Applejack, but Twilight was confident she’d made the right call.

Twilight decided to do her work on the bridge, since she doubted it would take Fluttershy long to load her lander. Sure enough, she was in the middle of reviewing Tazaft projections on Council capabilities and FTL speed not quite an hour later when Fluttershy pinged the bridge with a request to launch. Rainbow trotted in moments later, along with Rarity, who was looking a little tense.

Twilight brought up a feed from the shuttle’s pilot on the bridge’s projectors, giving them a nice big view of what was going on. The shuttle eased down to low speed in the lower atmosphere, gradually moving up on the village they’d chosen to contact, taking its time so as not to scare the aliens.

The natives spotted the shuttle as it came in, just as Fluttershy had intended. The entire village abandoned their tasks, leaving pottery half-made, food half-cooked, cloth half-woven as they gathered at the edge of their settlement to stare in awe at the shuttle easing down before them.

The pilot set the vehicle down gently at the edge of the large clearing that surrounded the alien town. She’d carefully avoided anything that looked like it could be cultivated, taken care to avoid damaging anything that could potentially be someone’s property, and made sure to give the contact team room to open a lead if they had to run. The ramp eased down, and Fluttershy and her small party walked out, approaching the clustered aliens slowly and carefully.

The aliens’ reaction wasn’t hostile in the slightest. One of them, the tallest and least brightly colored, let out a loud whoop, and the creatures lifted long arms to the sky, beginning a song that was beautiful to hear. They chanted and danced in place as Fluttershy stepped out in front of her ponies.

“See, Rainbow?” Twilight said gently, “Fluttershy has it under control.”

“Hmph.” Was the pegasus’s only reply.

She was quiet while they watched the creature who had set off the singing and dancing approach the ponies with an air of reverence. The reptilian spoke in quiet, gentle tones that Fluttershy replied to in kind, though neither understood the other. Fluttershy’s translation systems went to work on the alien’s speech, but they would need a much bigger sample before they gave any kind of results.

“I don’t like this,” Rainbow said suddenly.

Twilight frowned. “Don’t like what?”

“That.” Rainbow brought up a pointer on the screen, indicating where the aliens, still engaged in their oddly hypnotic dance, had started to move closer to the ponies onplanet, spreading out to look at them from all sides.

“It’s all right, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, trying to reassure her friend. “Look, they’re peaceful. Fluttershy knows what she’s doing. Just relax.”

“I still think we shoulda had Wardens along,” Rainbow grumbled. On the main screen, the feed from the landing party zoomed in a bit to show the details of the brightly colored, scaled aliens singing joyfully, stretching their arms to the sky as they danced. Fluttershy and her aide were still trading soft words with what now appeared to be the tribal leader, giving their translator systems as big a sample as possible.

“You know why Fluttershy refused that, Rainbow.” Twilight chided.

“Yeah. I know, I was outta line, but it’s still stupid to have no guards at all.” Rainbow glanced at the screen again. “And something about this is giving me the creeps. I don’t like how they’re moving around Fluttershy’s group.”

“I can’t imagine why that would bother you, darling, they seem like lovely people.” Rarity spoke up, shooting a sidelong look at the pegasus. “Though I do have to thank you for actually following orders this time.”

Rainbow hung her head again. “I get it, Rarity. I’m not used to not being the one in charge, so I over…” On the screen, one of the reptilian aliens leaned down to embrace one of the first contact team. Rainbow’s eyes widened. “That’s not good. That’s not good! Get ‘em out of there, Twilight!”

“What? Why?” Twilight looked at the screen in puzzlement, just in time to see the alien draw a long claw across the throat of the unicorn mare it embraced. Blood fountained from her neck as she stumbled to her knees, and the song of the rest of the tribe reached a new crescendo. There was stunned, unbelieving silence on the bridge and among the rest of the diplomatic team.

Rainbow barely even paused. She whirled on Twilight. “Twi, can we teleport down?”

Twilight blinked, as a chorus of screams erupted among the diplomats and the bridge crew looked at each other, wondering what in the world to do. “Uh… no, I don’t have the range…”

Rainbow snarled a curse and whirled toward the exit. “Rarity, I’m going, don’t try to stop me!” Without another word, the pegasus galloped out into the corridor.

Rarity finally managed to make her voice work, and croaked out, “The Wardens have full clearance.” A nearby communications officer nodded, turning to speak quietly to her console.

Twilight rushed to follow Rainbow, but the Warden Commander was unbelievably quick. By the time the unicorn made it out into the corridor, she saw the lift doors closing. Rainbow had been fast in her youth, but with her cybernetic enhancements she bordered on the supernatural. Twilight made a snap decision, and with a quick focusing of her thoughts teleported into the lift next to Rainbow, who barely batted an eye at the lavender unicorn’s appearance. “Hey, Twi, if we can’t teleport down, can you teleport me to the shuttle bay?”

Twilight blinked in surprise. “Well, yes, I think I could…”

“Do it. Seconds count.” Twilight was taken aback by the curt tone of the order, especially since she was the one who was supposed to be giving the orders on this mission. Still, speed mattered. She focused again, drawing on her knowledge of the Dauntless’s internal layout, and in another flash of power transported the two of them to the main shuttle bay. Several Wardens staggered in, carrying their equipment, not having had the time to put it on yet.

“Wintergreen,” Rainbow snapped, “Which shuttle?”

“That one Comman- Lieutenant,” the enormous, pale green earth pony mare leading the group responded, pointing to one of the shuttles. Twilight recognized the name and voice of the mare who’d been leading the escort squad on the last world they’d landed on. Looking at her now, it was clear that the armor wasn’t the only thing that had been making her look that big.

“Right. Everyone onboard, now.” Rainbow paused, and Twilight felt the ghostly sensation of arcane communications as the multicolored mare interfaced with the data net. “We’re ready for launch, let’s go people!”

“But what about the rest…” one of the unicorn Wardens started to say, but she was interrupted by the shuttle bay’s speakers activating.

“They’ve just killed another, Rainbow,” Rarity’s strained voice said, “please, please hurry.”

“Dammit. We wait for the rest of the squad, and ponies die.” Rainbow said, grimly. “Move it!” The Wardens hustled into the shuttle, lugging their equipment. Rainbow turned to Twilight. “Are you coming along? It might be a bad idea…”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I’m coming.”

“Fine. No time to argue, come on.” Rainbow hurried up the ramp, Twilight close behind. The pegasus banged on the door to the pilot compartment. “Everypony’s aboard. Go!” She then hustled over to help her troopers don their gear as the boarding ramp hissed closed and the shuttle started to move. None of them had their powered armor; the heavy battle suits took time to power up and don, and evidently none of them wanted to take that extra time. Instead, they had weapon harnesses, many of which needed to be straightened out before being put on. “Dammit,” Rainbow muttered again, making Twilight wish once more that she hadn‘t picked up that particular habit from Duran. “Why didn’t I have a squad standing by in armor for a combat drop? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should’ve been ready.”

“It isn’t your fault, Rainbow, you couldn’t have predicted…” Twilight said soothingly, but the cyberpegasus cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. I dropped the ball, now there’s dead ponies and there might be more because I wasn’t ready.” Rainbow tightened the strap on Wintergreen’s weapon harness. “You good, Wintergreen?”

“Sure am, boss.” The mare took the grip of her weapon in her teeth, moving it carefully to test its fit. “Good to go.”

Twilight had brought up a feed from the ground team, and closed her eyes in agony. Another pony had just been murdered. The locals were surrounding them now, preventing them from escaping. Fluttershy and Velvet Glove were desperately trying to talk to the aliens, trying to find out why they were doing what they were doing, but there were only four ponies left alive and they weren’t making any progress.

“Dammit!” Rainbow swore again. “We’re not gonna get there in time! Desperate measures time.” She pulled open a wall locker, retrieving a breathing mask that fit over the head and ears, attached to a small air tank. Quickly, the Warden Commander slipped the mask onto her head.

Wintergreen moved up to block Rainbow’s path. “Boss. You’re not thinking of doing what I’m thinking you’re thinking, are you?”

Rainbow glared at the big earth pony mare, her wings flaring aggressively. “Get outta my way, Wintergreen. Right now.”

“What are you doing, Rainbow?” Twilight asked. The shuttle was clear of the Dauntless, and starting its descent, but nowhere near landing.

“She’s gonna do a free drop.” Wintergreen explained, not looking away from Rainbow’s eyes. “Which is stupid for a bunch of reasons, including the one that she’s unarmed.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed behind the clear visor, and she raised a forehoof, wicked metal talon-blades sliding free of the cybernetic limb. “I am never unarmed, sergeant. Now move, or I will move you. My friends need me.”

“A free drop? Without armor?” Twilight gasped. “But that’s…”

“It’s borderline suicidal.” Wintergreen interrupted. “Commander Dash is the only one who’s ever even tried it…”

Rainbow interrupted. “I’ve done it. Twice. I can do reentry faster than the shuttle can.”

“Can you do it and be in any shape to help at the end of it?” Wintergreen didn’t back down. Instead, she pressed forward, glaring into Rainbow’s eyes and ignoring the savage glint in the pegasus‘s rosy irises. Twilight considered it one of the most courageous things she’d ever seen; Rainbow was in a killing mood, and Twilight didn’t think she’d have had the courage to stand in the pegasus’s way right now, friend or not, let alone try to stare her down. “I’ve been there both times you’ve tried this, boss. You got messed up bad. Both times.”

Rainbow ground her teeth. “I’ll either be in shape to help, or when I hit I’ll distract ‘em for a few seconds so you can fly in to the rescue. Now get. Out. Of. My. Way. You’ve got five seconds.” The rainbow-haired mare’s voice was so flat and cold it gave Twilight chills.

Wintergreen glared for another frozen moment before finally stepping aside, shaking her head. “Your funeral, boss. Hope this thing has a broom onboard so I can sweep up the bits.”

Rainbow flashed a savage grin. “Maybe one of the maintenance bots has a wet-vac. You and the team be ready to go in hard, just in case I go in a little too hard.” The earth pony nodded soberly.

“Good luck, boss.”

Rainbow hit the airlock control, and was in and gone before Twilight could formulate a protest of her own. The lavender unicorn turned to Wintergreen in horror, as the Kestrel started to shudder in the first wisps of the upper atmosphere. “T-tell me she didn’t just do that. Tell me one of my best friends didn’t just jump out of a shuttle. Outside the atmosphere.”

The Warden shook her head. “‘Fraid I can’t tell you that, ma’am. Commander. Since that’s what she did.” She looked morose. “Celestia, I hope she does better this time.”

“What happened the other times?!” Twilight asked incredulously. “When were the other times? I never got a report on this!”

“It’s ‘cause the Commanders decided it was a really bad idea.” Wintergreen observed, glaring at the orange-coated pegasus Warden that was staring at the closed door, the only pegasus in the squad who had made it to the shuttle in time. “Which means you’re not following her, Blaze.” The other Warden glanced at the big mare guiltily, then went back to securing her weapon. Wintergreen turned back to Twilight. “She crashed both times. Hard. Couldn’t slow down fast enough.” She heaved a sigh. “Broke all six limbs and all of her ribs the first time. And yeah, that includes the metal ones and the bone reinforcements since she already had ‘em by then. Plus skull fractures and a bunch of other stuff. Miracle she didn’t die. She would have if we hadn’t had a med team right there, ‘cause I was sure something was gonna go wrong. Took her almost six months to recover; there was organ damage, and her muscles were just shredded on top of the broken stuff.” Twilight gasped in horror, and Wintergreen smiled thinly. “And then she goes and does it again two freaking months after she gets out of the hospital. Second time was almost as bad; all four legs, one wing, and only half her ribs, plus more skull fractures, like those matter to Commander Dash.” The green mare shook her head again. “She swears she figured it out, but Applejack stopped the tests after the second time, told Dash never to do it again, and told me to just pick her up and slam her against the wall until the wall broke if she tried since that’d probably hurt her less.” The green mare paused. “Aw, dang, Gramma’s gonna be mad at me. There’s not even a dent in the wall.”

The last bit, said with gloomy certainty, made Twilight blink, even in context with the other shocks Wintergreen had just piled on her. It took the unicorn a moment to realize that this was probably another of Applejack’s descendants; she’d been the only one of the Bearers to have foals, and she had dozens and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren by now. Probably great-great grandchildren, too, Twilight hadn’t been to her family gatherings in a while.

“So, you’re…” Twilight tried to think of a way to put it delicately, trying to distract herself from the fact that they might land to find Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie dead and Rainbow Dash nothing but a red crater. Wintergreen interrupted her.

“Commander Applejack’s my grandam, if that’s what you’re trying not to ask. And yeah, I know I don’t look much like her or grandad,” Applejack’s stallion, an earth pony named Ivory, had been rather small and slender for a stallion even in his youth, and Applejack, though solidly built, wasn’t terribly large either. Wintergreen, by contrast, was huge for a mare. She’d be big for a stallion. “I kinda take after great-uncle Mac, or so I’ve heard.” She did, at that. Unless Twilight’s memory was slipping (it wasn’t, she’d tested that) Wintergreen was actually bigger than Applejack’s brother had been. She had a trace of the Apple clan’s distinctive accent, too, just barely enough to notice when one knew to look for it.

Twilight shook her head, focusing back on the situation. Her horn glowed as she connected to the shuttle’s communications system, bringing up an illusory screen with the feed from the landing party. Wintergreen sidled up to look over her shoulder. (Actually over her head) Twilight spared a glance for the huge mare. “You… may not want to watch this.”

Wintergreen snorted quietly. “Commander, I may be a sergeant on this run, but back home I’m a major with twenty years in the Wardens. I’ve seen ponies die before.” She sighed. “We try our best to make sure it doesn’t happen, but we don’t always succeed.”

Twilight started to respond, but she was interrupted by a babble of voices coming from the screen as the audio feed connected. Fluttershy and her assistant were still trying desperately to communicate with the aliens but were clearly getting nowhere, Pinkie was looking around desperately, shaking, and the other member of the team that still survived was crying, huddling behind the yellow pegasus. Fluttershy had one of the aliens pinned in her deadly glare, but she could only look one direction at a time. Other aliens were closing from the sides, still singing and dancing almost ecstatically. Three ponies lay dead, two with their throats neatly slit, the third sporting wounds on her face and shoulders as well. She’d tried to fight, but had been overwhelmed.

“How long will it take Rainbow to get there?” Twilight asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

“Anywhere from about thirty seconds from now onward.” Wintergreen replied, levelly. “The longer it takes her, the better the chances she won’t just splat.” Twilight’s heart stuttered in her chest at the thought. She brought up the shuttle’s ETA on the screen: four and a half minutes.

Twilight and Wintergreen watched the screen grimly as the Kestrel bucked and shuddered, smashing its way through the atmosphere. Thirty seconds passed. No sign of Rainbow. Thirty-five. Next to Twilight, Wintergreen relaxed almost imperceptibly. Four seconds after that, a line of rainbow-colored light streaked down out of the sky and smashed into the ground, and a massive dust cloud blotted out the view for a moment. The alien song stopped abruptly. Wintergreen tensed again. “Auntie, oh Celestia, no…” she whispered to herself, her voice agonized.

The dust cloud settled, revealing Rainbow standing crouched between the first contact team and the bulk of the alien tribe. She was breathing hard, but didn’t appear to be injured. The knot in Twilight’s stomach relaxed, and Wintergreen let out the breath she’d been holding. "Oh, thank heavens..."

Rainbow angled her head to speak over her shoulder without taking her gaze from the aliens. “Stay close to me,” she instructed in an undertone, before turning back to face the aliens squarely, and growled, “Mine!”

The aliens erupted in a chorus of ululations, stamping their feet. Fluttershy stepped close to Rainbow, and Twilight could barely hear her voice over the feed from the lenseye. “Rainbow, where did you come from? I thought you were still on the Dauntless! Are you hurt? That landing was hard…”

“I’ll be fine,” Rainbow replied. “I flew out of the shuttle on the way down. They’ll be here in a minute, just stay close until they land.” One of the aliens stomped forward, and Rainbow stamped a forehoof, glaring at him. “Mine!” She growled again, loudly.

“They can’t understand you, Rainbow Dash…” Fluttershy said, quietly.

“They’ll learn.” The cyan pegasus snarled. The alien gesticulated wildly, howling something, but Rainbow held her ground, staring the creature straight in the eyes.

The alien let out a screech and rushed her, but Rainbow was ready. She reared up and hopped to the side in an oddly unsteady motion. One cybernetic forelimb batted the alien’s arm aside, its extended claws swiping harmlessly at the air and twisting the alien to one side, and Rainbow turned the motion into a grapple, seizing the creature around the neck from the side as it stumbled off balance. Her other forelimb extended out to the side, the long talons sliding free and crackling with discharge as the disruption field generators activated. Rainbow slammed her talons home in the alien’s chest, the impact of the strike crushing the creature’s ribcage and driving her talons deep into its body, and gave a quick twist of her forehoof to dig the wound wider. A crisp twist of her shoulders threw the now-lifeless body back at the line of aliens. It rolled limply as it hit the ground. Rainbow’s talons snapped back into their housing, and she dropped back to all fours. “Mine!” she growled again. The entire fight had taken maybe a second and a half.

Beside Twilight, Wintergreen drew a sudden breath. “She’s hurt.” The big mare turned to the orange-coated pegasus she’d rebuked before. “Blaze, we’re low enough. Go. Now.” Her voice was strained. The other Warden gave a curt nod, ducking out the airlock quick as a blink, as though unencumbered by the bulk of the weapon she carried.

“She’s hurt?” Twilight asked, “I didn’t see that thing even touch her! Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Wintergreen replied with certainty. “Not the fight, the landing. Her leg’s hurt; right hindleg, looks like, maybe both hindlegs. She probably took the impact with her back legs so she’d have the front ones free to fight.” The earth pony shook her head. “She’s trying to hide it, but it’s there if you know what to look for. Her left wing isn’t moving right, either.”

Twilight chewed her lip. She could see that the aliens were getting ready for another rush, and if more of them attacked, then Rainbow might not be able to hold all of them off if she was already injured.

The creatures made a fake-rush, either nerving themselves up or trying to draw Rainbow out of position, but she didn’t fall for it. They fell back, and then two of them charged. Rainbow set herself, getting ready to receive the attack, but she didn’t have to. A brilliant bolt of arcane power streaked out of the sky, striking one of the aliens squarely in the torso and literally blowing its body apart in an explosion of singed blood and tissue, and the second screeched in dismay and fell back. Rainbow glanced up, and the lenseye (Pinkie’s lenseye, as she suddenly realized) that Twilight was looking through had just enough field of view to pick up the orange pegasus Warden hovering over the group of ponies, weapon stock gripped in her teeth, watching the aliens closely. Rainbow nodded calmly in greeting.

“Nice timing, trooper.”

“Thanks, Com- Lieutenant.” The flying pegasus didn’t relax, and the aliens fell back, clearly cowed by the bolt that had obliterated the attacking creature.

“Okay, troops,” Wintergreen said to the rest of the Wardens in the shuttle, “We’re landing in twenty, but it looks like hostilities are abated. Be ready, but we don’t need to go in shooting.” The shuttle shivered as it transitioned from level to vertical flight, and the Wardens nodded. Wintergreen turned to Twilight. “Probably be best if you stayed behind us, Commander.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like I’m helpless, you know. My friends and I have been dealing with monsters and such since long before you were born, sergeant. I can handle myself.”

Wintergreen nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I understand that. But we’re less important, and you haven’t worked with the Wardens in quite a while, so I’d just rather we did the fighting so we don’t trip over each other. And with us in front, if anything does go wrong, we can take the brunt.”

“A fair point.” She hadn’t worked with the Wardens in a long time. Almost forty years now, actually, they had plenty of mages of their own nowadays and didn’t need to borrow her expertise. “All right, sergeant, I’ll stay out of the way. But I’m not staying behind in the shuttle.”

Wintergreen saluted. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

The Kestrel settled to the ground, and the ramp hissed down. The Warden squad galloped out, surrounding the terrified contact team, leaving one unicorn to guard the ramp. Under the Warden ponies’ watchful eyes, the remaining diplomats hustled to the ramp and up onto the shuttle, Fluttershy sparing a look at Rainbow Dash, who hadn’t moved from where she’d landed. Twilight stopped to speak to the pink-haired pegasus and the earth pony who was sticking near her. “Pinkie, Fluttershy, you okay?”

Pinkie was silent, wide-eyed, and Fluttershy nodded. “I’m not hurt. As to whether I’m okay…” she shook her head. “I’m… I have no idea why this happened. I thought it was going to be peaceful. I thought…”

Fluttershy’s aide, Velvet Glove, stepped up next to her. “I don’t think any of us expected that, miss.” The pegasus stallion’s voice was low, pained. “That came out of nowhere. They were happy and peaceful, and then…” He trailed off. Fluttershy nodded wordlessly, and she and Pinkie followed him and the other survivor up the ramp. That had been a very close thing.

Twilight followed Wintergreen over to where Rainbow stood, still glaring at the aliens, who hadn’t retreated far. Struck by a thought, Twilight glanced under the Kestrel, but didn’t see any bodies. That was something, at least; with the hurry the Wardens had been in, she doubted the shuttle pilot would have cared a bit if she’d had to land on one or more of the aliens.

“How bad you hurt, boss?” Wintergreen was asking, barely loud enough to be heard.

“Bad.” Rainbow replied shortly. “Not as bad as I’d expected, but you’re gonna have to carry my butt outta here, and from the way they’re acting I think they’ll attack when you do.”

“What’s wrong, Rainbow Dash? Can I help?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow glanced over her shoulder, meeting Twilight’s eyes. She could see the pain that the pegasus was trying to bury. “Not unless you’ve got a cybertech kit with you.” Rainbow replied. “Got a torn tendon in my left wing, and my left hindleg’s jacked up. That’s not so bad, but my right hindleg feels like it’s half-separated. I can feel blood in the joint, and it hurts pretty bad.” She bit her lip and shot a look at Wintergreen. “I’m half-afraid it’ll fall off when you pick me up.”

“Oh, Celestia, Rainbow.” Twilight exclaimed. She looked closely at the artificial limb, and this close she could see the damage. Parts of the limb had twisted and bent with the force of the cyan pegasus’s landing, and several of the artificial muscle attachments had torn free entirely. There was a noticeable gap in the components around Rainbow’s hip, and a looseness in the joint that was seriously frightening. Twilight could indeed see blood welling in the gap, suggesting that the interface between the mechanical limb and Rainbow’s body had been badly, badly damaged.

Rainbow ignored the outburst. She glanced over her shoulder. “Okay, troops, I think they’re gonna rush us when Big Green here picks me up. Be ready.”

There was a chuckle from the Wardens. “Aw, c’mon, boss, just have the Major carry the shuttle over here!” One called.

“That’s enough, trooper.” Wintergreen said calmly. “And I’m a sergeant on this run, just like you’re not.” There was a general, cheerful grumble that surprised Twilight, considering the bodies that lay around them. “Let me know when you’re ready, boss.”

“No.” Twilight interjected, drawing a surprised look from the huge green mare. “I’ll carry you, Rainbow. I can lift you without putting stress on your leg. What’s more, if those creatures charge us, let me handle it.”

Rainbow sagged slightly. “Thanks, Twilight. I was… a little worried about having Wintergreen lift me.” A tiny bit of relief tinged her voice, telling Twilight how frightened she must have been, and for good reason. If the cybernetic leg did fall off, the subsequent blood loss could prove fatal in very short order. Twilight nodded.

“Whenever you’re ready, Rainbow Dash.”

“No reason to wait.” Rainbow glared at the aliens again. “Okay, troopers, only fire if the enemy gets close. Let Twilight handle it otherwise. Fire Blaze, you keep watch until we’re aloft, then rejoin.”

A murmured chorus of assent ensued, and Twilight focused her energy. A soft violet glow engulfed Rainbow Dash, and the unicorn carefully, gently lifted her friend off the ground, starting to move her slowly to the shuttle. The aliens pointed at Rainbow’s levitating form hanging limply in the air, talking angrily among themselves.

With a sudden howl, the aliens charged en masse. Twilight felt a rush of rage that she hadn’t felt in decades, knowing that these creatures wanted to hurt her friends, to take advantage of Rainbow’s injury, evidently thinking that with the pegasus out of the way there was nothing to stop them.

They were wrong.

A rush of power filled the unicorn. Her horn glowed white as she fed magic into it. A shockwave blasted outward, flowing smoothly around the Wardens, not even ruffling the ponies’ manes with its passage. The violet light slammed into the charging aliens with the force of an onrushing train, hurling them off of their feet and flinging them backward through the air, slamming them into the row of huts behind them hard enough to crack the wooden walls.

Twilight wasn’t done.

She tweaked the energy subtly. As it contacted the huts, it adhered, molding itself against the wood. Before the creatures could fall from where they’d smashed into the walls, shoots of green grew from the splintered wood, wrapping themselves tightly around the creatures’ limbs. The creatures on the other side of the shuttle, or those who had missed the huts, skidded along the ground until they too found themselves snagged and engulfed by growing plants.

Twilight felt a slight flicker of pride. A hundred and thirteen hostile aliens, immobilized simultaneously by a combination of two spells, the second being one spell cast dozens of times in the space of a heartbeat. Practice, after all, made perfect.

“Damn, Twi.” Rainbow shook her head in awe. “I forget sometimes just how good you are.”

“Thank you, Rainbow.” Twilight responded calmly. “And please don’t curse.” Rainbow just shook her head again.

“Whatever you say, Commander.” Rainbow sagged in Twilight’s telekinetic grip. “I’m… I’m gonna… pass out now…” The pegasus’s eyes rolled back, and she went limp.

Twilight was frightened for a moment, but she saw Rainbow’s sides still moving as she breathed and sighed in relief.

“You two,” Wintergreen snapped at the pegasus still hovering over the scene and the earth pony next to her, “watch them and blow them away if they get loose. No screwing around with warning shots. You two,” she pointed to the two unicorns, “check the fallen and recover the bodies. Move it!” The two unicorn Wardens darted forward, while Twilight carried Rainbow back to the shuttle and the other armed ponies watched the trapped aliens through narrow, angry eyes.

“Alive!” one of the unicorns called, “I’ve got a live one! All our medics are still aboard ship! Can anypony do a stasis spell?!” Twilight’s head whipped around and saw one of the injured ponies moving, though her movements were growing more sluggish. The Warden was standing over the wounded pegasus with a desperate grimace on her face, her horn glowing as she frantically tried to force a healing spell, but her cutie mark was a spear superimposed over an eye and healing was clearly not one of her talents. Twilight focused, closing her eyes and concentrating on not dropping Rainbow Dash as she wove the spell that would freeze time around the wounded pony’s body, finally releasing the threads of power to snap shut around the dying diplomat.

The Warden’s head jerked up and her eyes met Twilight’s. “Thanks, Commander.”

“That spell won’t last forever! Everypony on the shuttle, let’s go!” Twilight trotted back up to the shuttle, trailed by the unicorn Wardens who passed the wounded pony up first, followed by the dead ones. The Wardens didn’t like to leave fallen ponies behind, and in this case Twilight was in complete agreement; she didn’t want to leave those poor diplomats on an alien world.

Twilight settled Rainbow’s unconscious form on the deck, being very careful not to jar her damaged leg. The cyberpegasus lay limp on the floor, her breathing slow and regular, and Twilight bit her lip as she catalogued her friend’s injuries. She hadn’t gotten a scratch in the fight, but that landing had been another matter. Her left wing wasn’t folding properly, indicating that the torn tendon had been attached to the adductor muscles, and her left leg wasn’t moving right. Her left hip might be dislocated or cracked, which fit with the damage to her right leg. With that much damage to her hips and hind legs, there was a good chance her lower spine had been damaged as well… it was a miracle that she’d been able to move like she had. Though she’d probably made the damage worse by doing so.

She glanced aside at the wounded diplomat, frozen in time with a hideous wound on her neck. The expression of fear and despair on her face made Twilight shudder, and she looked away again as Wintergreen and the other two Wardens on watch backed into the shuttle. “Okay, pilot, go!” The sergeant snapped, keeping her weapon trained out the door. “Commander Dash is hurt, burn atmo back to the ship!”

“Confirmed, turnin’ and burnin’.” The pilot’s calm voice came back, the shuttle lifting even as the ramp closed. A short distance away, the other shuttle was doing likewise, lifting off to return to the Dauntless. Twilight sent a dispelling pulse toward the alien village, disrupting the spell that held them, though a spiteful part of her wanted to leave the creatures trapped like that forever.

The shuttle streaked back up to the Dauntless at full power, atmospheric friction making its nose and wings glow while Twilight and one of the Wardens held Rainbow Dash still against the deck, trying to keep the Kestrel’s vibration from making the damage to her artificial hindleg worse.

The hangar deck swarmed with activity when they arrived. Medics flooded into the Kestrel the second the hatch opened, ignoring the heat radiating from the shuttle’s nose, taking the wounded diplomat out first to try to save her life before the stasis spell wore off. Others surrounded Rainbow Dash, fitting an oxygen mask to her face and attaching various biomonitors to her body. One of them grimaced, examining the damage to her right hindleg. “Celestia’s horn,” the unicorn stallion said softly. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen a cyberlimb damaged that didn’t just rip it off.”

“Is that a danger?” Twilight asked him, with Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie hovering anxiously behind her.

“It absolutely is.” The medic shook his head. “We’re going to have to be very careful moving her.” He glanced up and watched the others carry the diplomat out. “Cast! Bonesaw! Help me get her out to the carry field, we’re going to have to be seriously well-balanced here!” Two other unicorns lowered their heads, and the three of them very gradually lifted the unconscious Warden in their telekinetic grip, shuffling their feet and clearly concentrating hard as they shepherded her out. Twilight followed.

Every Warden in the ship was crammed into the hangar. Not just the ground troops with their red rank-bands, but blue-banded engineers, green-banded support personnel, even the gold bands of bridge crew and command-level officers. Pegasi hovered in the air or stood in the high spots, while unicorns and earth ponies crowded the main deck. They had already opened a ruler-straight channel to the exit, allowing the medics to move freely.

Their expressions were stricken, mixing worry and fear in equal parts. Many had tears in their eyes, including the grim-faced Wingblade who Twilight could see perched on a nearby shuttle, her gold rank-band making her stand out.

The medics placed Rainbow Dash in a carry field generated by a medical drone, hooking the monitoring gear that studded her body to the drone’s input systems, and started carefully guiding the machine out. As one, in perfect unison that the Royal Guard would have grudgingly approved, the Wardens filling the hangar slammed to attention, legs straight and heads held high.

Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie watched them go. They didn’t follow; none of them could help, and they’d only get in the way. Twilight intended to go by the medical bay immediately, though, as soon as the bay cleared.

The Wardens were stock-still and utterly silent until the medic team had left the bay. Then they spoke among themselves, voices low and hushed as they filed out, headed back to their stations.

Twilight felt someone approaching, and turned to see Applejack, an angry expression in her green eyes.

“Applejack,” Fluttershy said, “I’m so, so sorry, you were…”

The orange-coated mare ignored the pegasus‘s words, glaring at Twilight. “Maybe next time you’ll buckin’ listen to us instead a’ blowing us off.” Applejack’s voice was a growl, and Twilight felt a sudden wrenching spike of guilt. Barely a day after she’d made that promise to Rainbow, and she’d done exactly what the pegasus had accused her of, and done it so thoughtlessly that she hadn’t even been aware of it. She’d broken her promise, betrayed Rainbow just as the pegasus had betrayed her when the Tazaft had landed. She cringed inwardly, closing her eyes, knowing what a terrible mistake she’d made.

Applejack’s gaze flicked aside to Wintergreen. “Wintergreen. Good work out there.”

The huge mare ducked her head. “I didn’t do much, gramma. Auntie Dash did all the hard work.” She glanced guiltily back to the Kestrel. “The wall isn’t even broke. Sorry.”

Applejack snorted. “Ain’t none of us perfect. I’ll let you off the hook this time, youngun, but next time there better be a hole in that wall, or I'll tan your hide.” She flashed another glare at Twilight and Fluttershy, neither of them able to meet her gaze, and settled on Pinkie, giving her a much gentler look. “You okay, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I’m not hurt.” Her voice was small, quiet.

Applejack eyed her. “Not hurt ain’t the same as okay, sugarcube. You want to talk, you come find me, hear? Any time, day or night.” Pinkie nodded wordlessly, and Applejack turned to leave.

“Applejack.” At the sound of her name, the earth pony stopped and turned back to Twilight. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I ignored your input, and ponies died because of it.” Twilight’s mouth twisted. “And right after I promised Rainbow Dash I wouldn’t do that.”

“You were right,” Fluttershy added quietly. “You were both right, and I was wrong. I should have had some of your ponies with me.”

Applejack sighed. “Well, ‘tain’t nothin’ we can do about it now. Y’all just remember goin’ forward that sometimes Rainbow and I give good advice. Maybe not all the time, but don’t just ignore us.”

“I won’t.” Twilight said firmly, echoed by Fluttershy. The unicorn sighed. “Look, I’m going to go down to the medical bay and see how Rainbow Dash and the survivor are doing.”

Fluttershy said quietly, “Her name’s Summer Breeze. I’m going too.”

“Reckon I’ll go along too.” Applejack cracked a very small smile. “Can probably teach you two about waitin’ around for somepony to get outta surgery.”

The three turned to leave, but suddenly a intraship comm window popped up in front of Twilight. Chatterbox, the ship’s comm officer, looked anxiously out of it. “Commander! Sorry to bother you, I know you’re busy, but this could be important!”

Twilight cocked her head. “Yes? What is it?”

“Well, ma’am, I was running through the information on the Council’s encoding schemas, and on an impulse I ran the stuff we got from those stray comm lasers that brushed us after the battle. Most of it was too garbled to make anything out of, but I did get this!” A second window appeared, with a schematic of a solar system in it.

“Okay, so they were sending a map to their ships?”

“Yes, ma’am! It’s got coordinates marked, this is just a tiny part of a large message. We don’t have their coordinate system, unfortunately, so we can’t read that. But! The star was tagged with its stellar class and luminosity! I had to dig into the message some to find it, but that’s one of the few parts that aren’t garbled!”

“So what are you saying?”

Excitement crept into the stallion’s tone. “Ma’am… I think this is a rendezvous location, and with the information on the star, I was able to find it! It’s one of the ones on the Tazaft charts!” He grinned. “Best of all, it’s not a base or depot location! Weren’t you trying to find a place where you could encounter a Council fleet?”

Well, a fleet that they’d already fought wasn’t exactly ideal… but it was an opportunity to see if they could communicate with the new information they’d gotten. “Cross-reference that location with Council speed projections. When will they get there?”

There was a pause. “It looks like they got there a few hours ago, ma’am. We might still be able to catch them!”

Twilight nodded, and opened up another window to the ship’s captain. “Silver Stars, set course for the jump limit. Get the destination coordinates from Chatterbox, but don’t jump until I get there. I need to check on Rainbow Dash and Summer Breeze, so it may be a while.”

The ice-blue unicorn nodded. “Understood, ma’am. Can I make a suggestion, ma’am?”

“Go ahead.”

“This is near the end of the shift. Might I respectfully suggest that we spend off-shift lingering at the system edge, and have the off-shift crew run readiness checks? We could jump at the beginning of the next main shift.”

Twilight blinked. Oh. Right. Ponies need sleep. “I’m not sure if this is time-critical or not… but it would probably be a better idea to go into it rested. All right, we’ll do it your way.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Silver Stars disconnected.

Well, we have a destination, at least, Twilight mused as she trotted off to the medical bay, Fluttershy and Applejack close at her heels.

Recovery

One of the orderlies, a young earth pony stallion, trotted up to Twilight to give her a report when she arrived in the medical bay. “Summer Breeze was touch-and-go for a few minutes, Commander.” He began without preamble. “We think we’ve got her pulled back from the brink; she lost a lot of blood and she was awfully close when you got her in that stasis spell, but I think she’s going to make it. We don’t think her brain was deprived of oxygen long enough to cause irreversible damage, but we’ll find out once she wakes up. They’re doing the repairs to her neck and keeping her brain oxygenated now, should be about another hour before they can be sure she’s out of danger. Call it a better than ninety percent chance of survival and full recovery.”

Twilight nodded. She glanced aside at Fluttershy, who had her head low, her face nearly hidden behind her long pink mane. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and she was trembling. The unicorn looked back to the orderly. “I see. And Rainbow Dash?”

“She’s in better shape.”

Applejack blinked. “She is?”

The orderly nodded. “Yes. She has a lot of damage, but none of it is to her vital organs or nervous system, and her blood loss is much less severe. It could have been very bad; the biotech interface on her artificial limb was severely damaged and it nearly compromised a major artery, but fortunately you managed to hold the limb together enough that it didn’t tear free.” The orderly stepped over to a control panel and tapped a few commands, examining a readout that popped up. “Both the interface and the limb itself are going to require major repairs, but it won’t need to be replaced. Fortunately, we’ve got a top-notch cybertech on staff, and he’ll have that leg good as new. Her other injuries, while extremely painful, are not life-threatening. She’s got torn tendons on one wing and some badly stretched ones on the other, her left femur is cracked in two places, and she has numerous cracks in her pelvis, but none of them developed into full fractures.” The stallion shook his head. “With the high-grade bone reinforcement she’s got, to have cracks like that she must have hit like a meteor. She’s also got some serious tendon and muscle damage in her left hindleg, which fits with the damage to her right. I’m not surprised she passed out; with damage like that, every time she moved it would have generated agonizing pain.”

“So she’s gonna be okay?” Applejack asked, her voice tense.

The orderly nodded again. “Yes, she’ll be fine.”

The orange-coated mare let her breath out in a long sigh, sagging with relief. “Thank Celestia. That’s durn good to hear.” She looked up again. “How long is she gonna be out?”

The medical pony shrugged. “We could wake her up now, if we needed to. From what we can tell, she passed out from pain, not any kind of neural trauma, and we can keep that pain under control. Like I said, she doesn’t have any injuries to her brain, and her vital organs are all okay. It looks like she managed to absorb the impact with her back legs and hips, which is frankly a minor miracle. She needs to be under while they fix the more serious injuries and start the repairs on her artificial leg, but she should be up and about within the day, though she needs to rest her wings for a week or so. We’ve already got regenerators hooked to the damaged muscles and tendons, and once that’s done we’ll go in with osseous fabricators to patch the cracks in her bones. The bone reinforcement is self-repairing, though that will probably take a week or so to completely fix itself. We could probably fix it faster, but we’d need to open her leg up to do it, and the doctors prefer not to do that unless it’s unavoidable. The cybertech is estimating a nine or ten hour repair job on her right leg; it’s a really high-end prosthesis, but he thinks he can get it back up to full spec that quick. The dangerous part, reattaching the biotechnical interface, should only take an hour or so, though.”

Twilight nodded, feeling a sense of relief. “How soon can we look in on her?”

The orderly glanced over his shoulder. “I’d say about two hours, ma’am, to get the regenerators finished and most of the doctors out of the way. The cybertech will still be working, and we’ll have one doctor running the osseous fabricators, but there should be enough room for you to squeeze in then. We can wake her up then if you want, or leave her under until everything’s done.”

Twilight glanced at the other occupied operating room. “And Summer Breeze?”

The orderly bit his lip. “Her you’ll have to wait longer for. We’ve got her in a neural regenerator field, and she’ll probably be in there for several hours, minimum. It’s not safe to go in there without protective gear, so there’s no visitors until that gets done.”

Twilight looked briefly at Fluttershy, who was trembling hard and remaining silent. “All right,” she said to the orderly, “Thank you. We’ll stay here for the moment, if that’s all right.”

“Of course, Commander.” The orderly bowed his head briefly before running off to attend to something.

Twilight turned to Fluttershy, not caring that Applejack was there listening. It was time for a serious discussion; no sense putting it off any longer. “You made a serious mistake, Fluttershy.”

“I know.” The pegasus’s voice was very quiet.

“You were supposed to maintain separation. You were supposed to be ready to run if you had to. You promised me you’d be careful. That’s why I was willing to send you down without Warden guards, in spite of Rainbow Dash and Applejack’s advice.” Twilight worked her jaw angrily. “You didn’t do that.”

“They were so happy,” Fluttershy whispered. “I don’t understand… there was no sign that they meant us any harm. I’ve seen creatures that attacked invaders, I was watching for it, but they weren’t acting anything like that…”

“And so you let yourself get surrounded.” Normally, Twilight would feel terrible about pushing her friend this way, but not right now. “You let them cut you off and keep you from running. Because of that, ponies are dead. You nearly died, and so did Pinkie Pie! You’d both be dead now if Rainbow Dash hadn’t almost killed herself coming to save you!”

“One Warden coulda kept this from happening.” Applejack’s voice was flat. “Just one. One pony in armor that those things couldn’t hurt with a year of tryin’ could’ve rushed ‘em and bought you time to get out. You might still’ve lost the first one, but the others would still be alive, and Rainbow wouldn’t be in surgery because she almost ripped herself apart again!” The last four words came out in a shockingly loud shout that made Fluttershy flinch back. “All because you ignored us! Again! You let that stupid fight with Dash make you do something stupid. Just as dumb as what she did! And you,” Applejack transferred her emerald glare to Twilight. “You should never’ve let her do it. You’re here to keep the rest of us from doin’ something stupid like that. You shoulda sent at least one of us down with her, whether she wanted ‘em there or not! Why the heck did we even come if you’re gonna buckin’ ignore everything we say?” Applejack gritted her teeth, shaking her head. “I’m so mad right now I ain’t thinkin’ straight. I know I said I was gonna wait with y’all, but I feel a powerful need to be elsewhere right now. I’ll be back to check on Dash.” The orange mare whirled on her heels and stalked out angrily, horseshoes slamming on the deck.

Fluttershy sniffed hard in the silence left in Applejack’s wake. “She’s right,” the pegasus whispered. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry. Peppermint Drop, Eloquence, Summer Breeze… I’ve worked with them all for years. I’ve known Eloquence since she was a foal. Th-they trusted me. And Rainbow Dash…”

Twilight sighed. “It’s not solely your fault, Fluttershy, it’s mine too. You made a serious mistake, but Applejack’s right, and I should have caught it. I should have insisted you take at least one guard along.” This one was going on the list. It was going on the top of the list. It was the stupidest mistake she’d made in a long time. She should never have let Fluttershy talk her into anything this reckless.

They waited in the anteroom to the medical bay, quietly, neither speaking, both tense as the time ticked past. They heard the soft bell that announced shift change, but neither moved. After about an hour and a half, the outer doors whisked open, and Twilight looked up, expecting to see Applejack returning. Instead, there were three figures in the door, all of whom had paused, surprised to see somepony already there. Two of the newcomers were pegasi, both wearing gold rank-bands, and the black coat of Night Breeze provided an almost startling contrast to the light gray of Wingblade’s. Bringing up the rear, and looming over both pegasi, was the enormous, light green figure of Wintergreen.

Wingblade’s eyes locked on Fluttershy and narrowed angrily, her ears turning back just a bit. Night Breeze blinked in surprise, but smiled instead of looking angry. “Sorry, we weren’t expecting to find anyone here. Do you mind if we come in?”

“I don’t think we’re welcome here, Night Breeze,” Wingblade observed, her voice tight and angry, but controlled. She stepped into the room, still staring straight at Fluttershy. “But I don’t think we should let that matter.”

The pilot frowned at the younger pegasus, her gold eyes worried. “Hey, ‘Blade, chill it down a little.”

“Why?” The gunner neither glanced aside nor blinked. “We’re Wardens. It’s not like I’m gonna make her hate us more. I’m wondering why she’s even here; we all know how she feels about the Commander.”

Night Breeze frowned more deeply. “One of her ponies is in here too. She’s got as much right to be here as we do.”

Wingblade nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably it. I’m not leaving, though. I’m staying right here until I get a chance to see the Commander.”

“I don’t hate you.” Fluttershy’s voice was soft. “And I don’t hate Rainbow Dash, either.”

The young pegasus’s gaze sharpened. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Then you’re easily fooled.” The yellow pegasus looked up, her soft teal eyes meeting Wingblade’s hard gaze. “I disagree with Rainbow, yes. And Applejack pointed out to me that it made me do something very stupid today, but I don’t hate her, or you.”

“Oh, so you just think I’m a rabid killer, then, huh? A sad, dangerous critter.” Her words were aggressive, but her tone was utterly level. It was a little unsettling.

“Back it down, Wingblade,” Wintergreen said, softly.

The pegasus’s head whipped around to glare at Wintergreen, and her eyes flashed. “Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you right, Sergeant. Want to say that again so I can hear you clearly?” There was a snap in the young mare’s voice.

The muscles in Wintergreen’s jaw bunched. “No, ma’am. Ensign.”

Wingblade nodded curtly, and turned back to Fluttershy. “So, ma’am? Is that it? Am I a rabid beast? Do I slobber over a bowl of bloody bones? I think I saw that picture in a newspage once. One of your interviews was next to it.” Her voice had gone straight back to calm. It wasn’t uninflected… it sounded even, as though she were having a pleasant discussion on a completely neutral topic. Twilight fidgeted internally, trying to decide whether she should intervene or not. One the one hoof, the young Warden was being awfully confrontational toward one of her closest friends… but on the other, this might be what Fluttershy needed to be able to see past the image of the Wardens she’d built in her head. On the horn, the way the young pegasus was acting was more than a little frightening, with her expression and tone completely divorced from what she had to be feeling. Should Twilight step in to stop this? Would it possibly be damaging to discipline? Or was it worse to let her go on? Oh, she wished she was back in the lab, working with ponies she knew!

“‘Blade, seriously. We’re just here to see the Commander, not start a fight.” Night Breeze touched Wingblade’s foreleg gently with her hoof, keeping her voice soft. “Let it go.”

“No, I’ll answer her.” Fluttershy interjected. She looked the angry pegasus in the eye. “I don’t like those cartoons and I never have, but I do think you’re wrong. I think you need to stop what you do. It’s part of an argument I’ve had with Rainbow Dash for a very long time now. I don’t think you’re evil… but I do think I’ve gone too far with what I’ve said, and I’m sorry for that. I’ll try to change it as soon as I get home.”

Something flickered in the gray pegasus’s hard, dark blue eyes, and her voice when she spoke actually had some heat in it. “Really. You think we’re wrong. Well, ma’am, let me ask you this: how many do you think you killed down on that planet today?”

Fluttershy blinked hard. “I… maybe, if I had taken some guards, Eloquence and Peppermint might still be alive.”

Wingblade’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Yeah, that’s the start. Let me tell you something else: there’d probably still be two aliens alive that are dead now, too.” She snorted at Fluttershy’s blink. “What, you thought we’d’ve killed them? Wintergreen!” The pegasus looked over her shoulder at the big earth pony. “If you’d been down there as a guard, in armor, what would you have done?”

“Not let us get surrounded.” The sergeant replied without hesitation. “Mission brief said that there was supposed to be a minimum separation with a guaranteed route of egress, if I remember right. I’d’ve made sure to hold to that.”

“And if one slipped by you to cut that one pony’s throat?”

“Tackled them, ma’am. Kicked them back and drove into the group to keep them occupied with me while the others grabbed the casualty and ran. Spears and claws would never be able to get through power armor, not even at the joints.”

“Really?” Wingblade glanced aside at Fluttershy to make sure she was listening. “So you wouldn’t have opened fire? Why not?”

Wintergreen rolled her eyes in irritation. “No, ma’am. There would be no need. There would be no possible way for them to hurt me in my armor, and the rest of the party could outrun them. Of course, I’d recommend not having me there at all; Sergeant Ironsides would be a better choice. She could just shockwave the hostiles much like Commander Sparkle did in order to hold them back without harming them, though she’d have to make sure she was between the team and the aliens.” The big mare shot a glare at the gray pegasus. “Now, no offense, ensign, ma’am, but if you feel like engaging in further theatrics, would you mind leaving me out of them? I don’t like being used as an anvil for you to hammer against. Ma’am.”

Wingblade nodded. “Noted.” She turned back to Fluttershy. “Ma’am, we’re not interested in killing. We don’t like it, or at least most of us don’t. We will do it if we have to, though, and we do it to keep everypony else safe. I’ll thank you to remember that in the future.” She stalked past Fluttershy, her hooves not even clicking on the floor, seating herself at the far end of the room and glaring fixedly at the wall. There was anger in the young mare’s face, though it swiftly disappeared when the pegasus closed her eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath, and let it out very slowly.

Fluttershy blinked hard, and swallowed. Twilight blinked too; she felt a little shell-shocked from just being next to that.

Night Breeze cleared her throat softly, catching Fluttershy and Twilight’s attention. “Ma’am, ‘Blade just gets angry sometimes. Don’t take it personally.” She bit her lip, looking a little anxious. “All the same, though… you might want to remember that, Wardens or not, we’re still ponies, ma’am. Ponies trying to do a job. It’s hard enough already on the border, and it makes it harder when we get home and see the newslines calling us monsters and murderers.”

The yellow pegasus sighed, closing her eyes. “I know. I guess I’ve just gotten so frustrated with Rainbow Dash that I’ve been taking it out on all of you, too. I guess I didn’t realize how mean I was getting.” Her mouth twisted. “I don’t like it when I get mean, and I’m sorry.” Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut, lowering her head. “I just wish I’d realized it sooner. Th-then today might not have happened.” She looked back up. “You’re here to see Rainbow Dash?”

Night Breeze nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I owe her. Commander Dash pushed me to take the tests to get into the arcane theory courses after I graduated from Warden training.” She smiled in memory. “She was a little bit of a jerk about it, but after I started taking the courses and loved them, I was glad she had. I owe her a lot. It’s part of why I came back to the Wardens, even after I finished all my degrees, so I’m here to let her know we’re all thinking about her.”

Twilight chuckled, a sound echoed by Wintergreen. The big mare smiled wistfully. “Yeah, that’s her. Auntie Dash can be a complete jackass sometimes, but she’s been there for me whenever I needed it since I was a filly. Helped me deal with some pretty serious anger problems when I was a kid, too.”

Twilight blinked in surprise. “Rainbow Dash helped you deal with anger problems?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, ma’am.” Wintergreen’s smile turned hard for just a second. “Who better to help than somepony who knows?” She sighed. “I tried to help with hers, later, but hers are a lot worse than mine ever were. She won’t talk about whatever they come from, and they run deep.”

They would, Twilight thought sadly, remembering the conversation she’d had with her friend in her quarters. Oh, they would.

“What were you angry about?” Fluttershy asked, softly. Twilight looked at her in surprise; it was the first time she was aware of that the yellow mare had asked a question like that of any Warden. Maybe they really had gotten through to her.

“What do you think?” The earth pony mare gestured to herself with a forehoof. “Look at me. When I was a filly in school, I was already bigger than any of my teachers. The other kids called me the Green Hulk. I was strong enough to make them regret calling me that, too. More than strong enough.” She closed her eyes. “I was teased constantly, and it made me angry, and that made me realize how strong I was compared to the other foals, and even the teachers, and that made me into a bully. A bad one.” She smiled sadly. “Auntie Dash saw me beating up some of my cousins at a family gathering and jumped in to help them. I didn’t like that, so I tried to fight her and she whupped me pretty good, although she stopped the second I gave up. I hated her for it. I was ashamed about it too, ashamed about getting my butt kicked so easily by a pegasus of all ponies that was smaller than me to boot… and to make it worse, part of me felt like I’d deserved it. For beating up on a bunch of kids that never stood a chance against me. Then, she came by my room that night to apologize for hurting me and to tell me why she did it. I didn’t want to listen at first, I tried to shove her out, but she didn’t fight and just kept talking. Telling me how she was trying to keep my cousins from getting hurt. Telling me why she did it, ‘cause she didn’t like doing it. I started talking back after a while, and we talked for hours that night.” The big mare looked at the door to the operating theaters. “Made an impression on me.” It was odd, Twilight reflected as she listened to Wintergreen speak, that for all her huge size and deep-chested build, the big mare actually had a remarkably beautiful voice. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it projected amazingly well and she had a very slight lilt to her speech that sounded almost musical. The unicorn hadn’t noticed over the comm system, which tended to flatten voices out, or when she’d spoken on the shuttle with all the background noise, but it really was quite pretty.

“Oh.” Fluttershy’s voice was still soft. “Thank you. I appreciate you sharing that with me.”

Wintergreen shrugged. “Any time.”

“I… what about her?” Fluttershy asked, darting a look at where Wingblade sat.

Wintergreen shrugged again. “No idea. Breeze? You two are pretty tight, right?”

The black-coated pegasus nodded. “We are. We’ve been best friends ever since we met aboard Lightning. She’s never actually said anything, but I know she absolutely idolizes the Commander. She’s never said anything about why, either. I think it may have something to do with her past, or something like that.” She darted a furtive look at the other pegasus. “Don’t ask her about it, though. She doesn’t like to talk about her background. Don’t ask me why. As far as I know, I’m her best friend, and I don’t even know where she was born, or if she has any siblings, or where her parents’ herd is, or anything.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. That sounded like a story. Then she glanced at the younger pegasus, saw the angry tension of her jaw and body set next to her strangely calm face, and decided not to pursue it. Though she might glance at the records when she got home. There were personnel records here on the ship… but that felt a little too much like snooping.

Twilight continued to wait, though Wingblade’s presence felt almost uncomfortable; the pegasus mare was clearly angry, and was just as clearly keeping it under tight control, in a manner that was more than a little spooky. Night Breeze sat next to her, occasionally saying something in a quiet voice, though the younger pegasus didn’t reply.

Applejack returned just a few minutes before the doctors were willing to admit visitors, nodding calmly to both Twilight and Fluttershy, as though her earlier loss of temper had never happened. She nodded to Wintergreen as well, receiving a deep nod of respect in return, and sat down to wait. Finally, the orderly came back in. “You can come in now. Please try not to crowd the doctors.” He paused, looking at Twilight. “Do you want me to wake her, ma’am?”

“If you can do it without endangering her, yes, please.” The orderly nodded crisply and motioned them through the door. Twilight led the way, followed by Applejack and Fluttershy, with the three Wardens in the rear. Night Breeze and Wintergreen didn’t make any kind of fuss about it, accepting without resentment, but Wingblade was almost seething at having to follow Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash lay limp on an operating table, sterile fields glowing around her back legs and hips, with transparent readouts and body images floating above her. A mask was fitted over her nose and mouth that fogged slightly with each slow exhalation, and one doctor stood on each side of her. She had been set on her stomach so the doctors could reach both hindlegs, and they were working carefully. One, an earth pony, was directing the output of a bone fabricator with careful motions of her eyes, its brilliant silver beam directed into Rainbow’s left thigh. The other, a unicorn, had a waldo set similar to Rarity’s except for its miniscule size. It was perched on his nose, the wires that interfaced with it trailing back up to his horn, and the device was projecting magnifying lenses over his eyes to enable him to work more closely on her damaged right leg. Multiple arms flicked in tiny motions on the waldo device, moving components, fusing them together, even building them in place. Twilight had never seen a cybertech at work before, and found the delicate, tiny movements of his tools to be fascinating.

Rainbow’s eyes opened slowly as Twilight and her friends approached, the orderly clearly adjusting the anesthetic spell from another room. She blinked a few times, still slowly, before her eyes focused and a hint of awareness entered her face, displacing the foggy blankness that clouded her expression.

“Huh. Well, here I am again.” The pegasus’s voice was slightly muffled by the mask over her muzzle. She looked up. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey, there, Rainbow,” Applejack said before anypony else could speak. “Busted yourself up pretty good down there, sugarcube.” Her eyes narrowed. “Thought we’d agreed you weren’t gonna do that again.”

“Had to.” Rainbow said without moving. “Wasn’t anyone else that could’ve.” A hint of a triumphant smile touched her lips. “Besides, I told you I’d figured it out after the last time. No Rainbow pancake today. Totally pulled that landing off.” The pegasus’s eyes tracked slowly across the group, and she frowned in confusion. “Fluttershy? That you? What’re you doing here?” Her voice was slow, puzzled.

“Hello, Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy said softly. “I just… I wanted to thank you for what you did.”

Rainbow fidgeted uncomfortably, but didn’t shrug, clearly realizing she shouldn’t move her wings. “Eh, don’t worry about it. Doing what I do.”

“Stay still, please,” the doctor running the osseous fabricator interjected. An irritated expression flickered over Rainbow’s face, but she held still.

The other pegasus nodded, ignoring the interruption. “I realize that. Or, at least, now I do. I also…” She drew a deep breath, “I need to apologize to you. I let our argument go to my head, and it affected my judgment. You were right; I should have brought some of your ponies down there with me. I’m sorry.”

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, I’ve let that happen to me once or twice. The whole argument-making-you-dumb thing. It sucks to realize it, I know.” She offered a smile. “Friends again? At least, until we fight again?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I think I can do that.” She smiled gently. “Until we fight again, like you said.”

The Warden commander laughed. “Yeah, I think I can too. Oh, and hey,” her expression turned serious, “it hurts to lose ponies you were responsible for. Listen, if you need somepony to talk to… talk to Applejack. I suck at counseling.”

They all chuckled a bit at that, though Fluttershy’s laugh was strained.

“You need to quit hurtin’ yourself like this, sugarcube,” Applejack’s voice was quiet, and pained. “I see you like this too dang often. Sooner or later you’re gonna push yourself too far.”

“Listen to her, Auntie Dash.” Wintergreen put in. “That drop was dumb.”

Rainbow’s rose-shaded eyes drifted closed. “You don’t get to call me that on duty, Wintergreen.”

“I’m off-shift right now.”

“Yeah, I figured. It’s still a bad habit to get into with us all cooped up on this ship.” Rainbow heaved another sigh. “Listen, guys, I really do appreciate you coming down to see me, but could you get them to put me out again? I freaking hate these bone-beam things. It’s like this achy itch inside my leg.”

“Of course, Rainbow.” Twilight said softly, taking charge like a commander ought to. “Before I do, though, I’m sorry, too. I should have listened to you like I promised.” She glanced at the two Warden pegasi. “Do either of you want to say anything?”

Wingblade shook her head, as did Night Breeze. “We’re just here to show moral support, ma’am,” the black-coated pegasus said. “You know, to represent the rest of the Wardens who aren’t family.” By ‘family,’ the pilot was referring to Wintergreen, Twilight knew. Rainbow Dash had long ago become a sort of unofficial aunt to Applejack’s huge brood of descendants, having been more or less adopted as a sister by the orange mare.

“All right then. Let’s all get out of the doctors’ way.” The six ponies filed out of the operating theater, and Twilight caught the orderly again. “Excuse me, but can you put her back under? She doesn’t like the fabricator beam.”

The stallion nodded sympathetically. “I can understand that. There’s a lot of ponies who don’t. I’ll set the tranq-spell on low; she should go back under fairly quickly, in her current condition.”

Applejack shook her head. “You’ll need to give her a little more than that. ‘Parently, a pony can build up a resistance to tranq spells with enough exposure. She’s the only one it’s happened to, far as I know, ‘cause most ponies over a hundred and ten ain’t still out gettin’ hurt, on account of mostly bein’ dead.”

The orderly looked shocked, but nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll just increase the level until it puts her out. She’ll only need to be under for another hour or so while they finish patching her bones; the cyberlimb repair shouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Applejack nodded curtly.

The small group broke up, headed for the mess halls, the recreation areas, or each pony’s quarters. Fluttershy chose instead to wait in the medical bay for a chance to see Summer Breeze, saying that she had a responsibility to her ponies, something that made Wintergreen nod in approval and even Wingblade look slightly less thunderous. Twilight sighed, her mind whirring as she walked to dinner, setting an alarm with her holodaemon as she did so to remind her to come back later to check on the other injured pony. She hoped tomorrow would go better than today had. It could hardly go worse, she reflected somewhat wryly.

Twilight was on the bridge, preparing the Dauntless for her next jump, when she was surprised by Rainbow Dash walking casually through the door, showing no signs of the injuries and damage she’d sustained the day before.

“What in the world are you doing out of the medical bay, Rainbow Dash?” She asked, aghast. A couple of the bridge crew looked shocked, too, including Wingblade and Oculus. Wingblade, in particular, gave the cyan mare an extremely concerned look before her expression smoothed back out.

Rainbow gave a casual shrug, the deliberate nonchalance of the gesture ruined by how carefully she made it, her wings moving much more slowly than they normally would. “They let me out. Said I could walk around all I wanted, but that I shouldn’t use my wings much for a week or so.”

Twilight suspected that the pegasus was presenting a rather loose interpretation of what the doctors had actually told her, but didn’t especially want to argue. She also noticed, to her endless annoyance, that the cybertech had evidently neglected to fix the irritating whine that Rainbow’s artificial limbs produced. She made a note in her personal file to have a chat with the biotech doctor about unfinished work.

“You should be in bed, Rainbow. The kind of tissue repairs they had to do depletes your body’s energy reserves.”

The pegasus grinned. “Really?” she exclaimed sarcastically. “Oh, so that’s why I was so freaking hungry when I got out of there. I would never have guessed! I’ve never been hurt like that before!” She stuck out her tongue at Twilight, which didn’t even raise any eyebrows from the bridge crew. Well, they were all Wardens, after all, they probably had dealt with Rainbow in her more cheerful moods before. “Chill, Twilight, I got some food and some sleep already. That cyberguy was really good, and he way overestimated how long it would take for him to finish. Probably because he’d just looked at the leg and hadn’t had time to work with it yet; these are built to be easy to repair. He finished in, like, three hours instead of ten, so I’ve had time to rest.” She paused. “I… haven’t talked to Fluttershy yet, but I’m gonna. We’re not really fighting anymore, or at least I hope we’re not, but I think there’s some things I need to apologize for. I’m kinda hoping she can do the same thing.”

“I think… I think that would be a good idea.” Twilight couldn’t keep the smile off her face. The price had been high, and she wished with all her heart that some of the things that had happened could have been avoided, but at least her friends were talking to one another again. It gave her hope for their mission. If she couldn’t even get two of her best friends to talk, she’d never be able to manage it with hostile aliens, but since they had made up, at least a little, maybe they had a chance with the Council, too.

“Yeah, me too. So what’s up? Where are we off to?”

Twilight quickly summarized the information that Chatterbox had decoded, and the plan she’d worked out the day before. When she finished, Rainbow looked troubled.

“Uh, not to rain on the parade or anything, but are you, like, completely, one-hundred-percent sure this is a good idea?”

“Well, it fits the criteria you set forward for contact, doesn’t it?” Twilight wasn’t sure she understood Rainbow’s grounds for concern. “A Council fleet, at least we hope there’s still one there, at a location where there’s no bases or population centers we know about.”

Rainbow blinked. “Well, yeah, but I didn’t exactly mean we should go looking for the actual group whose butts we kicked. They’re probably still gonna be sore over that, and we killed a lot of their friends, depending on how big the crews of those ships are. I was thinking more a border patrol that might not already hate us.”

Twilight felt a pang. She’d been so focused on thinking of the Council ships as just ships that it hadn’t occurred to her that they’d had crews on board. Crews that had almost certainly died to a mare when their ship was violently destroyed. “You’re right, I hadn’t thought about that.” She sighed. “This could be the best opportunity we’ve found to try and open up a dialogue, though. We have some information on their languages now; we can try to apologize, or explain what happened, or something.” The unicorn shook her head. “Still, we should try our hardest to stay out of weapons range.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Took the words right outta my mouth, Twi. I’m not gonna say don’t do it… but, seriously, be careful. Like, super careful.”

Twilight nodded. She had no intention of discarding Rainbow’s advice again.

The cyan pegasus glanced around the bridge again. “So how long before we jump?”

“About thirty minutes, ma’am.” Silver Stars’ response was instant and unthinking. She looked up almost immediately, meeting Twilight’s eyes guiltily. “Er. Sorry. I mean, um, we’ll be jumping in about thirty minutes, lieutenant, so you’d better clear the bridge.”

Rainbow flashed a grin. “The Captain’s got a point, Commander. I’ll get outta your hair. Probably go grab some more food; I am still freaking starving.” She gave Twilight a friendly nod, turned and left the bridge… taking that irritating whining of her cyberlimbs with her. It was no surprise that she’d still be hungry; Twilight was honestly surprised that the pegasus was even awake. Tissue regenerators took a brutal toll on the body’s reserves, and bone fabricators were worse.

Silver Stars approached quietly after Rainbow left. “Sorry about that, Commander,” she said, chagrined. “I served under Commander Dash for years, and it’s hard to shake that habit and think of her as Lieutenant Dash.”

“No harm done.” Twilight wasn’t upset; the Captain had been thoroughly professional and competent during this voyage, and she was more than prepared to excuse a minor slip of the tongue.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Silver Stars looked a bit relieved.

The next few minutes were spent finalizing the jump preparations, entering the coordinates, and making sure the communications and sensor gear was functioning at its absolute peak. Twilight wanted to be able to talk to whoever they might find, and if the comm systems decided to fail, they could potentially be in serious trouble. Everything was functioning smoothly, Dauntless was ready to jump, and Twilight had the sense that the ship was somehow eager to leap into the unknown once again.

The drive engaged, Dauntless vanished from the system that held the creatures who had slain two of Twilight’s crew, and the ship once more found itself elsewhere.

Enemies

On first examination, the system that was the evident destination of the Council fleet was empty.

That came as no great shock; at this distance, ships would be difficult to resolve unless Oculus knew exactly where to look, and radio traffic would be faint and attenuated. On the bright side, Twilight mused, they hadn’t managed to impossibly jump into the middle of another pitched battle. Out of sheer curiosity, she’d run the odds on that happening, and it had surprised even her with just how unlikely that had been.

Instead of giving up, Twilight ordered Oculus and Chatterbox to make a careful survey of the system, while Dauntless lingered on the system outskirts, recharging the Gate drive and keeping her velocity and emissions low.

The thorough search didn’t reveal hundreds of Council ships, but it did reveal something better. A pair of radio sources in the inner system… which, upon closer examination, proved to be two ships, considerably larger than the Council warships that they’d seen, orbiting one of the inner planets. The traffic was encrypted, so Chatterbox couldn’t decipher it, but it was omnidirectional radio traffic, which almost certainly meant that the two ships weren’t expecting hostilities.

This was perfect. It was just two ships, not enough to pose a threat to Dauntless by a long shot, sitting in the inner system where there would at least be a chance to try to talk to them, since they couldn’t engage their FTL drives that far in. Council FTL, as Twilight had learned, actually had to be engaged farther from the local sun that the Equestrian Gate drive, and it couldn’t be close to a big gas giant, either, something the Gate drive didn’t care about. One way or another, Twilight would get a chance to speak to those two ships… and if they had to shout at them while the alien vessels were running madly for the system’s edge, so much the better. It would be a chance to show that the Dauntless genuinely meant no harm when the cruiser didn’t fire.

They crept in slowly, still holding both their acceleration and their emissions down. Twilight didn’t want to spook the Council ships before they got close enough to talk to them. Oculus watched the rest of the system like a hawk as they cruised inward, keeping a careful eye out for any sign of more Council ships, who might conceivably be doing what Dauntless was doing and holding their emissions down.

None appeared.

The tension on the bridge was palpable as they approached the planet, coiling around the bridge officers. Twilight spared a brief glance at Peppermint Punch, the unicorn ensign from engineering who had been assigned to finally give Wingblade an assistant gunner. The young unicorn looked like she was handling the stress well, Twilight was pleased to note, calmly cycling through weapons displays and trading terse comments with her superior. The two Council vessels were still lazily circling the little world, chatting to one another on the radio frequencies without a sign of concern. They gave no indication that they’d seen Dauntless creeping up on them, made no alterations to their orbit.

Twilight drew a deep breath. She’d already contacted Fluttershy, and the pegasus was waiting tensely to hear the results of the contact attempt. At a range of several light-seconds, they were within the outer edges of missile range, even the shorter range of Council missiles. She’d wanted to be this close so the communications delay would be minimal, but even so she wouldn’t have risked it if there had been more ships. She was just about to order Chatterbox to try sending a greeting, when Oculus interrupted her.

“Detection!” the tan-coated mare called out, “Multiple contacts! Multiple… Celestia’s mane!” The unicorn’s voice squeaked at the exclamation.

Twilight could understand her shock. The sensor plot showed dozens of Council ships emerging from the planet’s shadow at extreme range… and more from behind one of the other planetary bodies they’d passed on the way in. Dauntless should have seen those ships; they must have been deliberately using the planet to conceal themselves. The two larger ships instantly changed course, lumbering away from Dauntless and seeking to hide themselves in the shadow the Council fleet had just emerged from, moving to the side opposite the emerging fleet so as to stay clear of any exchange of fire.

The bottom dropped out of Twilight’s stomach. They were reading more than two hundred Council warships directly in front of them, and exactly the same number behind, more than twice the number that had withdrawn from the battle with the Tazaft, and more than enough to kill Dauntless. This was a trap. How? How could they have known? Wait… they’d gotten the coordinates from a communication laser. One that had just happened to brush the Dauntless, and which had just happened to have these coordinates in it. I’ve been such a fool.

She’d made so many mistakes on this voyage. So many.

Twilight ground her teeth. Buck it, she wasn’t going to make another one. They were going to talk to the Council, someone from the Council, whether they wanted to or not. And that meant acquiring a captive audience. Or just a captive. “Take us around the planet opposite the Council fleet,” she barked, “keep it between us and them as long as you can… and get me close to those ships that baited us.”

“Baited us?” Fluttershy’s voice came over the comm system, sounding as shocked as Twilight felt. “What do you mean? What did you just detect?”

“It was a trap, Fluttershy. There are hundreds of ships here, moving to box us in. I’m going to have to disconnect; there are things I have to do.” The unicorn terminated the connection before her friend could reply.

“How close, Commander?” Silver Stars, at least, was still calm, or was managing a good approximation.

“As close as you can. I also need you to get me a full map of their ship with a focused sensor pulse, as accurate as you can. I don’t care if it gives them headaches.” Silver Stars blinked in surprise at the request, but nodded and turned to issue the necessary orders. Twilight hadn’t ordered full immersion yet, and wouldn’t until the missiles started flying. She wanted to give her crew as long as possible before subjecting them to that stress.

The unicorn brought up a comm window, paging Rainbow Dash. The pegasus answered immediately, a puzzled look on her face. “Yeah, Twi? What’s up? Need me for something?”

“I need somepony who can fight in close quarters.” As she spoke, the preliminary alarm sounded, alerting the crew of the Dauntless to suit up in expectation of combat. The bridge crew was already yanking suits out of lockers set close to their stations and climbing into them with practiced haste. “It was a trap, but I think we can still get someone to talk to. We’ll just have to kidnap them in order to do it.”

Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up. “Kidnap them? Okay, fine, where do you need me?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I need someone at the top of their game, lieutenant, not somepony who was nearly crippled yesterday. Contact your best fighter and send her to the bridge.”

“I may have gotten hurt, but I’m most of the way fixed up, and I’m still better than anypony else in close.” Rainbow’s voice was flat. “Ask A.J. I’ll get in my armor.”

“There’s no time.” Twilight opened a second window. “I’m paging Applejack now. If she says something different, you’d better have somepony else in mind.”

“She won’t. I’ll get in my suit, then. It’ll keep me from flying, anyway, which is probably a good thing right now with my wing half-busted.” Rainbow didn’t close the window, and Twilight saw her yank an armored suit out of a nearby locker and start climbing into it. Reminded, Twilight opened the locker under her chair and started donning her own suit.

Applejack answered while she was halfway through the process. “Twilight? Need me for somethin’?” The orange mare was already wearing her suit, and her green eyes were curious behind her helmet’s faceplate.

“I need an evaluation of Rainbow’s abilities.” Twilight kept her voice calm and even and not pausing in pulling her suit on. “I need somepony to board a hostile ship, and she insists she’s the best choice, even counting her injuries. Is that correct? Is there anypony else who might be better in close quarters?”

Applejack chewed on her lip, thinking. “You know, she might actually be the best we’ve got. She ran a qualification course right out of the hospital one time, hurt way worse than she was yesterday. She scored in the top five percent even though she’d been hurt bad and hadn’t recovered from it. Those cybernetics of hers are pretty dang impressive, and her natural abilities were settin’ records long before she got ‘em. Honestly, if she says she’s the best for it, she’s probably right, even hurt.”

“Told ya.” Rainbow interjected smugly. A glance at the screen showing her now-helmeted face told Twilight that she was in one of the lifts.

“Wait, she’s listening?” Applejack asked, covering her face. “Shoot, I’d never have said it that way if I’d known.” She raised her voice. “Don’t you let that go to your head, Rainbow Dash! You ain’t all you think you are!”

“Yeah, whatever. You know you meant it.” Rainbow laughed.

Twilight glanced at the sensor screen, which showed the Council fleet adjusting course, trying to close before Dauntless could slip behind the planet, while the second detachment suddenly increased their acceleration to what she suspected was its maximum. The two large ships who’d served as bait were accelerating harder, too, though they were far more sluggish than the two Council fleets. They were slowed further by the frantic evasion pattern they threw themselves into; they were well within Dauntless’s missile range, and their pilots were random-walking in an effort to throw off the Equestrian targeting solutions, even though the exploration cruiser had yet to fire a single missile at them. Interestingly, they were within Council missile range as well, and the big ships hadn’t fired a shot. Were they unarmed?

“You have command, Captain,” Twilight snapped, “don’t fire on those two ships. Get us within a thousand miles of one of them and hold us there, as long as you can.” Twilight judged that she wasn’t needed on the bridge right now as a commander, but her abilities were absolutely necessary to make the boarding mission work.

“How close?” Silver Stars asked, stunned. Twilight’s teleportation range was incredible, far beyond any other unicorn’s, but in space combat terms it was miniscule.

“You heard me, Captain. Do it!” The other unicorn nodded, and Twilight turned to Oculus. “Where’s that scan?!”

“Just completed, ma’am.” Twilight nodded as a schematic of one of the alien ships flashed onto her screen. It would probably have been unpleasant, almost stunning, actually, for the crew of that ship. A focused aetheric scan pounded its target region with arcane energy, but it could see through almost anything, and had astounding resolution. Twilight rotated the schematic on her screen, noting the silhouettes of machinery, seats, even crew. There were some strange shapes there, things that they’d have to pore over later. The unicorn picked her target and started weaving a careful, complex spell. “Rainbow Dash, get up here!”

The door slid open, admitting a suited Rainbow, who flashed her friend a grin as the comm window linking them closed. “That quick enough for you, boss?”

Twilight nodded. “Get over here.”

The pegasus raised her eyebrows, but stepped over to Twilight’s commander’s seat. She craned her head to the side, looking at the schematic. “What’s the mission?”

Before Twilight could answer, Oculus snapped, “Incoming missiles!”

“Full alert!” Silver Stars turned to Twilight, as the alert tone sounded throughout the ship. “We’ll get you there, ma’am.” The bridge crew fell silent, still, all of them focusing their minds entirely on the systems they were responsible for guiding as they linked with the bridge network. Icons flickered with lightning speed over the displays projected in front of each of them, far too quickly for an unlinked mind to interpret.

Twilight looked to Rainbow, still gently weaving together her spell in her mind. “Rainbow, we’re going to teleport on board one of those ships. I’m going to be using an anchored partial teleport spell, so I won’t be able to do anything; you’ll have to keep me safe, and you’ll also have to subdue and capture one of the aliens on board. I’m going to be jumping us into a room with what looks like eight of them, so you may have to deal with those, plus as many as come running. As soon as we have a captive, get them to me, and we’ll jump right back to here. And make it fast. Understand?”

The pegasus nodded crisply. “Guard you, take one captive fast as I can, got it. Can I kill the others if I need to?”

Twilight bit her lip. “If you have to. I’d rather you didn’t, but if it’s unavoidable, then do it.”

Rainbow nodded again. “Understood. I’ll keep you safe.”

The confidence and professionalism in her friend’s voice was reassuring, allowing Twilight to concentrate on the spell she was weaving. It was complex and energy-intensive; she would be displacing them to the room she hoped was the alien ship’s bridge, but at the same time maintaining a magical link to this spot on Dauntless’s deck, and tuning the spell’s energy to match the cruiser’s shields so it wouldn’t be blocked by the arcane barriers. She’d have to pour energy into it constantly, and the instant she lost her focus or stopped feeding the spell they would snap back. Twilight would have to “grab” their captive, too, once Rainbow had acquired it, in order to bring it back with them.

The pegasus stepped up close to Twilight, pressing her side against her friend’s. Twilight had carried Rainbow through a teleport before, and the Warden knew that physical contact made the trip easier. It was thoughtful of her, and it was comforting besides, even through the armored material of both ponies’ suits. Twilight took a deep breath, and watched the distance to the alien ship tick downward rapidly, while missiles flashed from the Council fleet into the teeth of Dauntless’s point defenses. The anti-missile systems were actually functioning at full efficiency for the first time since the mission’s start, with both weapons officers able to guide them for maximum effect. They tore apart the Council salvos, swatting down huge numbers of incoming warheads, and the ones that leaked through were unable to do so in sufficient numbers to punch through the shields. For now, at least. Return fire leapt back at the hostile fleet, Wingblade firing short salvos in an attempt to conserve their dwindling store of ammunition.

Finally, they were close enough. Grimacing in concentration, Twilight completed her spell, making here and there temporarily the same place. The lattice of energy the unicorn had woven stretched out, touching her destination, then smoothly slid Rainbow and Twilight into place.

There was a flash of light, and a sense of disorientation, and the two ponies appeared in a spacious room. There were numerous monitors and screens, keyboards, and panels set in front of comfortable-looking seats. There were nearly a dozen creatures, of two distinctly different species; one that was small and cat-like, with forelimbs that sported two elbows, long necks, and large, wide eyes, while the other species was large, wide, and low-slung, a good bit bigger than a pony, with what looked like a chitinous or bony carapace across its shoulders and back. All of the creatures were clad in sober-colored loose clothing, festooned with pockets, close enough in cut despite the differences in body structure to be clearly intended as a uniform.

The aliens on what had to be the ship’s bridge froze, stunned by the arrival of the two ponies, staring at them wide-eyed.

Rainbow Dash, by contrast, didn’t freeze.

The nearest alien was one of the big armored ones. Rainbow sprang toward it instantly, landing on its back and using her weight and speed to slam its head into its console. It flailed weakly, hunching its back and trying to duck its head under its shell, but Rainbow caught the back of its skull with her forehoof before it could do so and smashed its flat face into the console again, hard enough to break the instrument. The creature spasmed and collapsed, though its limbs moved sluggishly.

The creatures exploded into motion, but the pegasus didn’t give them a chance to organize. Rainbow hurled herself toward two of the catlike beings who were sitting in close proximity as the aliens tried to leap up out of their chairs. The pegasus went over the console that separated them from her, powering the two creatures back into their seats with her body. She swatted one in the side of the head, smashing it back into its seat, and the other turned, trying to claw at Rainbow with its long-fingered hands, fighting to pry her off of its compatriot, but she shrugged its efforts aside and slammed the leading edge of her suited wing into its throat. The armored material of the environment suit Rainbow wore enclosed her wings and prevented her from flying, but didn’t prevent them from moving, and the pegasus was quite capable of using them as weapons. The creature gagged, sticking its tongue out while its hands flew to its neck. Its compatriot lolled senselessly, evidently knocked half-unconscious by Rainbow’s blow to its head.

The other creatures in the room, to Twilight’s surprise, were mostly trying to get away, not charging the two ponies. The catlike beings scrambled out of their chairs and ran for the door, and the bigger, armored ones did likewise. One of the big ones lunged out of its seat and turned toward Rainbow, lumbering across the room ponderously. The pegasus quickly hooked the senseless felinoid from its chair and hurled it over the console toward Twilight, not pausing to see it land before she darted toward the big, armored alien. It adjusted its course, its arms reaching out for the semiconscious creature Rainbow had thrown, but the pegasus went low and smashed into its knees. It overbalanced, dropping on its face and hunching its shoulders, tucking its arms under its body for a moment as it slammed into the deck. Rainbow kicked it with a hindleg, but she wasn’t looking at it and instead of catching it squarely her blow skidded across its armored shoulders, though even the indirect bow was strong enough to shove the creature nearly a meter across the floor to slam into a wall.

Two of the bigger creatures had wedged momentarily in the door, having tried to get out at the same time, and shouts came from outside the room as they fought to get clear. The catlike creatures were piled up behind the two door-blocks, pressing their backs to the obstacle formed by the bigger aliens and staring in clear terror at the pegasus. Rainbow paused, not charging, just staring, her head low, her wings half-flared and her body tense.

After a frozen moment, the two aliens in the door managed to fight clear of one another, and the rest of the aliens scattered as a newcomer came through. It was another of the big, armored creatures, but it was wearing a different uniform and had what was clearly a sidearm in its hand.

Rainbow was already charging before the creature leveled its weapon. She ducked under its aim, smashing the top of her helmeted head into its arm and shoving the weapon toward the ceiling, then somehow wrapped her foreleg around its upper arm while she stood on her hind legs, trapping its limb against her neck, and twisted. There was a hideous snapping, tearing sound as the pegasus wrenched the creature’s body around, violently dislocating its arm in the process. The alien screamed, a horrible high-pitched sound. The weapon flopped loosely in its hand, pointed back through the door, but the creature’s limb was clearly so badly damaged that it could no longer grip the firearm properly.

Another creature came through the door with a sidearm, this time one of the catlike beings. It aimed its weapon at Twilight, and the unicorn’s heart almost stopped. There was no way she could shield herself or dodge, not while she was holding the spell, and Rainbow looked tangled up with the larger alien.

Rainbow’s lightning-sheathed talons severed the creature’s arm before it could pull the trigger, a flashing motion so fast Twilight couldn’t even see it. She hadn’t realized those talons could even extend that quickly. In a blur, the pegasus cut off the cat-being’s head, then slammed her other set of blades through the chin of the armored creature she was tangled up with, killing it instantly. The motion was so fast that it was clear she’d been deliberately holding back before. She eeled her way clear of the armored being’s now-limp body, twisting around and kicking it as it fell, hurling it back into the door to block it, but it didn’t look like any more were trying to enter. The remaining felinoids had darted out the door the instant it was clear.

The pegasus watched the door for a moment before turning around. There were four aliens still left in the compartment, two of each species. One of the armored creatures rested motionless in its chair, unconscious or dead, its head slumped against its ruined console. The other cringed on the floor where it had skidded, watching Rainbow with its deep-set eyes, its arms tucked underneath it and its shoulders hunched up to protect its head and neck. Its breath was fast, panting. The felinoid whose throat Rainbow had struck was still clutching at its neck, slumped in its chair, but it was conscious, watching the two ponies with wide eyes without moving. Its compatriot lay limp on the floor.

“Which one of these do you want, Twi?” Rainbow asked calmly. Celestia’s mane, she’s not even out of breath! The pegasus glanced at the unmoving large alien in the chair. “May not want that one, I might’ve hit it too hard. Think I broke its head.” Her unworried, callous tone was a little frightening.

“Let’s take one of the smaller ones, Rainbow Dash. Might be easier to manage.” Twilight’s voice was strained with the effort of maintaining her spell. She was seriously concerned, actually; none of the beings in the room were wearing suits, and she desperately hoped that nothing in Dauntless’s atmosphere was toxic to them. They would have to take that risk, though, if they were ever going to have a chance to talk to these beings. The unicorn glanced back at the two bodies by the door. “Did you have to kill the crippled one?”

Rainbow grimaced. “Damn, sorry about that. Didn’t really mean to. Reflex.” She stepped over to the unconscious creature and scooped it up with her foreleg, throwing it over Twilight’s back.

The other felinoid made a strangled sound and started to scramble out of its chair, but Rainbow was there in a flash. She planted a forehoof on the creature’s chest and shoved it back into its chair, snarling wordlessly at it while her wings flared in threat. The felinoid cringed in the shadow of the pegasus’s wings, drawing its back limbs up and covering its face momentarily with its long forelimbs. It pointed at the creature on Twilight’s back and trilled something, but stopped when Rainbow lifted her other foreleg, her talons extending from the cybernetic hoof to point directly at the creature’s face. It trilled again, its breath coming fast, and pulled its arm back slowly, the fingers of its hand spread wide, showing its palm. It was shaking, its body trembling violently.

“Ready to go, Twi?” Rainbow growled, not breaking eye contact with the creature she held pinned to its chair.

“Just… about…” Extending the spell to the unconscious creature on her back was proving more difficult than anticipated.

Rainbow folded her wings and pulled back from the felinoid, who trilled again, extending its hands palm-out in what looked like a begging motion. It pointed briefly at its companion slung over Twilight’s back, then went back to the same posture, trilling in its own tongue again. Rainbow backed up, her gaze darting from the felinoid to the prone armored being, but the latter didn’t seem interested in moving. The felinoid glanced over at it, murmuring something, but it just shuddered and ducked its head. The felinoid looked back to Rainbow, its gaze pleading.

The pegasus kept her eyes on it, but didn’t respond other than that. The creature continued speaking quietly, while Twilight finished wrapping her spell around the unconscious alien on her back. She sagged in relief as she released the spell, allowing the energy to drag her back to Dauntless, with Rainbow Dash and the unconscious alien coming along in her wake.

They reappeared on the Dauntless’s bridge, the crew still immersed in the network and silent at their stations. Twilight heaved a sigh; at least the ship was still okay, and she didn’t see any damage on the screens, though it looked like the shields were starting to strain. She sent a weary thought-pulse through the network to Silver Stars, telling the captain to get the ship out of the system as fast as possible. She received an instant response, and the vectors on the sensor plot shifted as Dauntless surged to full power, fighting to keep the planet between herself and the nearer Council fleet as she headed straight “down” relative to the system ecliptic. The two large, lumbering ships continued on their way, though the one they’d boarded was no longer random-walking in an evasion pattern. It would have been effortless to obliterate the ship; at constant acceleration on a straight-line course, Dauntless’s beam weapons would be able to hit it from essentially any distance, but Twilight was relieved to see that Wingblade was still following her orders and not engaging the two ships. It would be pointless to do so anyway; it was transparently clear at this point that the two ships were either totally unarmed or completely unwilling to fire, as Dauntless hadn’t taken a single shot from either ship.

Twilight watched the sensor plot intently. She didn’t want to go into full immersion right now; the teleport spell had taken a lot out of her, and as it stood she doubted she could contribute much. Besides, she trusted Silver Stars to run the ship; Twilight was in overall command and responsible for setting mission goals, but Silver Stars was the captain and perfectly capable of working out how those goals could be achieved. The vector shifted, overlaid with the vectors of the Council fleets, and the nebulous spheres around each group of ships that indicated weapons range. The unicorn sighed explosively; the Council forces had clearly underestimated Dauntless’s peak acceleration, and the second force wouldn’t be able to close to engagement range before the Equestrian cruiser exited the system. From what she could see, the enemy commander agreed, and the first force was already thinking about breaking off the engagement. Barring terrible luck, they would be in the clear in the next ten minutes.

They’d dodged a lightning bolt. This had been a cleverly-arranged, well-planned-out trap, and the only reason they were going to survive was that their enemies had simply underestimated their speed and had placed their two converging elements too far apart. Twilight let her eyes close for a moment, feeling the pulse of magic through the room and just letting her mind shut down, just for a second. The past few days had been brutal.

“Hey, Twilight,” Rainbow asked quietly, “what do you want to do with that?” Twilight opened her eyes, and saw that the pegasus was pointing at the felinoid alien on her back. The unicorn shook her head, marshaling her thoughts.

“Here, take it,” she said, turning aside so Rainbow could move the creature, “Find a spare room of some kind and lock it up for now. Once we’re out of danger, I’ll get Fluttershy to see if she can talk to it.”

Rainbow nodded, shifting their captive onto her back with a quick motion of her foreleg and wings. That extra set of limbs must be awfully nice to have, Twilight mused. “Right, I’ll find a place to stash this one.” She stretched one wing a bit. “Then I’ll probably head back to the medbay. Think I screwed up some of their repair work.”

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight said, as her friend was turning to leave. The pegasus looked back at her. “Thank you. You saved my life at least once over there.”

Rainbow flashed a grin. “Hey, any time, Twilight.” She left without a further word.

Only moments later, the fire coming from the Council fleet stopped, and the enemy ships changed their course, headed back to the planet they’d come out from behind. The other detachment altered their course as well, clearly heading to meet up with the first jaw of the trap, no longer seeking to pursue the Equestrian cruiser.

The bridge crew dropped out of immersion moments later, most of them sighing heavily and many rubbing their heads to relieve the headaches that always followed prolonged network contact. Silver Stars looked over at Twilight. “Reporting successful engagement, ma’am. No damage to the ship, about twenty hostile ships destroyed before they broke off the engagement. It doesn’t look like they’re going to be able to catch us.”

“I’m down to five percent of my missile ammo, though,” Wingblade put in. “We’re not going to last any time at all in another fight before we’re down to beams.”

“So you’re saying that we need to go back home?”

The young pegasus nodded firmly. “If you plan on getting in any more fights, yes, ma’am. I was holding way back in that one and still almost shot myself dry. We need more ammo, and we need it bad.” She paused. “And later ships of this class seriously need more magazine space. If you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am.”

Twilight nodded wearily. “I don’t mind at all, and I’ll definitely keep that in mind when I’m laying down the next exploration cruiser. I want to survey one more system, then we’ll head back to report.” She also wanted to give Fluttershy time to talk to their captive. Hopefully, that would give them at least some information on the creatures they faced, something she could report to the Princesses other than, “There’s this huge, powerful interstellar organization that seems to hate us for no apparent reason.”

Twilight watched the sensor readout as Dauntless headed out toward the Gate limit. The two Council fleets linked up, and followed them. Evidently, the enemy force was shadowing the Equestrian ship, just in case their engines failed or something.

Silver Stars approached her shortly before Jump, saying quietly, “Commander, there’s something you need to be aware of.”

“Oh?” Twilight blinked. There didn’t seem to be any concerns on the sensor readout.

“It’s a crew issue. Do you mind if I put up a privacy screen?” The Commander shook her head, and felt the captain link to the bridge systems. An invisible screen popped up, blocking any sound waves from reaching the other crewmares. “I had to put Wingblade on report this morning,” Silver Stars said once they were separated from the rest of the bridge crew.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Oh? For what?”

“Because she was confronted by three of the diplomatic team.” Twilight blinked in surprise. “They’d evidently heard about the way she’d talked to Fluttershy, and, well, they weren’t happy about it.”

“Goodness!” Twilight looked over to where the grey-coated pegasus sat calmly monitoring her weapons displays. “Was she hurt?”

Silver Stars shook her head. “No, ma’am, ‘Blade wasn’t hurt at all. Two of the three diplomats had to be sent to the medbay, though.”

The Commander frowned. “She attacked them?”

Silver Stars shook her head again, sighing. “No, ma’am. They started it. They probably didn’t realize what they were getting into; ‘Blade’s a nasty customer when she gets mad. She’s normally fairly cool-headed, but she’s got a mean streak a kilometer wide when her blood’s up. Turns into a whole different pony.”

Twilight couldn’t help but frown again. “Wait, they cornered her, they attacked her, and you put her on report?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Silver Stars paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Ma’am… she wasn’t cornered. They confronted her in a corridor. She should have just turned around and left, and from what it looked like on the security recording she could have, but she gets mean and stubborn when she’s really angry. Honestly, she needed to get smacked down for that, it showed some poor judgment and way too much aggression. She just refused to back down when those ponies pushed her.” The Warden made a frustrated noise. “Ma’am, this isn’t just about ‘Blade being in a fight. It’s a symptom of a bigger problem; it’s not just this particular incident. The Wardens are nearly fanatical about Commander Dash. Applejack too. A lot of us know one or both of them personally, and there’s a lot of loyalty in this organization. Fluttershy’s ponies feel the same way; she’s worked with most of them for a fair part of their lives, and they’d move heaven and earth for her. Fluttershy and Commander Dash have been fighting for years, and a lot of that has leaked onto the ponies that work with them, so there is a ton of tension. Three ponies tried to hurt ‘Blade because they heard she’d been nasty to Fluttershy, and I stomped on her because I don’t want to see my ponies doing the same thing. The longer we’re on this ship without this being addressed, the worse it’s going to get.”

Twilight thought furiously. She should have seen this coming, should have recognized it from the blatant hostility in the weapons officer’s attitude in the medical bay, and from the tension in the other two Wardens, as well as their lack of argument. Wintergreen had never said Wingblade was wrong, just that she should be less confrontational, and even Night Breeze, who seemed much less aggressive and much more rational than either of the other two, had said the same thing. Silver Stars was right, this was a major problem, and Twilight should have recognized it sooner. Argh, I’m a terrible choice as a commander. The Princess should have picked somepony who was better with others, or more social, or something. She may not be as isolated as she had been in her youth, but Twilight still had trouble sometimes when trying to deal with other ponies’ points of view.

Of course, now that she had recognized the problem, she had zero ideas about what to do. She rubbed her forehead furiously, nearly hitting her horn with her hoof. “Argh. This is even more frustrating because Rainbow and Fluttershy aren’t even fighting right now. They made up yesterday.”

Silver Stars shrugged. “That might help some, once it gets around.”

Once it gets around… Twilight felt a light dawn in her brain. There was a fantastic way to make sure it got around! If she could get the two of them working together on something high-profile… “Thank you for telling me this, Captain. I think I have a possible solution in mind.”

Silver Stars raised an eyebrow. “You do, ma’am?”

“I do indeed!” The lavender unicorn beamed at her subordinate. “Did you have anything else you needed to tell me?”

Silver Stars looked at her commander askance, clearly wondering what was on Twilight’s mind. “No, ma’am, that was pretty much it.” Shaking her head slightly, she dismissed the privacy screen, stepping back to her station.

Smiling triumphantly, Twilight paged Fluttershy. The other mare answered after a few moments, with a soft, “Yes, Twilight?” Her teal eyes were worried.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight began without preamble, “have you heard all of what’s happened?”

The pegasus blinked. “No, I thought you were calling to tell me.”

“Oh, okay.” For some reason Twilight had thought that someone had kept her friend informed. “Long story short, I was dumb, this was a trap, and the Council tried to kill us with a little over four hundred ships.” Fluttershy’s eyes widened in shock. “But that’s not the good part!” That made the pegasus raise an eyebrow. “The good part is that Rainbow Dash and I teleported onto the bridge of one of the bait ships and kidnapped one of their crewmares!” Twilight beamed. “Or, er, crew…things,” she finished, awkwardly.

Fluttershy blinked slowly. “I… that… is good news.” She said with transparently false enthusiasm, while looking at Twilight with an expression that suggested that the unicorn had lost her freaking mind. “I am just… so delighted to hear that! You… uh… must be very proud!”

“I thought you might be happy!” Twilight exclaimed happily, completely missing the pegasus’s incredulous look. “I wanted you and Rainbow Dash to work together and talk to it, try to find out why these people are acting like this.”

Fluttershy blinked. “You what?”

“I want you and Rainbow Dash to work together,” the Commander repeated, “You might find her more helpful than you’re thinking, and she can be there to make sure the captive won’t try to hurt you.”

The yellow pegasus stared blankly into the screen.

Twilight smiled back.

Fluttershy tried to smile encouragingly, but couldn’t quite manage it. “Twilight… this… is insane. I’m so sorry, I really am, and I don’t want to upset you, but that’s all I can think of to describe it! You want me to talk to someone you kidnapped, and you want Rainbow Dash to help. Okay, we’re trying to get along, but the problem this time isn’t me, or her, it’s the fact that you want her to be involved when I talk to this alien, and she’s the one who kidnapped them!” Fluttershy rubbed her face with her forehoof, her long pink mane falling briefly in front of her eyes. “I don’t… how am I supposed to be an ambassador to a captive?”

Twilight sighed. Her friend was right, this was a little crazy… but it had to be done. “Fluttershy, we have to know something about these people. They have enormous power, and we haven’t been able to find out hardly anything about them except second-hoof from the Tazaft, whose information was rather limited. Worse, they know where our homeworld is!” Twilight felt a sudden chill. Oh, Celestia’s name! They know where we live, they are willing to send hundreds of ships to attack Dauntless, and now they know we have starships. Oh, no, oh no, are they going to attack our home? They wouldn’t do that… would they? “Fluttershy… we have to learn at least something about them. We’re in danger, our home is in danger, everypony and every zebra and every buffalo and every griffon is in danger, and we have to find a way to save them!” Desperate tears were starting to form in the unicorn’s violet eyes. “I know, I know that this is a hard request. I know it’s crazy. And I know you don’t really want to work with Rainbow, but that’s another issue; there’s a lot of tension between your ponies and Rainbow’s, and I need the two of you to work together to show them that it’s possible. Please, Fluttershy, please, I need you to do this. For all of us.”

Fluttershy nodded heavily, sighing. “I’m sorry, Twilight, I know this is important. It’s just… I was so hoping I’d be able to talk to someone who wanted to talk to me. Having to settle for a captive, who may not even know anything…” the pegasus shook her head, “I’ll do my best. And if you want me to work with Rainbow Dash, I will, just… please, just ask her to be as nice as she can, okay? Especially if there’s any reason this creature might be afraid of her. It would make it much easier if the creature wasn’t frightened.” Fluttershy lowered her head a bit. “I don’t like scaring creatures, or seeing them scared.”

“I will. And Fluttershy… thank you. I appreciate it.” Twilight signed off, wiping her eyes. She drew a deep breath, and pinged Rainbow Dash, glancing at the display that showed the Council fleet still following them, though the huge collection of warships was steadily losing ground.

Rainbow answered almost instantly, a benefit of being directly tied into the ship’s systems in a way that only unicorns and ponies with neural implants could manage. “Hey, Twilight. Got the cat-thing stashed in a supply closet; it’s got a lock, and a light, but not much else. Didn’t look like it was having any problems breathing, so there’s that worry out of the way.” She snorted. “If you’re planning on keeping it longer, you might want to have the engineers rig up a lock on a normal room or something, ‘cause there’s no toilet in that closet. Gonna get smelly fast.”

“Good point; I’ll see what I can arrange.” Twilight winced. “And please, don’t call it a cat-thing.”

“What do you want me to call it, then?” Rainbow asked, cocking her head.

The unicorn opened her mouth to respond, and paused. They had no idea what the creature’s species was called, and it didn’t really look like anything they’d seen back home, so there weren’t really any good labels that came to mind. “Cat-thing” was only marginally less palatable than the label that occurred to Twilight, which was “Cat-monkey.” Monkey-cat? No, that sounded derogatory too.

“Let’s just call it an alien for now,” Twilight finally said. “Have you had a chance to get to the medical bay yet?”

“I’m there now,” Rainbow responded cheerfully. “You interrupted the doctor yelling at me for stretching the tendon she just fixed.”

“I may just let it heal on its own if you’re going to keep injuring it!” came an exclamation from off-screen.

“Aw, c’mon, you know you like me,” Rainbow replied. “Doctors always like me. I give them something to practice on.” Twilight heard a frustrated, wordless noise, and Rainbow grinned.

Twilight stifled a giggle. Fighting to straighten her face, she said, “Well, when you’re done there, I’d like you to head back to where you left the alien.”

“Sure thing, Twi. Although if you want me to stand guard, I’ve got a ton of Warden troopers with nothing to do. I could tie a guard to each of its legs and have a dozen more ponies around it in a ring, and I’d still have bored troopers.”

“Actually… I want you to help Fluttershy talk to it.”

Rainbow blinked. “You do?”

Bracing herself for an argument, Twilight nodded. “Yes, I do. You’ll be able to keep Fluttershy safe if the alien gets violent, not that I’m terribly worried about that given how small it is, and…”

“Woah, woah!” Rainbow exclaimed, waving a foreleg to interrupt. “Hey, you don’t need to push me into it. You’re the smart pony, and you’re the Commander. You want me to help, I’ll go help!”

“Oh. Good. Thank you.” Twilight deflated a little bit. Then she cocked her head. “You know, I didn’t notice before, but the comm system doesn’t seem to transmit that annoying noise your legs make.” Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said, and she covered her mouth with both forehooves. “Rainbow Dash, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean… I mean, your legs are perfectly functional, I don’t mean to disparage… they could be taken as real most of the time…!” I’m just digging myself in deeper, why can’t I stop?

Rainbow bit her lip, her nose scrunching up a bit as she listened to Twilight’s stammered apologies. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore… but instead of yelling angrily as Twilight had expected, she burst out laughing. “Ha ha, you mean, ha, you mean like this?” Rainbow gasped, and suddenly Twilight could hear the familiar teeth-grating whine. “Ha ha, oh man, I thought you knew! I got ‘em to put noisemakers in ‘em. Y’know, since they’re all mechanical and stuff, I thought they oughta sound like it!”

Twilight blinked. “You mean… you mean to tell me, that that noise, the one that’s been driving me insane every time I talked to you for sixty years, is something you could have turned off whenever you wanted?!”

Rainbow dissolved into fits of laughter again, actually falling over backward in the grip of hilarity. It took her quite a while to get herself back under control, during which time the unicorn could see her friend’s legs waving helplessly in the air, and Twilight got curious glances from several of the bridge crew; Rainbow was laughing more than loudly enough to be heard quite some distance away, even with the muffling effect of the comm link. Finally, the pegasus was able to stand up, wipe her eyes, and say, “Whoo. That’s funny. I had no idea it bugged you that much, but yeah, I could’ve turned ‘em off any time you asked. I shut ‘em off whenever I’m out in the field anyway; having my legs whine would make it freaking impossible to sneak up on anything, which was the other reason I made ‘em give me noisemakers. Scootaloo… remember her?” Twilight nodded. The orange pegasus mare with the flight problem, who’d joined the Wardens early on, the unicorn recalled. She’d been Rainbow’s aide and right-hoof mare for years. “Yeah, it drove Scoots nuts that I kept sneaking up on her by accident and scaring the hay out of her. At one point it was happening like three times a day, even with her watching out for it. She wanted me to have something that made noise whenever I was in a town, ‘cause she figured having me giving older ponies heart attacks by accident probably wouldn’t be good for our image. It was easier to stick noisemakers in my legs that it would have been to learn to make noise while I was moving again; I’m too used to moving around as quiet as I can.”

Twilight facehoofed, at herself and at Rainbow. She heaved a deep sigh. “Well, in the future, could you please leave the noisemakers off while you’re visiting me, or I’m visiting you? I’d appreciate it.”

“Can do.” Rainbow grinned, clearly fighting back another attack of the giggles. There was a gleam in her eye that made Twilight worry a bit, but she brushed it aside.

“Thank you. As soon as you’re done there, could you meet Fluttershy to talk to the alien?” Twilight glanced at the sensor plot briefly. “We’ll be jumping out soon, but we’re heading to an empty system to give you two a chance to work.”

“Can do,” Rainbow said again with a firm nod. “Hey, I could actually be helpful. Could you send me a link to those Council language files we got?”

“Oh… yes, of course.” Twilight linked herself into the network for a moment, her holodaemon quickly retrieving the files she needed, and with a thought she sent a datalink to Rainbow’s implant. The pegasus would be able to serve as a translating node for the ship’s daemons, much like some of Fluttershy’s linguists had done with the Tazaft, speeding the translation process immensely.

Rainbow’s eyes flicked to the side, an involuntary physical reaction that frequently occurred when a pony accessed the datanet, and she nodded. “Got it, thanks, Twi. Huh, I wonder…” Her gaze went distant for a moment. “Oh, okay, cool. This thing’s language is part of the files. That’ll make it easier.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight gave her friend an incredulous look. “How in the world do you know that?”

“‘Cause I just checked the stuff that its friend was saying back on their ship.” Rainbow pointed at her artificial eyes. “These are tied in to my interface implant; I usually record fights so I can watch ‘em later and see what I could’ve done better. My audio boosters are tied into it too, so I get full sound.” The pegasus grimaced. “It was saying that the one we took was its friend, begging me not to hurt him.”

“Oh.” Twilight grimaced, too. It had been a lot easier to think about the creature as a captive, rather than a person who had friends. “Well, it’s a good thing we don’t want to actually hurt him.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I never like hurting things that can talk, but I really hate it when their friends are right there.” Rainbow sighed, glancing back over her shoulder. “You about done there, doc?”

There was an indistinct grumble that Twilight couldn’t quite make out, but she thought she heard the words, “taken for granted…” mixed in there somewhere.

Rainbow turned back to the comm screen. “The doc’s almost finished here, so I’ll meet up with Fluttershy in a couple of minutes.”

“Thank you, Rainbow. We’ll be jumping in a little while; make sure you’re not connected when we do.”

“Got it, boss.” The pegasus flashed a grin. “I didn’t get more than a headache last time, but I’ll still be careful.”

Twilight disconnected, pleased to note that the short conversation with her friend had raised her spirits more than she expected, and watched the gigantic mass of Council ships crawling across the system behind them like jackals, hoping Dauntless would stumble and fall.

They continued to pursue Dauntless, up until the ship reached the Jump limit and vanished elsewhere.

Siege

Twilight tried to focus on exploring the empty system, finding out all the interesting little facts about it, but it was hard. This was just another empty, uninhabited system; they’d gotten fairly good information on a couple of those by now. It was valuable, and could potentially give them very useful data about the way the universe worked, but right at the moment it wasn’t terribly exciting. Especially considering what was going on elsewhere in the ship, with Rainbow and Fluttershy speaking to someone from the Council for the first time.

Finally, she couldn’t handle the tension anymore. She had to know what was going on. Twilight left Silver Stars in charge of the ship and darted off the bridge, headed to her office which was both relatively nearby and quiet, so she could tune in to what was going on.

She dropped into partial network immersion, her holodaemon seeking out the node that Rainbow was maintaining to allow the translator systems to function. It located the pegasus almost immediately; there was a fair amount of activity centered on her, and Twilight realized that Rainbow was maintaining a connection to most of Fluttershy’s staff, allowing them to see and hear everything that was going on in the little closet.

The two pegasi clearly hadn’t been talking to the captive for long. “…course I’m not going to let her hurt you,” Fluttershy said as Twilight’s connection stabilized, the translator trilling in the alien’s language as she spoke. The unicorn opened an illusory window, allowing her to see both ponies and the captive. Both ponies were seated on floor cushions, and there was another pile that the alien sat on, its back against the wall. Fluttershy shot what looked like an annoyed glance over her shoulder at Rainbow, though she winked where the captive couldn’t see her. Rainbow maintained the tense, angry set of her body, though one corner of her mouth quirked up for a brief fraction of a second. “Honestly,” Fluttershy said as she turned back to the alien, “I won’t. She might growl, but she’s not evil; she won’t hurt you, I promise. Is there anything I can get for you? Water? I could try to find something you could eat…”

“Somepony check and see if the doctor ran tests on what he could eat,” a voice in the net said.

“On it.” Looking closely, Twilight could see a small earbud that Fluttershy was wearing, in order to communicate with her ponies. Rainbow didn’t need one, of course; her interface implant did everything Fluttershy’s eyepiece and earbud could do, and quite a bit more besides.

“I… water would be appreciated,” the alien trilled in its own tongue, translated instantly by the array of holodaemons and datadaemons being managed by Fluttershy’s experts.

“I’ll have somepony get some for you. Warm? Cold? Hot?”

“Cold, please. But not frozen.” The alien shifted its position.

“He’s surprised. Didn’t expect to be cared for?”

“Possible, and it fits with his earlier behavior. A bit ominous; why wouldn’t he expect to be cared for, when Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle risked so much to bring him back alive?”

“A bit of kindness could go a long way here.”

“I’m gonna back off some,” Rainbow’s voice said in the net, while she stood silently glaring at the alien. “I’ll stay here, so I can be scary, but I don’t think I’ll growl any more. Feels wrong, especially since he’s so scared.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, ma’am. It gives Fluttershy a chance to seem protective, without making further threats to undermine her.”

“Somepony bring some cold, sterile water,” Fluttershy ordered. “Where’s Cinnamon Swirl, by the way? I don’t hear her; shouldn’t she be there?”

“She’s in the hospital. Got into a fight; I’ll fill you in later, miss.” There was a pause. “Water’s coming.”

A moment later, there was a tap at the door. Fluttershy opened it, and an engineer passed her a small flask. The yellow pegasus took the flask in her mouth, slowly approached the alien who watched her with huge eyes, and set it down in front of him. “There you are,” she said softly, stepping back. “Drink up; we can bring you more if you need it.”

Darting a glance at Rainbow Dash, the alien reached out and picked up the flask, opening it and taking a deep drink. “Thank you,” he said, licking his lips with a surprisingly dark-colored tongue.

“That was grudging, but genuine, I think. Try to follow up on it, maybe?”

“Is there anything else we could get you? Food? Is that cushion comfortable?” Fluttershy asked gently, maintaining her distance and staying partway between the alien and Rainbow Dash.

The alien looked at her unreadably. “What do you want with me? Really? I don’t know anything. There’s nothing I can give you. If you aren’t planning to torture me or kill me, then what do you want?”

Torture? Twilight thought, aghast. Where in the world did that come from?

Fluttershy shook her head. “Really, all we want is to talk. Your people have refused to do that, which is why my friend here,” she indicated Rainbow with a toss of her head, “took such a risk to get you, so I could talk to you.” She smiled. “Could you at least tell me your name?”

“Zziir,” the alien said, an odd trill to the name. “Zziir is my name.” He paused. “I… did you destroy my ship?”

Fluttershy shook her head again. “No. We left it alone.”

“What about… about the rest of the bridge crew? I don’t remember much after you came over my control panel at me.” Zziir looked at Rainbow Dash.

“They’re fine,” Rainbow said. “I thumped a couple of ‘em, but they’re okay, I think, except maybe for that first one I hit. I had to kill a couple of the ones that came in after we did.”

“Ouch, I wish you hadn’t said that. Might make things harder.”

“I figured it’d be better to be honest,” Rainbow retorted.

“Can you show me?” Zziir asked. “Show me that my friends are okay? Prove it to me?”

“Sure,” Rainbow said, without waiting for Fluttershy to respond. “Hold on, let me pull it up.” Twilight felt the movement in the network as the daemon resident in Rainbow’s implants fed the record to the ship’s systems, projecting it onto an illusory screen that sprang to life in front of the alien. A secondary screen appeared next to the one Twilight was watching, conveying the same information; she guessed that Rainbow had set it to general access for anyone linked in. “Which one of these do you want, Twi?” Rainbow’s voice asked, as the view flicked over the bridge. “May not want that one, I might’ve hit it too hard. Think I broke its head.”

Twilight watched as the scene replayed, though it was rather uncomfortable since Rainbow’s eyes darted around so much, watching every part of the bridge at once. When it got to the part where Rainbow shoved the other creature back into its seat, the fact that the translator was on let her finally understand what it had said. “Zziir… please, he’s my friend. Don’t take him, he hasn’t done…!” The creature cut itself off when the blades in Rainbow’s foreleg pointed directly into its face. “Please… please don’t hurt me. I won’t fight. Don’t hurt me.”

“Ready to go, Twi?” Rainbow’s voice growled, not understanding the creature’s words.

“Just… about…”

The viewpoint pulled back away from the other alien, just as Rainbow had done. “Please,” it asked, “Leave Zziir. I think he’s hurt. Take me instead. I’ll go with you, just please, leave him here.” Rainbow kept backing up, still not understanding. “Chudal,” the alien murmured, turning to the prone creature on the deck, “can you do anything? They’re bigger and stronger than me, but we can’t let them…” it trailed off as the other creature didn’t respond. Zziir’s friend turned back to Rainbow. “Please, please, he’s barely adult, and he’s hurt. Leave him here, let our doctor help him. You can take me in exchange. I don’t know what you want, but I’ll go with you, just leave him here. Please.” The playback closed as Rainbow and Twilight teleported back to Dauntless, the last view that of the alien stretching out a pleading hand.

“That upset him,” one of Fluttershy’s experts observed. Zziir looked a little agitated, his ears swiveling in little motions, his body rigid.

“I wish I’d had that translator on,” Rainbow observed. “I’d have taken her up on it.”

“Him,” Zziir corrected tersely. “Why?”

“’Cause it would’ve showed that we really didn’t want to hurt you.” Rainbow shrugged. “Would’ve been easier to convince him, since I would’ve already showed I’d listen.”

“If you wanted to talk, why did you destroy the first-contact ship?” Zziir asked suddenly, leaning forward. “Why didn’t you just talk to them instead of killing the people who were supposed to be on your side?”

“The first-contact ship?” Fluttershy asked, in a puzzled tone. “What do you mean? What first-contact ship?”

“I mean when you people fired on the diplomatic ship that tried to talk to you!” Zziir replied heatedly, “What, did you think they wouldn’t tell us about that?”

“I…” The two pegasi exchanged confused looks. “Rainbow Dash, could you pull up a picture of the Interloper?”

“Sure.” A three-dimensional illusion of the Interloper vessel, the one that had been Equestria’s first contact with the Council, appeared in front of the rainbow-maned pegasus.

“Is this what you mean?”

Zziir peered closely at the hologram. His eyes widened. “I… what? Why are you showing me this? This is an infiltrator cruiser. What does it have to do with anything? How did you even find this?”

Fluttershy and Rainbow shared a glance. “Infiltrator cruiser?” the yellow pegasus asked, “I don’t know what that means. This is the first ship from your people that we saw; it opened fire on us when we tried to talk to it.”

“It’s also the only ship we saw until we jumped into the middle of that fight between you and the Tazaft,” Rainbow said grimly. “Is this what you mean by a first-contact ship? ‘Cause if it is, they suck at their job.”

There was a pause as the alien stared. “That’s probably shock,” somepony speculated.

“Let’s wait and see what he says, don’t push him.”

Rainbow and Fluttershy waited, silently, until Zziir spoke again. “I… why… I don’t even know how else you’d know what this looks like. Even the Tazaft wouldn’t know what this is.” He stared at the display. “There have been all those rumors… you really haven’t had a first-contact ship? No one came to you to try to talk to you?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No. We’ve tried to talk to your people several times, but all you’ve done is shot at us.”

“It’s why my boss had me grab you,” Rainbow added. “Figured if we did that, we’d at least be able to figure out why you’re shooting at us.” She shook her head. “Speaking of, why are you shooting at us? I mean, yeah, we’ve blown up a bunch of your ships by now, but we didn’t start it!”

“Rainbow,” Fluttershy said reprovingly.

“Well, we have!” The cyan pegasus responded, a slightly defensive edge in her tone. The translator was faithfully rendering their speech to the alien, who watched them closely. “We can’t act like we haven’t! What, you want me to lie?” She turned back to Zziir. “Look, if we’ve killed any of your friends, I’m really, honestly sorry. We don’t want to. What we want is to find a way to stop it! We could’ve blown your ship up too, or the other one you were with, but we didn’t.”

Fluttershy sighed. “Rainbow isn’t very diplomatic, but that is why she and Twilight took you. I’m honestly sorry they had to do that, but we needed something. Some way to talk to your people. We want to be friends, but no one we’ve encountered has been willing to let us try. Please, is there any way we could stop all this? Any way we could stop fighting?”

Zziir stared. “He’s thinking, don’t interrupt him!”

“I… can almost believe it,” the alien said slowly. “The infiltrator service… they’re not good people. I know that. And there have been all those rumors…”

“Rumors?” Fluttershy asked, cocking her head to the side. “What kind of rumors?”

“That… well, that Fifth Fleet command has been getting a lot of visits from infiltrator cruisers. According to some of the other logistics personnel, anyway.” He stared at the hologram still drifting in front of him. “I… believe those rumors more, now.”

“Fifth fleet?” Rainbow asked.

“Yes, Fifth Enforcement Fleet. It’s the formation responsible for this part of the Council frontier.”

The pegasi looked at each other again. “The ships we’ve encountered were all from the same force?” Rainbow asked.

Zziir flicked his ears. “Yes, that was second and eighth task forces you encountered today. Fifth Fleet Command… there have been a lot of rumors that the infiltrator service has been visiting Command Headquarters a lot in the last year or so. I thought it was just a dumb rumor, but…”

Fluttershy’s brow furrowed, even as Rainbow’s ears turned back in tension at the news. “Wait… the people who sent this ship and the people we’ve been fighting… they’re not necessarily aligned with your government?” Fluttershy sounded troubled, which was exactly how Twilight felt. At the same time, though, she felt a sense of hope. If there was a government that didn’t feel this way, could she contact them?

The alien’s ears flicked again, in a different motion. “No, the infiltrators… they’re not nice people. No one trusts them. They’re supposed to just make sure that the Council knows about threats and things like that, but… I… you really just want to talk to someone? That’s all?”

Fluttershy nodded heavily. “Yes. But if the people responsible for this entire area don’t want to… I don’t know what we could do.”

“Oh, good move, ma’am. Asking for his help without stating that you are.”

Zziir licked his lips, his long, double-jointed arms shifting nervously. “You could try going to Baltor,” he suggested. “That’s the seat of government. Someone would listen to you there.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “If it’s the seat of government, there’s gonna be a zillion ships and defense platforms there. We barely got out of the last trap, and you’re suggesting we head right into another one?”

Zziir looked at her strangely. “So you want someplace lightly defended?”

“That’s kind of a suspicious request for us to make.”

“It does rather sound like we’re looking for something to attack.”

“What we’d really like is to find someone who’d listen, and could introduce us,” Fluttershy said. “Just someone to hear us out and speak on our behalf to your government.”

“Hey,” Rainbow’s voice said on the net as Fluttershy spoke, “Talky-ponies. I got an idea, but I want to run it by you guys before I say anything. What if I ask him about a base, someplace with a bunch of fixed defenses but no ships. Is that too suspicious?”

“That sounds good to me, Rainbow,” Twilight said before the others said anything.

“Concur,” said another voice.

“Go for it,” said a third.

“Right.” Rainbow cleared her throat, and spoke out loud. “Hey, I can get you not wanting to point us at someplace undefended. I’d be nervous about that, too. But, I mean, you guys have attacked us every single time we’ve seen you. Tell you what, is there someplace with a bunch of fixed defenses, but no big fleet? That way, we could go in and sit outside their range and not have to worry about them coming after us, but we couldn’t really hurt them either.”

Zziir looked at her silently for a moment, and Twilight thought they’d blown it. Finally, though, he said slowly, “How far are you willing to go?”

“Do you mean distance?” Fluttershy asked.

The alien’s ears flicked. “That was a nod,” one of the ponies in the net observed.

“As long as we know where we’re going, distance doesn’t matter,” the yellow pegasus told the captive.

Zziir gave her an odd look. “Well… okay then. There’s a place fairly close to Baltor that has a naval supply depot; it doesn’t have an on-station response force, but it’s pretty heavily fortified.” He fidgeted. “I’ve… one of my cousins,” the term Zziir used actually had a shockingly precise meaning, Twilight noted, but it couldn’t be translated directly. Something like Father’s father’s brother’s daughter’s adopted son, but the translator rendered it as “cousin”, “is in command, and he knows me. I… could speak for you, tell them what you’ve told me.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “You’d do that for us?” She asked, softly. “You’d speak for us, when we abducted you?”

Zziir flicked his ears again. “You were desperate. I can understand, I think, if you’re telling me the truth.” He looked at Fluttershy intently. “It will also show me that you are serious. If you are willing to let me speak for you in a situation where I could pass a message you wouldn’t catch.”

Fluttershy smiled. “I hope you don’t do that, but if you do, I won’t be upset. We could also use the chance to get some provisions for you, so we don’t have to guess at whether any of our food is edible for you.”

“Yes, there is that.” The alien made a gesture with both hands. “Do you have a star map? I could give you the coordinates…”

Twilight cut the connection as Zziir began giving directions to the base to the two pegasi. She paged the rest of her friends for a meeting; this was something they should probably discuss.

Twilight, Applejack, and Rarity sat in the meeting room, making small talk and waiting for the two pegasi to arrive. Pinkie had preferred not to attend this meeting; she was still dealing with the stress brought on by her experience with Fluttershy, and didn’t feel up to participating right now. Rainbow and Fluttershy had already called and said they were on their way with the information they’d gathered, but they hadn’t arrived yet; they’d continued talking to the captive, trying to learn everything they could. Finally, though, the door hissed open, and Twilight finished the joke she was telling Applejack before looking up to see Fluttershy standing there, a slightly odd look on her face. “Ah, Fluttershy, there you are,” Twilight said, smiling. She frowned a bit. “Isn’t Rainbow with you?” Had the two pegasi started fighting again? It had seemed like they were getting along so well!

“Yep,” a voice said suddenly, centimeters from Twilight’s ear and louder than normal conversation would be. The unicorn started so hard she almost fell off of her cushion, and spun around, heart racing, to see Rainbow standing there and grinning triumphantly. Twilight gave her a dirty glare, which only made the pegasus grin wider. “What? You told me to turn off the noisemakers when I came to talk to you.” The unicorn heard a strangled snicker that might have come from Applejack, but chose to take the high road and ignore it. Acknowledging it would only encourage the polychromatic cyberpegasus, anyway.

Twilight closed her eyes, shaking her head in exasperation. “Yes, I did. Thank you for doing that.”

“You’re welcome!” Rainbow said cheerfully, before trotting over to a vacant seat and sitting down, still grinning, Fluttershy just rolled her eyes as she took a seat next to the other pegasus. Despite the momentary expression of exasperation, Twilight saw none of the tension she was used to seeing when her winged friends were together, and that made her heart lift a bit. Which was noticeable, since it was still pounding from the start Rainbow had given her.

Fluttershy cleared her throat, ignoring the distraction and focusing on the business she’d come here to discuss. “Um. Well, first off, our captive’s name is Zziir,” she pronounced the name with an odd trill, reminiscent of the way the creature’s companion had spoken, “and he was the navigator of the freighter you boarded.”

Fluttershy quickly summarized what Twilight had heard her talking to the alien about, and what she’d learned from him. The location of the Council’s capital world of Baltor was interesting; it was much farther away than she’d thought. The space they claimed must be enormous.

Rarity’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “How did you learn all this, darling? I’d expected the creature to be much more taciturn.”

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “He got a lot more talkative when I growled at him and Fluttershy made me back off.”

Fluttershy gave the other pegasus a severe look. “Well, yes, because you gave him an enemy to focus on and let me defend him and be his ally.” She smiled. “Thank you for that, by the way. I don’t know if it would have occurred to me to ask you to do that.”

“Any time. Figured it might work.” Rainbow smirked. “No one would’ve believed you as the bad guy, anyway.”

The yellow pegasus cleared her throat. “He was trying to say as little as possible, but I did get him to talk to me a little bit. There are eighteen different species in the Council, including thirteen permanent members and five probationary members. Zziir’s species is one of the permanent members. It seemed to me that he was really proud of that.”

“And what exactly is the distinction, darling?” Rarity asked. “Between permanent and probationary members, I mean?”

“I’m not really sure. It actually wasn’t what I was trying to talk to him about, just something he told me to try to impress me, I think. We were trying to learn more about what we might be able to do, and what we actually faced.”

“Which isn’t good.” Rainbow interrupted grimly.

Fluttershy sighed. “No, it isn’t. There are two major external-security organizations that the Council operates; the infiltrator service, and the Enforcement Branch.” Rainbow called up an image from the archives, one of the pictures taken by the Warden cutters of the Interloper. “That ship that we first encountered sounds like an infiltrator ship, which is what Zziir identified it as. It was alone and it was sneaking around, which isn’t the way the Enforcment group operates. I’m not sure exactly what the infiltrators do, and Zziir doesn’t seem to like them, but it looks like they may have had some kind of interest in us.”

“Until we blew their ship away.” Twilight filled in with a sinking heart.

“Maybe.” Fluttershy didn’t sound as definite as Twilight had expected. “Whatever they wanted, it probably wasn’t good; according to Zziir they’re not very nice at all, and if they were poking around where we live they probably weren’t doing it for fun. They sound really mean and nasty.” Fluttershy blinked, then cleared her throat, changing track a bit. “All that we’ve built in the last few decades upset them, and I guess they’re really angry for some reason, but they’re not our problem now. The ones that attacked us, Dauntless, I mean, are all Enforcement ships; the sneaky ones found some bullies to fight us for them.” Fluttershy looked upset, understandably so, Twilight thought. “The thing is… Zziir isn’t sure why they’re fighting us. After I talked to him for a little while, he was actually quite willing to believe that our getting involved in the fight with the Tazaft was an accident, which makes it very strange that they seem so unwilling to speak to us.”

“Perhaps he was just trying to tell you what he thought you wanted to hear,” Rarity offered. “Under the circumstances, I can’t say I’d blame him.”

“It’s possible,” Fluttershy said tentatively, “but I didn’t get that feeling. I could be mistaken, but he really did seem nice once he calmed down a tiny bit. Anyway, what we’re dealing with now is the Fifth Enforcement Fleet, which is also the group that’s been prosecuting the Council’s war with the Tazaft.”

“Heh,” Rainbow interrupted, “you guys are gonna love this.”

Fluttershy shot her an annoyed look, but continued. “From what Zziir said, the Tazaft started the war because they felt the Council was taking too long to consider their application for membership. They’re trying to make a statement, and force the Council to take them seriously, because they felt like they were being ignored.”

Twilight frowned. “Wait, so the Council takes new members?”

“Yeah, they’re normally really nice about it, according to Zir.” Rainbow didn’t pronounce the alien’s name with the same trill Fluttershy put into it. “He actually thought we’d blown up the first-contact ship. It took a little talking to convince him we’d never seen one.”

“That is odd,” Rarity observed with a frown. “Where would he have gotten that notion?”

“His commanders, apparently,” Fluttershy replied. “The good news is, he’s willing to help us try to contact his government. The bad news… he’s heard a rumor that his unit, Fifth Fleet, is planning to flatten us.”

Twilight felt a chill in her belly. She hadn’t heard this part. “Flatten us? You mean…”

“Zziir thinks there is a chance that his fleet is moving on our home world, yes,” Fluttershy said quietly. “It’s just a rumor, and he doesn’t know how much truth there is to it, but it seems to be a very popular rumor.” There were a lot of rumors in the Council fleet, evidently.

“But… but this is crazy!” Rarity exclaimed. “All we’ve ever done is try to talk to them, and we’ve only returned fire when they fired on us first! Why would they be acting this way?”

“We don’t know.” Fluttershy’s voice was soft, worried. “Zziir doesn’t know either. He fully expected us to kill him. Or torture him.”

“He really did,” Rainbow said, a little bit of sadness creeping into her tone. “It was hard to act mean after the first time I growled at him. He was so scared…”

“Zziir knows almost nothing about us, apart from the fact that we supposedly killed the Council first-contact team.” Fluttershy bit her lip. “From what he knows, no one knows anything about us, which is very strange because the infiltrator service has been watching us very closely. There are all kinds of rumors about their ships visiting the Fifth Fleet’s headquarters.”

Twilight wondered how closely they’d been watching, and for how long. Her thoughts were interrupted. “How large is this ‘Fifth Enforcement Fleet’, Fluttershy?” Rarity asked. “What kind of enemy are we potentially looking at?”

“It’s big.” Rainbow interjected grimly. “Real big. What tried to trap us? Third and Eighth Task Groups.”

Twilight had done the math on that already, as Rainbow clearly had, and she felt a chill creeping into her bones at the reminder. Assuming that the slightly more than two hundred ships they’d seen in each detachment was a “task group”, then the entire fleet had to be at least sixteen hundred vessels. Even the homeworld’s defenses wouldn’t be enough to defeat a force that powerful, though they would be able to hold it off for a while.

Applejack looked sick with sudden fear. “Twilight... we gotta get home, right now! The Princesses… they hafta know about this!”

Twilight shook her head. “We have something more urgent.”

The Warden’s green eyes widened. “More than savin’ our home?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. Rainbow and I convinced Zziir to help us contact his government. That fleet is too big for us to beat on our own, but if we can get them called off…”

Applejack didn’t look confident. “How sure are you that it’ll work, Fluttershy?”

The pegasus hung her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how much time we have, so we can’t afford to delay. I only hope we aren’t already too late.”

“Do you have the location we need to head to?” Twilight asked. At Fluttershy’s nod, she continued, “Okay, send it to the bridge, and I’ll have Silver Stars set course immediately. It’ll be a few hours before we hit the Jump limit, so perhaps we could reconvene when we get where we’re going?”

“That sounds good,” Fluttershy said, as the five ponies rose from their seats.

“Come along, darling, let’s go get some lunch,” Rarity suggested, receiving a nod from the yellow-coated pegasus. “Would the rest of you care to come along?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I’m going back up to the bridge. I want to be available immediately, in case I‘m needed.”

“Me and Dash have some stuff to do, too,” Applejack said, glancing at Rainbow.

“Yup. Need to check on some supply stuff,” Rainbow added.

“Fair enough, darlings, I’ll see you back home, I suppose.” Rarity turned to Fluttershy. “Come along, dear, let’s see if Pinkie Pie is hungry.”

The meeting broke up, the five ponies headed in three directions.

The bridge was quiet when Twilight reached it, the officers she’d come to depend upon focusing on their jobs. The unicorn could see at a glance that the ship was still some distance away from being able to jump out. Sighing, she settled herself in her commander’s seat, bringing up the information on the Council that they’d received from the Tazaft and starting to go through it again, hoping vainly that she’d find something that explained their behavior. Maybe what Fluttershy had learned from their captive would give her a clue, bring some small fact into focus…

Argh, the captive! Twilight was torn on whether Fluttershy was right to put so much trust into the creature. Admittedly, they wouldn’t lose much if he didn’t pass along the message they wanted, and they could potentially gain quite a bit, but it worried her to have to depend on someone they’d kidnapped. And what were they going to do with him afterward? Give him back to the base he was taking them to? Hold on to him? What would they do with him if they kept him?

Twilight chewed the issue of Zziir’s long-term fate over as the ship cruised along, but she hadn’t come up with a decent solution by the time they reached the Jump radius. The Jump warning tone sounded throughout Dauntless’s vast hull, and moments later the ship vanished once again, reappearing in reality deep within Council-claimed space.

Twilight stared in mild awe at the image of the Council depot on the screen. “So this is it?”

“Yes,” Zziir replied. Fluttershy had escorted the alien up to the bridge. “Ta Ahii Depot, one of the major supply nexuses for the Enforcement Fleet. You shouldn’t see any warships; this is a collection and distribution nexus, and the Fleet doesn’t typically resupply here.”

“Oculus?” Twilight asked, making sure that the translator systems were functioning, so Zziir could see they weren’t planning anything underhoofed.

“I don’t see anything that looks like the warships we’ve seen, ma’am. Bunch of ships like the one we took him off of, though.”

Twilight could see that. Contact icons swarmed the screen, too many to count by eye, moving in remarkably orderly patterns around the colossal spaceborne construct of the depot. The depot itself dwarfed any artificial structure Twilight had ever seen; it was easily ten times the size of Equestria’s orbital shipyard, in every dimension. The thing was humbling, especially considering that it had been built out in the middle of nowhere; Zziir had explained that it had been constructed as a collection point, and that it was close to three homeworlds and a dozen colony worlds, though this system itself wasn’t heavily inhabited apart from the cluster of colonies and industrial yards that supported the depot.

Zziir’s ears flicked in a nod. “They’re military freighters, making runs between Ta Ahii and the Fleet bases along this edge of the frontier. The next major supply convoy from Khll isn’t due for another day or so, or you’d see bulk freighters, too.”

“Message from the depot, ma’am,” Chatterbox interjected. “They’re asking us to identify ourselves.”

“That was quick,” Silver Stars observed. She sounded impressed. “They must have spotted us the second we arrived.”

Twilight looked to the catlike alien. “Well? How should we respond?”

Zziir licked his lips. “Could you record a message from me?”

Twilight nodded. Her horn glowed as she activated the bridge recorder. “Go ahead.”

Zziir looked a little nervous. “Ta Ahii depot, this is Zziir Delriin, attached to Fifth Enforcement Fleet, currently aboard the… what was your ship called again?”

“The Dauntless,” Fluttershy supplied.

“Aboard the Equestrian starship Heroic,” the alien continued. Okay, maybe the translators aren’t a hundred percent accurate yet, Twilight thought. It’s close enough, anyway. “We request permission to approach the depot, and I personally ask to speak to Commodore Iirrka, once we are in convenient communications range. Please have the defense systems online, but please do not fire.” The aliens eyes darted over to Fluttershy and Twilight. “I am not certain whether this ship is hostile or not, and I prefer not to have the depot threatened.” He paused. “Will you send that?”

Twilight nodded. “Of course.” She closed the recording, packaged the whole thing, and sent it to Chatterbox, who sent it winging out to the waiting depot. “It’s been sent, though I cut it off at ‘I’d prefer not to have the depot threatened.’” She smiled gently. “I didn’t think they needed to hear you ask us to send it.”

Zziir blinked. “You’re not upset?”

“Not at all,” Fluttershy told him. “You didn’t ask them to fire at us, just to be ready. I can understand that, and having someone who’s not going to fire first is all I asked for.” She smiled. “Besides, if you have family over there, I can completely understand why you’d want to keep them safe.”

The alien blinked again. “I… thank you, for understanding.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Twilight replied. “Thank you for helping us.”

Dauntless crept closer, keeping their acceleration low so as not to seem like they were making an attack run. They were going only a little bit faster than the sluggish transport ships that swarmed around the huge depot, and Twilight approved of Silver Stars’ decision to keep it that way. They received a terse reply partway there, telling them that the depot’s commanders would be available once the Equestrian ship closed to communications range.

It took quite some time; the depot was well inside the system, a good distance from the Jump limit. On one hoof, Twilight was glad for that; it gave the depot commander time to evaluate their approach and prepare himself. On the other, though, she chafed at having to take so long before returning home. The rumors Zziir had heard, and the revelation of how powerful the force they faced was, had kindled a cold fear in the unicorn’s heart.

Dauntless drew to a relative stop about two light-seconds from the depot. It was close enough that the communications delay would be fairly short, but far enough that they would be difficult to hit. It was honestly close enough that Silver Stars was a little worried; if the depot opened fire, they would be in range of its missiles for long enough to potentially take serious damage before they were able to claw their way back out of range. It didn’t fire, though, just sat there, vast and still. The freighters had mostly moved to the other side of the station, keeping its bulk between them and the Dauntless.

Twilight waved Zziir over. “We’re close enough. Are you ready to talk to them?”

Zziir’s ears flicked an affirmative, and Twilight turned to Chatterbox. “Open up a channel, analog radio signal, please.” She didn’t want to take any chances of an improperly coded signal being misinterpreted. She nodded to Zziir.

The alien cleared his throat. “Cousin Iirka? Are you there?”

There was a pause of almost four seconds, one of the annoying things about dealing with a lightspeed lag. “I am here, Cousin Zziir.” Like Zziir, the other alien used a remarkably precise one-word term that described their exact degree of relation, but the translator rendered it simply as “cousin.” “This is something of a surprise. I have never even seen a ship like that; how did you come to be on it?”

Zziir darted a look at Twilight, clearly having discerned that she was the pony in charge. “May I tell him?”

“Please do. I won’t stop you.”

Zziir quickly related the events that had led to him being captured by Twilight and Rainbow, including what he knew about Fifth Fleet’s activities. He briefly described the short interrogation, and the requests that the ponies had made of him. He finished with, “… and now they’re looking to contact the Council, but they’re afraid of going anywhere with a fleet presence. Cousin… have you heard anything about this? You’re fairly high up on the chain of command, I’m sure you’ve heard of the species that shot down our first-contact party.”

There was a very long pause, longer than the lag called for. Finally, the response came. “Zziir… is this anything like what happened with your aunt Maalkara?”

Twilight almost held her breath. This was exactly what Zziir had cautioned them about, that he’d be able to pass a message they couldn’t understand. She waited anxiously for his reply, wondering if they would have to fight their way clear.

“No, Cousin, nothing like that.” Zziir trilled. “I’m not under any duress, and they haven’t threatened me at all. I’m not sure how much I believe, but I think they genuinely do want to speak to us; they seem desperate to do so.” Twilight relaxed imperceptibly. He believed them. She’d been afraid that he’d betray them, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

There was another long pause. “Cousin… this seems unbelievable. No, I haven’t heard a word of any species attacking a first-contact team, but the Council has supposedly been in closed session for months now, debating something. Could these creatures have something to do with that?”

“I don’t know. They say that their only encounter with the Council was an infiltrator cruiser that opened fire on one of their system patrols.”

“I’ve heard nothing about that, though it’s likely I wouldn’t. The infiltrators keep to themselves.” There was a brief pause. “You there, who Zziir is speaking for. What exactly do you want? Why are you here?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “We only want to talk to your people, and we want to find a way to stop what feels like a war we didn’t start. If you could send a message to your government, asking them on our behalf to meet with us, that’s all we ask.” She glanced at the alien. “And if you could give us some supplies for, er, Zir?” Twilight just couldn’t make her throat produce the right noise for the alien’s name. “I know I’m mispronouncing his name, but we aren’t sure we have the right supplies for him. Could you send some over?”

“Why don’t you send him back to us?” The voice on the other end asked.

It was a fair question. She opened her mouth to speak, but Zziir beat her to the punch. “I’ll volunteer to stay, Cousin. These folk have no reason to trust us, and I’d like to stay with them as a gesture of good faith. They’ve treated me very well, and I’m not afraid of staying here for now.”

Twilight frowned in surprise, but Fluttershy smiled gently. “Thank you, Zziir. I appreciate all you’re doing for us.”

The depot’s response brought them all up short. “Wait… Fifth Fleet is your station, right, Zziir? They emptied out their headquarters depot a few days back. It’s likely they’re engaged in something major right now… and there are rumors that the new Admiral is involved with the Interventionists.”

Zziir made a choking sound. “The Interventionists? That doesn’t exist! Wasn’t that just the excuse the Council used a few decades back to do a major reorganization on the infiltrator branch?”

“What are the Interventionists?” Fluttershy asked.

“They’re fiction,” Zziir said in an undertone. “Some faction of the Council that supposedly wanted to wipe out more primitive species because they didn’t want too many members on the Senior Council. No one’s that evil.”

“We’re sending a shuttle with food supplies,” the depot replied, ignoring the aside, “and we’ve already sent a message to the outsystem courier to head to Baltor immediately with your message. It may be several days before they put together a response, though. You may want to head back to your home system; I’m a little worried about Fifth Fleet’s behavior, considering what you’ve told me.”

Fluttershy and Twilight shared a worried look. “Thank you, Commodore Iirka, we’ll do that,” the pegasus replied. “How worried do you think we should be?”

The response was grim. “In your place… I’d be worried. Very worried. The message I sent to the courier had every ‘urgent’ tag I could put on it, but the Council doesn’t react very quickly. Hopefully, the Interventionists won’t intervene before the government does.”

The two ponies shared another concerned look. “Thank you,” Twilight said, before closing the channel. She turned to Silver Stars. “Captain, get those supplies loaded as fast as you can, and then make full speed for the Jump limit. I want to be home as soon as possible.”

“Aye-aye, ma’am,” Silver Stars replied crisply. Twilight could see concern lurking beneath the other mare’s professional exterior. She only hoped their worry was unfounded.

Dauntless arrived in her home system a matter of hours later, reappearing in the system where she’d started.

“Receiving a transmission for you, ma’am.” Chatterbox said, almost the instant the Jump shock cleared away from the bridge crew’s minds.

“What?” That couldn’t be possible. Dauntless had just entered the system. It would take close to half an hour for the light from their entry to reach the homeworld, and another half-hour for any reply to reach them.

Unfortunately, reality didn’t seem to care whether that wasn’t possible. “There’s a transmission from home, ma’am. Addressed to you, origin point is direct from Princess Celestia.”

Twilight’s brow furrowed. How could the Princess have known she was coming? She felt an ominous chill pervading her body. “Is it marked private?”

“No, ma’am.” The unicorn stallion’s voice was worried. “It is marked urgent, though.”

“Put it on the main speakers.”

“My ever-faithful student,” Celestia’s voice began. The winged unicorn’s voice sounded... weary. Almost exhausted. Twilight felt a spike of anxiety drive into her belly. “I can only hope you receive this in time. We are under attack, Twilight Sparkle, and the situation is dire.”

Attack?! “Oculus, get me a look at the homeworld, now!” Twilight snapped.

Celestia’s voice continued. “We don’t know who they are. They appeared only a few hours ago and attacked without warning, and without mercy. Luna and I are keeping the shield raised, and all of Equestria is working to help us, but I fear that before long it will prove to be too much.”

“The shipyard’s gone, ma’am.” Oculus spoke over Celestia’s message, the unicorn’s voice hushed, as though she didn’t want to speak. It sounded as loud as a scream against the utter stillness of the rest of the bridge crew. “There’s a significant debris ring in orbit, and I’m seeing constant explosions against the planetary shields. I’m not reading any message traffic from anywhere in the system, apart from the homeworld. The cutters, the miners, the construction ships and surveyors, the science stations and habitats... all of it’s gone. All I can find is debris.”

“No...” Twilight whispered. The Council fleet. It had to be. She felt like she’d been struck; it was too much, far too much to take in like this. Had Zziir lied? Had the Council been planning this attack all along? Had they told her to come back here, so they could wipe out Equestria completely? There were so many dead already, shattered to dust and floating in the cold of space...

Celestia, of course, couldn’t hear her. “They are bombarding us constantly. Even a single weapon getting through the shield will have apocalyptic results. We cannot hold, my student. There are far too many for you to fight; you must run. Take your ship, and all the ponies aboard it, and flee. Try to rebuild Equestria somewhere far from here, for this world is lost. We will delay them as long as possible, draw out our deaths to keep their attention here, and we will bleed them as much as we are able. Hopefully they will not be able to follow.”

Celestia’s voice softened. “I have loved you like a daughter, Twilight Sparkle. Please, listen to me as you would your mother; do not attempt to relieve us. You would only die. Save yourselves. Save something. Run.”

“The message is looped, ma’am,” Chatterbox’s voice sounded like thunder in the dead silence of the bridge. “Set to constant broadcast, looks like.”

“I’ve found three formations of Council ships,” Oculus said quietly. “There may be more that I can’t see. Each one is more than eight hundred strong. They’re staying out of powered missile range, sending their own rounds in ballistic. They’re looping around, accelerating to send them in at high enough speed that the defenses can’t stop them all.”

No, they wouldn’t be able to. The defensive systems, augmented by the phenomenal telekinetic power of the Celestial Sisters, could only destroy what they could see. Missiles coming in that fast would be nearly impossible to spot in time, before they smashed into the shield with the cataclysmic force bestowed by their velocity. She wondered in a moment of blinding irrelevance how the Council fleet could carry that many missiles, but it didn’t matter. Her home was dying, right in front of her, and there was nothing she could do. Nothing. Her mouth tasted like ashes.

Twilight’s head came up abruptly. There was nothing she could do, not alone, but the lesson, the one lesson that Celestia had taught her in a myriad of different forms, was that friendship could conquer, when one pony alone would fail. And Dauntless had friends, regardless of the Council’s true position.

“Charge the Gate drive, as fast as possible,” Twilight snapped. “Set our destination as the Tazaft base.”

Silver Stars’ eyes snapped around to meet her Commander’s, sudden determination glowing like fire in their depths as she realized what Twilight intended. “Yes, ma’am!” the captain barked, and the bridge crew exploded into frantic action.

“Chatterbox, prepare to send a transmission.” Twilight didn’t pause to hear the stallion’s acknowledgment. She activated the bridge network, setting it to record her voice. “Dear Princess Celestia,” she said, consciously imitating the letters she’d sent as a student, all those long years ago, “Today I’ve learned that friendship can bring a glimmer of light, even when the world seems darkest, and can give you hope when all seems lost. You’re going to learn it, too.” Her voice turned hard. “Don’t you dare give up, Princess. I’m jumping out... but I’ll be back with friends. I will be back, do you hear me? Hold on, Princess. Just hold on, keep Equestria alive long enough for us to get the reinforcements you need, and we will be back!” She ended the recording, and sent it to Chatterbox. “Send that back to the homeworld.”

“Yes, ma’am!” The stallion said with a grin. “Sent. That’ll light a fire under their tails!”

“I hope so,” Twilight said grimly. “I don’t know how long it will take to bring Uhlsie’s fleet back with us, and I need them to hold out until then.”

The jubilant mood faded as the engines charged, and everypony was forced to helplessly watch the speckles of light blooming against the planetary shield as the Council bombardment continued unabated, thundering against the helpless gem of the world. Twilight felt sick to her stomach, knowing that even one of those missiles slipping past would cause untold havoc, murder huge numbers of ponies. Maybe even ponies she knew, friends she’d left at home. Or perhaps it would hit zebra lands, or kill buffalos or griffons. All those options were unacceptable, all were murder.

Some of her friends had been on the shipyard, she realized, the memory of their faces stabbing like icy knives in her heart. She’d known ponies out on the orbital habitats, the science stations. All of them were almost certainly dead, and she felt a cold anger building in her heart at these monsters, these beasts who would murder so many for no reason.

Finally, the engines cleared, and Dauntless jumped, bound for the distant glimmer of the star that housed the Tazaft forward base.

The Tazaft recognized them immediately, and they were allowed through the patrols around the base without fuss. Tazaft ships swarmed around space near the surprisingly orderly construct of their staging base, thousands strong. Most were warships, but others were tenders, cargo ships, repair vessels... ships of a dozen different roles that were necessary to make a deep-space naval installation function.

Twilight contacted the Tazaft military command the instant the transmission delay was short enough to make it practical, and was routed to Eklsee without even having to ask twice.

“Thlaaht Shkarku! It is a pleasure to see you again,” the alien greeted her, the spines on her head moving slowly. “It seems that the Council forces have partially withdrawn from this region of space; I was gathering my fleet for a strike on their headquarters before they could return. Perhaps you would be willing to join us?”

“They haven’t withdrawn,” Twilight explained hastily, “They’ve massed to attack my homeworld. They have hundreds of ships, thousands. I need your help, Uhlsie, I need it desperately.”

The Tazaft was silent for a long moment. “Are they all in one force? All attacking your homeworld in one group?”

Twilight blinked at the question. She shook her head slowly. “No... they’re in smaller fleets, about eight hundred strong each.”

Eklsee’s lips peeled back from her teeth, surprisingly far, baring blunt incisors flanked by an astonishing set of tusks that Twilight hadn’t even suspected that the alien possessed. “Excellent. Concentrated we could never have beat them, but dispersed like that? We have a chance. We can bleed them.” The Tazaft tapped keys that Twilight couldn’t see, looking away from the video pickup. “Your world will require us three jumps to reach; my ships can manage two without recharging, so I will need to bring my tenders along. I will leave them in the system before yours, to make sure I have a line of retreat, should things go badly.”

“Uhlsie...” Twilight’s stomach was churning with worry and fear, tension coiling so tightly around her body that she feared she would break, like an overwound spring. “Uhlsie, we can’t withdraw. They’re bombarding my home. I can’t leave. I can’t abandon them.”

Quills rattled. “And I cannot sacrifice my fleet if things are hopeless. Fear not, Thlaaht Shkarku, I do not intend to flee unless victory is impossible to attain, and I have plans. You have accurate survey charts of your home system, yes?”

Twilight nodded, furrowing her brow. “Yes, I’ll send them along. Why?”

“From what I have seen, your ship cares not for gravity. Ours are different; they can only jump to where space is... flat. That is the best I can describe it, with this translator. Ordinarily, we jump in directly above or below a star, but that will put us far from your world, and give the enemy time to concentrate into a force we could not defeat.”

Twilight tilted her head, wanting to get this conversation over as quickly as possible so she could go help her world. “We’ll send the charts, one moment...”

“We need them with precise locations and masses of the planets and the star,” Eklsee said hurriedly. “Your world has a moon, yes?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Good. Good. We will jump to one of the flat places created by the world and the moon and the star. It is difficult to calculate, but with the kind of charts I’m sure your people could build, we can do it.” The alien flashed those tusks again. “We can give you the exact time we will do so. If we do, do you think you can lure the enemy past that location at that time? If they are already close enough that we can strike them with lightspeed weapons, we could finish that group off quickly and with few losses, leaving fewer of the enemy to crush.”

“Yes, I believe we can do that.” Twilight paused, thinking hard.. “Uhlsie, can you jump outside the orbit of the moon? I doubt we would be able to lure them that close to the planet; the defenses would destroy them if they came that far in.”

The alien made a noise in her throat, her fingers stirring. “You are sure of that?”

“Yes, very.” Coming so close would allow the Princesses to grab the ships. While they weren’t quite as powerful as their movement of the moon and adjustment of the planetary rotation suggested, (both the planet and its moon were extremely magically active, and responded very easily to a sufficiently powerful touch) they were more than strong enough to crush and rend starships by the dozen, especially when their strength was boosted by the defense systems’ resonator matrices. With the strength Twilight knew her teacher possessed, any detachments sent close to the world the Sisters watched over would have regretted the mistake. Briefly. They could also sweep the moon around in its orbit, though doing so would disrupt the tides badly. In fact, they’d probably already been doing it, hence why the Council fleet had broken up to attack from multiple angles. Twilight made a note to make sure to tell the Princesses to put the moon where her charts indicated it should be.

Eklsee made a rumbling noise in the back of her throat. “We can do the jump you describe. It will lend additional risk to an already risky attempt, but I am willing to take that risk. Send me the charts, Shkarku, and I will give you the time we will arrive.”

Twilight felt an overwhelming surge of relief rush through her. She wasn’t alone. The Tazaft, and their thousands of ships, would be there to help. Maybe they could do this, after all. Maybe her world could live. They still had a heck of a fight on their hooves... but she wasn’t alone.

She quickly assembled the information Eklsee needed, sending it to her station even as Dauntless reversed her course and began to boost back outsystem for jump. She received back a message of thanks, containing the precise timestamp, helpfully translated into the Equestrian system, that the fleet would arrive, as well as the location. “I hope we can do this, Thlaaht Shkarku,” Eklsee said on the screen. “If we can defeat this fleet, perhaps it will be enough to end our war. Even if it does not, I consider it worth the price to defend my ally.”

“Thank you, Uhlsie.” Twilight sent back. “Thank you.”

“I will see you on the battlefield. Go with courage.”

Dauntless reached the Jump limit, and the Gate drive engaged with a surge of power, flinging it once more back to its place of origin.

There was no time for speeches. Twilight wanted to give one, wanted to tell the crew how important this was, but they already knew. Thoughts had flown around the network, spreading news of what they were doing to everypony aboard, and everypony knew what they faced. Everypony knew they would likely die… but they would die saving their world. Twilight was content knowing that she would fall that way, and she knew her crew felt the same.

The transmission was sent the moment Dauntless re-entered the system, letting Equestria know they were coming and what their plans were. Celestia sounded exhausted when she acknowledged Twilight’s message, after the long delay. She also sounded unhappy about her student’s return, but Twilight heard the tiniest ghost of hope in her mentor’s voice. The moon moved to where it should be, but slower than she knew the Princesses could move it. They were barely in time; Celestia was reaching the end of her endurance, and Luna must be, too. Still, that glimmer of hope in the Princess’s weary voice filled Twilight with determination; she would not fail.

The Council force was already turning as Dauntless charged toward them, alone against eight hundred foes. Her shields slammed into place, managed by every engineer who could be spared from other duties, and missiles spat in pitiful clusters from her launchers.

:I’ve only got a few minutes’ worth of ordnance: Wingblade’s thought pulsed to the network.

:Don’t hold back too much. We need their attention: Twilight sent back. She could feel the tension, the determination in the net, colored brown and red and tasting of glowing embers.

The missiles were effective all out of proportion with their relatively tiny numbers. The two engagements Dauntless had been in had given Oculus and Wingblade a vast amount of information on Council electronic warfare and point defense capabilities, and they’d modified their doctrine and their systems to account for it. The Council ships would shift their own systems on the fly, as would Twilight’s officers, but this time Dauntless was starting out ahead of the game.

The sensors told a grim story. Even as Council ships detonated in diamond-hard blinks of light, torn asunder by Equestrian missiles that slipped like thieves through even their massed point-defense, contemptuously ignoring the Council fleet’s attempts to jam, Oculus was tallying the foe’s numbers.

Three task forces besides this one were flinging their hate at the helpless world, striving to murder those that had done nothing to them. Four sub-fleets in total, more than three thousand enemy ships. The Tazaft forces that were coming would only outnumber them four to three.

Still, they were separated. If they could fall on the enemy one force at a time, defeat them in detail, they could still do this. They could. Twilight had to believe that, for the alternative was unthinkable.

The first enemy salvo roared in, a concentrated deluge of death all directed at the lonely figure of the Equestrian exploratory cruiser. Twilight could feel the gunners’ minds straining as they fought to direct their defenses, and she felt Night Breeze’s frantic attempts to twist the ship out of the path of the oncoming ordnance. Warheads detonated against Dauntless’s shields, but the mighty barrier held, at least for the moment. Twilight could feel the ozone tang of system overloads throughout the ship as parts of the shield absorbed too much energy, and the engineers fought to stabilize them.

A second colossal salvo streaked in. Again the shields held, again they defended the ship from the Council’s rage, but Twilight could feel them weakening. The load was immense, though, and the systems were starting to fail under the strain. There was no way the exploration cruiser could stand up to this many foes; all they could do was sting and run.

Dauntless pulled out of the enemy’s range, her engines straining as she fought for distance. :Excellent work, everypony: Twilight pulsed, feeling the iron tang of relief from Wingblade and Peppermint Punch as they shifted their attention from the monstrous strain of managing the point defense to focus on the launchers. :That’s phase one. Phase two is ready?:

:Yes: Came the thought from Monkeywrench down in Engineering. The mare was terse in the network, eschewing extraneous thoughts, saving her energy for her work. She was ready, though, Twilight could feel it.

The lavender mare allowed herself a brief moment of satisfaction. Things were going well, and on schedule. The other Council forces were continuing their bombardment of the planet, evidently trusting this force to handle her lone ship.

Perfect.

Dauntless staggered suddenly, light and heat flaring from her engine pods in an abrupt flash, so intense it was almost an explosion. Her acceleration dropped precipitously, falling far below her maximum, dropping low enough that the pursuing ships would be able to bring her back into range within minutes. Scenting blood, the Council fleet pushed their own acceleration up to the maximum they could sustain, eager to close and kill the ship that had slain so many of their compatriots.

The Council ships closed quickly.

Nothing appeared.

:Where are they?!: Twilight pulsed, panic suddenly clawing at her thoughts and oozing outward, mixing with the fear she suddenly felt from the rest of the crew. :That was the timestamp! Where are they?!:

Monkeywrench fought to push Dauntless back to full speed, clawing to reverse the sudden slowdown she’d done to focus the enemy on the cruiser and drag them out of the Council fleet’s reach. The engines protested, the chaotic energy deliberately introduced to create that light cascade preventing them from functioning smoothly.

The Council ships closed like hungry wolves, scenting injured prey. They would be in range in moments.

:Energy spike!: Came the thought from Oculus. Twilight felt relief surge through her at the message. :Here they come!:

Tazaft ships exploded out of the void, thousands of them, heralded by violent pulses of energy that utterly blinded the Council ships. The Council fleet staggered, surprised and disoriented, their sensors overloaded, unable to see their attackers and not expecting the sudden, overwhelming assault. The Tazaft ships were already within beam range, Twilight and Silver Stars having lured the Council force perfectly into ambush position, and the swarm of ships poured around them, enveloping the blinded task force and tearing at them with shocking savagery. Beams stabbed and flashed, and Council warships came apart in a vast scintillation of energy and debris, spattering across the sky as the Council force died.

:Beautiful: thought Wingblade, :Beautiful: The raw passion in the young mare’s mind would have brought tears to Twilight’s eyes, if she’d been wholly in her own body.

“Brilliantly executed, Shkarku,” Eklsee’s voice spoke in radio waves through the void. To the ponies in the network, it seemed achingly slow, taking what felt like hours to convey the simple message. “That could not have gone better.”

:You could have been more on-time: Wingblade thought sourly over the bridge network.

:It was only about half a minute: Twilight thought reprovingly, while composing her return message. “One down, three to go,” her voice said, slowed to a speed that Eklsee would be able to understand.

Even as she sent it, though, she was looking at the sensor returns with a chill. Two of the Council sub-fleets had linked up while she led the first to its doom. The third had already altered its course, and the slow Tazaft ships would never be able to reach it before the whole fleet merged once more. Dauntless would not be able to lure the separated force away, not with the Tazaft fleet already in the system. Panic again surged, met by the sick fear radiating from the entire bridge crew. Even Wingblade was emanating a slow, deathly terror as the situation registered.

“They are no longer separated, Thlaaht Shkarku.” Eklsee said, evidently noticing what the Equestrians had already seen. This closely tied to the translator, Twilight could hear the tightness in the alien’s voice, the wish to deny what she saw. “We are only twice their number. I cannot engage them now, not unified as they are and without surprise. They would crush us.”

“But we can’t leave now!” Twilight cried over the comm system, her voice crawling like a glacier while her mind and thoughts raced. “We can’t! If we leave, my world dies! Every pony in Equestria will die, every griffon, every zebra... every thinking being! They will all die if we abandon them! Please, Uhlsie, please! I can’t do this alone! We can’t let the Council murder them! Please, help me!”

Twilight felt sick as the reply to her plea came lumbering in. “Would that I could, Thlaaht Shkarku. But this fleet is two-thirds of the ships the Tazaft possess; I cannot lose them here, fruitlessly, and leave my people helpless. I am deeply, truly sorry, but I must withdraw.” Twilight started composing a retort, but Eklsee wasn’t done. “Come with me. With the charts you gave us, we could return in a day or so, when I have had time to gather my transport ships. We could decoy them away from your world again, you and I, lead them to the edge of the system while my transports evacuate as many of your people as possible. We cannot win here, but perhaps we can save some of your people!”

Twilight understood. These weren’t Eklsee’s people, and their friendship wasn’t close enough for the alien to seek annihilation to affirm it, but she was willing to come back, to try a different approach. Twilight couldn’t leave, though. She knew something Eklsee couldn’t; the Princesses would never last another day. Without the Sisters, the shield would not hold, and when the shield fell, the Council would murder her home. Just as Eklsee couldn’t stay, Twilight couldn’t leave. “I can’t go with you,” Twilight’s response whispered out. She knew this was wrong, knew she should leave as Celestia had asked… but she couldn’t. “I understand why you have to go, but I’m staying. The defenses won’t hold for that long, unless something keeps the Council from focusing on them. We will try to decoy the fleet away from the homeworld for as long as we can; if you still feel any sense of friendship toward me or my people, please, gather your transports and try to return. Maybe I can lead them away for long enough.”

Eklsee’s quills clattered as she replied. “Your courage humbles me, Thlaaht Shkarku. I will do what I can, but I fear that there will be nothing to return to.”

“I would welcome whatever you can do.” Twilight was surprised that she didn’t even feel bitter. Sad, yes. Hopeless, yes. But she could understand the alien’s decision.

“Die well, Thlaaht Shkarku. I will try to write a song for you.” The Tazaft ships reversed their acceleration, headed back to their emergence point, and minutes later, Equestria’s last hope vanished as suddenly as they’d come, leaving Twilight and her bridge crew feeling hollow, watching the vast Council fleet bearing down upon them.

:Signal from the Princess: Chatterbox interjected.

Twilight tied her thoughts into the communication system. :My faithful student, that was brilliantly done. A quarter of the Interlopers, gone. Can you do it again?:

The unicorn’s heart felt like a lump of lead as she responded. :No, Princess. I’m sorry, but our allies can’t fight a force this large. We’d hoped to catch them while they were scattered, but....: Twilight couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t bear to tell her mentor that this was the end. She no longer believed what she’d heard at the depot, no longer believed that the alien they’d taken captive had been telling the truth. If he had been, there was no way this could have happened.

There was a pause. :I see. Still, you have bought us time. Now run, my student. Take your ship and go. Don’t think about what is happening behind you, and do not look back:

:I’m sorry, Princess. I can’t. There’s a chance that we can distract them long enough for our allies to come back with transports, to save at least some of you. We’re going to try.:

The Princess’s return thought was shot with anguish, desperate. :Twilight, no! Please! Don’t throw your lives away like this! Please, please, run while you can!: Twilight had never felt that kind of raw pain in her mentor’s thoughts before. It was agonizing to experience.

Twilight cut the connection, severing her contact with her beloved teacher. She hoped the Princess would be able to forgive her. :Are the rest of you okay with doing this?: she sent to the bridge crew through the link.

The others pulsed a brief thought to Silver Stars, unanimously allowing the captain to speak for all of them. :Yes. We’re Wardens. This is what we do.: There was a tinge of pride to the thought, pride mixed with sadness, a steely current of determination lying underneath it.

:All right then. Let’s go.:

Dauntless’s pitifully small number of missiles didn’t even last all the way through the first pass. The Council’s return fire smashed through both point defense and shields in a hurricane of flame, gouging savagely at the cruiser’s armor. There were no more freak failures like the first warhead the ship had taken, but Dauntless was brutally battered nonetheless. Twilight’s mind wanted to cringe away, knowing that the breaches in the ship’s hull had killed several of the crew, smashed them to pieces or burned them to ash, but she couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t afford to feel the pain.

The cruiser pulled out in front of the enemy fleet, fleeing for the edge of the system. The Council ships followed doggedly, probably hoping to kill her before she could vanish again. A pointless fear; the damage from the exchange had destroyed the Gate drive. It would take weeks in a shipyard that no longer existed to fix it.

Dauntless would not be leaving the system.

Again and again, she slowed, allowing her pursuers a single salvo each time, to keep them from breaking off, her crew knowing that every second that they endured the brutal battering bought their homes and loved ones a few more seconds of life. They were determined to draw it out, to make their deaths purchase as much time as they could, praying that they would last long enough for Eklsee to gather a rescue force and knowing that they wouldn’t. Missiles gouged and smashed Dauntless’s armored hull, opening more and more rents, blasting more and more of her crewmares into meat and ash. Twilight felt Peppermint Punch die during the third attack, her mind shrieking as it overloaded with the strain of constant linkage. Wingblade clung determinedly, absorbing the shock of the unicorn’s death and fighting on alone. Twilight threw herself into the weapons’ officer’s link, doing what she could to keep them alive for a few more seconds. Just a few more.

After the fifth attack, Twilight felt another mind join the bridge crew, edging in to replace Peppermint. :Hey, Twi.:

:Rainbow Dash?: She asked the question, even though she already knew.

:Yeah. Helping out where I can. Rares is down in Engineering, trying to keep the shields from collapsing completely. A.J.’s helping run damage control, Fluttershy’s down in the medbay, and Pinkie’s trying to record what she can. You know, so just in case someone pulls it out of the wreck, they’ll know what happened: There was a pause. :Heh. Thought you guys would all outlive me. This kinda sucks:

:It really does.:

Then the sixth salvo was upon them, and there was no time for anything else. Rainbow threw herself into the fire control network; she wasn’t as experienced as Wingblade, but she

knew the basics, and she had the same enormous mental resilience that Twilight and Rarity had.

Dauntless staggered outward, pulling out of her pursuers range one more time. She was a broken, air-bleeding wreck, half her crew dead, and Twilight knew that if they took further damage, they wouldn’t be able to pull out of range again. The engines were failing anyway; in a few minutes their acceleration would drop, and the Council would catch her for the last time. Oculus, freed for the moment from the task of pinpointing enemy missiles, spotted something new. :More contacts: her exhausted mental voice slurred. :Directly ahead:

More Council ships, Twilight saw. She no longer felt afraid, no longer felt sick, didn’t even feel a chill, she just felt numb at the news. More of them, come to murder her and her home. The Council must have sent more, must have felt that Fifth Fleet wasn’t enough. These must be reinforcements, just arrived, dropping out of FTL. There were more than five thousand, a massive force, dwarfing the one that pursued them and bearing down as fast as the one behind was pursuing. The contacts lit the sensor display ahead with a sea of red icons. :How many ships do they need to kill us?: She thought bitterly. Nopony replied. Twilight noted that one group, about seven hundred ships, was pushing out ahead of the main fleet, driving at accelerations that rode the edge of what she knew would burn out a Council drive. They risked losing their engines, stranding them here until extensive repairs could be done, which struck Twilight as strange. How odd, she thought, realizing that there were actually several different types of ship in the oncoming fleet, when she’d only seen one type in Council forces before. It doesn’t matter, she thought privately, the knowledge of her failure settling like a lead weight in her stomach. This is it.

:There’s... a lot of comm traffic going back and forth from that new force: Chatterbox noted a moment later. :A lot. There’s... Commander! Listen!:

Twilight tied herself into the comm system again. The oncoming fleet was broadcasting a message, a broad-band analog radio signal in several different languages... including Equestrian.

“This is High Admiral Turthak, commander in chief of the Baltornic Council Enforcement Division. I am here with elements of the Third and Ninth Enforcement Fleets, and components of Kruusch and Terran Planetary Defense Fleets. Fifth Enforcement Fleet is hereby directed to surrender and stand down immediately, and Admiral Peters is to be placed under arrest, pending charges including misrepresenting the orders of a superior, illegal employment of force, mutiny, treason, attempted xenocide, and multiple counts of murder. Again, Fifth Fleet is directed to stand down. All crews are to be taken into custody and returned to Baltor. Any ships that refuse to do so will be considered to be in rebellion against the Council, and will be fired upon.” The translated voice was toneless, flat, but listening to some of the audio in the other languages, Twilight thought she could hear a cold rage in the alien’s words.

Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This Council force... was here to stop the other? Why? Even if the depot commander had been telling the truth, he’d said it would take days for any reply to come. Still, she felt a cautious stir of hope, a tiny glimmer in the darkness, that perhaps all was not lost.

Her thoughts were interrupted by another message, this one a tight-beam radio transmission from the sub-fleet that was maintaining such dangerous acceleration. It was in one of the Council languages, fortunately one of the ones that they had gotten from the Tazaft. Twilight activated the translator daemons, feeding them the necessary information, and allowed them into her mind. “Equestrian vessel! This is Admiral Glenmore, Terran Defense Fleet, aboard the Everest! I’m sending this message directly from my flagship; please, set your heading toward me! If you can reach us, my ships will shield you! We are friendly, repeat, we are friendly!”

As she watched, two of the ships in the fleet shuddered wildly, their engines blowing out under the strain of their acceleration. She was suspicious, but what option did she have? Even if she altered their course immediately, the two fleets would close on Dauntless like the jaws of a vice. Still, she didn’t quite believe it, though the word ‘friendly’ resonated in her heart. “Why should I believe you?” She sent back, wondering wearily what kind of response she’d receive.

“You don’t have any reason to.” Admiral Glenmore replied. “That bastard Peters... I don’t blame you for not trusting me.” The oncoming force that was the source of the transmission altered their course slightly; Dauntless would fly through the center of their formation if they maintained it. “You have every right to hate us. I can only offer my promise and my word; if you fire on us, we will not reply. We are friends, even if you don’t believe it. Furthermore, we will engage any of Fifth Fleet’s ships that fire on you, and if you can reach us, we will surround you so they can’t fire on you without firing on us, too. We’re trying our damndest to get to you, but you need to alter your course to let us reach you before Fifth Fleet does!”

The ships that were evidently Admiral Glenmore’s command abruptly flipped, accelerating back as hard as before. If Dauntless continued to limp on in her current course, the seven hundred ships in front of her would perfectly match her speed as she reached them. Even as Twilight watched, five more of the oncoming ships shuddered and stopped accelerating, coasting into the system on inertia as their drives burned out. Friends… Twilight had told Celestia that Dauntless had friends… perhaps they had more than they’d realized? Oh, she wanted to believe it, but she wasn’t sure she could afford to.

Behind them, the Council pursuit force was behaving erratically. Many of the ships had ceased acceleration entirely, while others still drove toward Dauntless. Had all this, all this death, all these fights, all been... what? Some hideous crime? How could anyone do that? How could it have gone unnoticed up until now?

“Cease acceleration and stand down, Fifth Fleet. This is your final warning.” The voice of High Admiral Turthak came, again being broadcast in multiple languages, as though it wanted Dauntless to hear. “We have scanned this system. We know what has been done here, and we know that the Equestrians were not aggressors and never have been. Admiral Peters’ crimes are horrific in scope, anathema to any civilized being, and any ship failing to comply with my orders will be treated as attempting to continue those crimes and met with overwhelming force. Do not fire on the Equestrian vessel. Under any circumstances. Disobey this order and you will die, my oath on it.” Most of the pursuing ships had fallen out of formation, and only a hooffull were still following. It was still enough to kill them, though; Dauntless’s defenses were essentially gone.

Twilight’s crew was on the ragged edge. Only Peppermint Punch had fallen out of the link, but several of the others were right on the verge. The next salvo would probably kill them anyway. Only Twilight and Rainbow were in any state to continue, and they couldn’t fight the ship alone. The next pony to die in the link would probably take everyone else with her. The unicorn made a snap decision. “We’ll trust you,” she sent back to Admiral Glenmore. “We’re dying, and we can’t hurt you anyway. If you betray us, I’ll never know it.” Wearily, Twilight altered Dauntless’s course toward the oncoming force, and ordered everypony out of the link.

The world rushed back, and pain filled her head. It was several seconds before her eyes worked, and a horrible, iron smell filled her nostrils. She thought it was another side-effect of the prolonged, stressful link, until she looked around. Peppermint Punch’s body lay where Rainbow had tossed it aside in order to use her station, blood and tissue leaking from her ears and nose, her mouth open with a look of agony frozen on her face. Twilight shuddered. The bridge crew collapsed around her, some still moving, some unconscious. She hoped they were unconscious, at least; they could well have died during the disconnect. Dump-shock like that could easily be fatal. Only Twilight and Rainbow remained upright and functional.

She looked up at the flickering image of the main plot, as the broken, bleeding wreck of her ship staggered into the teeth of the oncoming formation. She watched... and they didn’t fire. The ships moved in around her, their formation closing to surround the shattered cruiser, sheltering her from their own people.

A voice whispered from the bridge speakers in an alien language. Belatedly, Twilight activated the translator, since Chatterbox was lying limp at his station. “Thank you,” Admiral Glenmore’s voice said softly. “I promise, I swear, you will not regret trusting me. Thank you for giving me the chance to redeem us.” There was a pause. “Some of your pursuers are still coming. Let me show you that we’re not all like them.”

Missile traces bloomed, some heading toward Dauntless and her new escort… and others headed outward, as the Council force around them opened fire on the pursuers. Council missiles streaked out, as fast as the escorting fleet could fire, and when the incoming salvo sought to end Dauntless, it was Council defenses that warded it off. The explosions that lit the void didn’t blot Dauntless away, they eradicated the few ships still trying to murder her.

Twilight felt a stillness fall over her, as the last of her actual enemies died. The rest of her pursuers had stopped, coasting along without adjusting their course, as the newcomer force decelerated to meet them. The vast Council fleet moved into proximity with the ships that had attacked Equestria, some docking while others stood off, their targeting systems staying threateningly active while they watched their companions.

The seven hundred ships that had shielded Dauntless didn’t join their cohorts. They stayed clustered around the broken cruiser, swarming like minnows around a wounded shark. The tight-beam transmission from Admiral Glenmore activated again, and Twilight heard a heavy, relieved sigh from the alien at the other end. “It’s over. Fifth Fleet has been arrested, and they won’t attack you again. Do you need assistance, Equestrian vessel? The Terran Defense Fleet stands ready to lend you any aid we can offer.”

It was too much. Twilight swallowed hard, but the emotional whiplash of the past several hours were just too much for her to handle. It started with a single sob, but it quickly built until the unicorn was weeping uncontrollably, tears pouring from her eyes. Tears of loss, mourning all the ponies and other creatures who had died, mixed with tears of utter relief. She wasn’t dead. Her world wouldn’t die. And finally, finally her mission had been accomplished: the Council was talking to her.

Twilight wept helplessly, unable to stop. She felt somepony approaching her, felt the warm, smooth metal of Rainbow Dash’s forelegs go around her as the pegasus embraced her friend, pulling the unicorn close. Twilight leaned into the hug, resting herself against her friend, feeling the comfort of her presence and letting herself draw strength from the contact. She kept crying, as on the bridge speakers, Admiral Glenmore repeated its offer of assistance.

Aftermath

It took Dauntless hours to limp back home on the remains of her drives, but Twilight refused the Council fleet’s offer to tow her. In spite of what had happened, she didn’t fully trust them, though she was relieved and glad that they were finally talking to her.

The final casualty list was horrific. Tens of thousands of ponies and other sapient beings had perished in the destruction of the orbital facilities and space habitats, though thankfully the Princesses had managed to maintain the planetary shield at a strength sufficient to protect the inhabitants of the planet. Dauntless had suffered hideous losses; less than a quarter of the crew was active and functional, and several had been trapped, isolated by wreckage and battle damage. The Warden ground troopers had proven invaluable, their power armor giving them the strength and resilience to work through the damaged areas to rescue stranded friends. About half of the crew was still alive, though many were suffering from various degrees of trauma that had come from the extended link they’d been forced to maintain. Of the bridge crew, Chatterbox had died on disconnect, Silver Stars was in a coma, and Night Breeze had suffered some kind of neural damage. The brilliantly intelligent pegasus hadn’t spoken a word since she’d awoken, and Doctor Rosethorn’s prognosis was uncertain. Wingblade was all right, as were the bridge engineer and the navigator, though all were slated to be hospitalized for evaluation upon return to Equestria. Twilight hoped that Night Breeze at least could be saved; the mare was one of the smartest she could remember encountering. Such a brilliant mind deserved better. One way or another, it would likely be days before she knew anything; the neurological hospitals were going to be utterly overwhelmed by all the cases coming off of Dauntless.

Twilight maintained an attitude of suspicious distrust toward the Council fleet, though she did thaw a bit when she learned that several detachments had fanned out through the system to do search and rescue. Astoundingly, they even found a few survivors; a zebra crew in a surveyor ship that had been only crippled rather than destroyed, and a cluster of ponies and one griffon, near-dead from hypoxia, who had managed to seal themselves into the only surviving compartment of one of the out-system research stations. Both groups had been brought back to Equestria as fast as the ships that found them could manage, and in the case of the second group, Council first aid proved to be literally the difference between life and death for almost half of them.

She thawed a bit more when, in an effort to work through that distrust, the Council flagship contacted her shortly after Dauntless returned to her homeworld and began shuttling her crew back to Equestria for evaluation and treatment. In a message addressed to her specifically, another alien introduced itself as Shuur Delsinac, informing her that he was the Council’s appointed representative and diplomat, and that he would like to meet her as soon as possible, in order to explain what had happened and to discuss possible reparations. Feeling tired and not up to dealing with the situation, she put him off, saying that she would decide later, but indicating that she and Fluttershy would be willing to meet with him at some point. She also arranged for her captive, Zziir, to be returned to the Council on an Equestrian shuttle, a gesture the representative had appreciated. Zziir had offered to remain, even after the horrific pounding Dauntless had taken, but Twilight had felt that it would be better to have him back among his own people.

Eklsee’s second rescue attempt manifested a little less than a day after she’d been forced to flee by the combined strength of the Fifth Enforcement Fleet. Tazaft ships, in small detachments, jumped into the system in dozens of different places, clearly intending to draw off any Council ships they could in an effort to spare Equestria. Eklsee herself was once again among them, and she was suspicious when Twilight contacted her to tell her that a tentative truce had been arranged.

“It does me good to see you, Thlaaht Shkarku,” the Tazaft said, at one end of the long communications delay. “I had feared the worst.” Her tone hardened, and her quills bristled. “Tell me true; have you been conquered, my friend? Have our foes taken your world from you? I will shift my campaign focus towards your liberation, if you have. You need but to tell me.”

Twilight shook her head, as she recorded her response. “No, Uhlsie, we haven’t. We’re not entirely sure what’s going to happen at this point; my friends and I have a meeting with a Council ambassador at some later point, to determine exactly what happened and what we’re going to do about it.”

Eklsee’s quills rustled restlessly when she replied. “Shkarku, I wish to believe you, but it is difficult with so many Council warships around your world. I wish to see for myself that you are well, and that your people are well. Is this possible?”

Twilight blinked when she listened to that message, and she immediately contacted the Council flagship. High Admiral Turthak and the representative, Shuur, both answered, and Twilight wished that they’d spent the time to work out a video link. Having to communicate voice-only was strange, especially since both aliens were evidently using a translator keyed to Equestrian. “High Admiral, Representative, my Tazaft friend, Siluth Uhlsie, wants to come see for herself that Equestria is all right. I want to be able to give her my assurances that she won’t be attacked by the fleet you have in-system. Are either of you able to offer those assurances?”

There was a pause. “Director Sparkle, do you mean Seelith Eklsee?” Shuur asked, his voice lacking the flat tone of a translator. It made Twilight wonder if the creature had actually learned Equestrian; he’d managed to pronounce Eklsee’s name properly, which was quite a feat. Perhaps he was good with languages. “The war-commander of the Tazaft Warrior Caste? That Seelith Eklsee?”

“Yes. She’s a friend of mine, and she promised to come back to try to evacuate any ponies that she could.” Twilight’s voice turned sour. “She didn’t expect to find any, since your people clearly intended to exterminate everypony in Equestria.”

Another pause. “How in the world did you… never mind. I believe we can arrange safe passage, so long as we have the Tazaft’s pledge not to fire on our ships, if you so request it. This is your space, and we intend to behave as guests in it. We will abide by your laws and your requests; we’ve wronged you enough already.”

“I concur,” The flat tones of the translator the High Admiral was using stated. “I will issue the appropriate orders.”

Twilight sighed in relief. There was that hurdle out of the way. “Thank you, gentlefolk. I appreciate your willingness to work with me.” She was also a little surprised by it; the Council commanders had been surprisingly accommodating since the arrest of Fifth Fleet. It was heartening. She hoped they were as genuine as they seemed.

“Director Sparkle,” Shuur interjected, “while I have you on the line, would you mind giving me an idea of when I could meet with you in person? Again, there are a great many things I think we need to go over.”

Twilight stifled another sigh, this one not a sigh of relief. “I don’t...” she quickly linked to the terminal in her office, pulling up her schedule. It was quite full, with meetings scheduled with numerous ponies and representatives of the other species, trying to put things back together in the wake of the Council assault. Equestria's infrastructure had been utterly shattered in the battle, decades of work obliterated and thousands of skilled ponies killed. Only those industries entirely located on the homeworld had survived, and there were precious few of those. She didn’t feel too much like bumping any of the reconstruction meetings to meet with the Council representative. “My schedule is very busy, Representative Shuur. I have a number of things I have to deal with, especially since the Princesses are both incapacitated.” Luna and Celestia had both nearly collapsed from fatigue in the wake of the siege, and both were still recovering. A group of accomplished unicorn mages were ensuring the smooth passage of night and day, with the help of the defense systems. Twilight herself had sort of assumed a state of de facto rulership until one of the diarchs recovered.

“I understand,” the alien said sympathetically. “All I ask is a tentative idea of when we could meet. I want to help, Director Sparkle, and I was given to understand that you were eager to talk to me when we first spoke. Please, just let me do that; the Council itself empowered me to speak for them in an emergency session. I have the power to offer you and your people significant recompense, but I need to meet with you first.”

Twilight rubbed her forehead. “Very well. I have a tentative opening in two days, a little after noon, Canterlot time. Would that be sufficient?”

“Entirely. I would like to bring High Admiral Turthak as well.”

“Fine.” A thought struck her. “Could you bring Admiral Glenmore as well? I’d like to get a chance to meet… her?”

“Him,” Shuur corrected absently. “Certainly. I will see to it that he accompanies us.”

“I’ll inform the admiral immediately.” Turthak cut in.

“Thank you, gentlefolk.” Twilight cut the connection, and set her terminal to record for transmission to Eklsee. “Uhlsie, the Council leaders have promised you safe passage. I can’t enforce it, but they seem sincere to me, and they did prevent their own people from destroying my ship.” She quickly recounted the events leading up to the second Council force’s arrival, finishing up with, “I’m not sure I trust these people yet, but they haven’t betrayed us. I’ll be waiting for your response, and I’d be happy to welcome you to Equestria.”

She ran the message through the translator and sent it flying through the void to the Tazaft flagship, turning to continue the report she was working on. The Dauntless voyage had resulted in a large number of mistakes that needed to be examined, and she intended to learn all she could from all of them. It was what a good scientist did.

Her terminal pinged her, indicating it had received a reply from the Tazaft, and Twilight allowed it to open. “I share your skepticism, Shkarku,” Eklsee said gloomily. “And I cannot afford to risk my fleet on the word of the Council. I do intend to come and see for myself whether your world needs to be rescued, however. I shall come alone, just my flagship, while the rest of my force waits in jump readiness. I doubt they will break their word just for me; it will gain them nothing.” Eklsee’s quills twitched. “I will see you when I arrive, Thlaaht Shkarku. I look forward to our reunion.”

Twilight blinked. That was… incredibly brave. A single Tazaft ship would stand zero chance against the armada stationed throughout the system; even a single Council ship would be able to kill her. “I will meet you when you get here, Uhlsie. I… thank you, for your courage, and for your willingness to stand with us. I will not forget.” She tried to remember if that was close to what Eklsee had said to her before; she suspected that those were powerful words among the Tazaft, and she hoped that the alien realized how sincere she was being.

The reply, when it finally came, was brief. “I will not forget, either, Shkarku. I will see you soon.”

Twilight returned to what she'd been going over, checking the records of the battle and reviewing everything that had happened prior to Dauntless's return. It was hard. She broke down crying several times, notably when reading about the last stand of Equestria's fledgeling navy; the Warden cutters had sacrificed themselves as the Council juggernaut bore down on the shipyard. They'd flung themselves suicidally at the flank of the fleet, trying desperately to decoy the vast force away for just a few moments while the evacuation ships got as many ponies as they could down to the surface, under the shield. It had worked, to an extent; the Council force had actually turned to engage the cutters, buying precious seconds for the evacuation. Twilight estimated that almost three hundred shipyard workers had been saved while the tiny Warden fleet had died in fire. They'd never known whether their sacrifice mattered or not.

It took most of the day before Eklsee’s ship arrived. When it did, Twilight thought it looked terribly lonely, settling into orbit amidst the swirling debris of the shipyard, with Council ships moving in squadrons through the orbital tracks as they carefully gathered up the wreckage, moving it to collection zones at the Lagrange points for later use. They didn’t seem to be taking any of it, and Twilight had made sure that the planetary telescopes were watching like hawks to make sure they didn’t. They were even gathering up the bodies, what few they could find; one of the things Representative Shuur wanted to discuss was what would be done with them. Twilight was planning on asking for their return, so their families could at least hold memorials for their lost kin.

The Tazaft shuttle grounded at the spaceport outside of Canterlot, and Twilight was there waiting. The other five were busy with their own affairs; Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity were working on modifying the planetary defense network, just in case the Council forces changed their minds, and Pinkie Pie was working her tail off trying to cut and edit all of the recordings she’d taken, putting together the story of the Dauntless’s voyage for all of Equestria to see. Fluttershy was busy talking via radio to the Council representative, working out protocols and making sure that he wouldn’t be embarrassed when he met with Twilight, and that he wouldn’t embarrass her.

Eklsee was the first to exit the vehicle, striding out confidently, once more wearing her large, ornate hat that Twilight assumed was a badge of office. She was also wearing a breathing mask again; probably a wise precaution, since there hadn’t been a chance to find out if anything in the Equestrian air might be toxic to the alien.

The Tazaft commander’s quills moved in a pattern Twilight had come to associate with a smile as she saw the unicorn. “Shkarku, your world is beautiful.” Here in Canterlot, Twilight didn’t need portable systems to run her translation daemons; the city’s own network architecture was more than enough.

“I’ve always thought so,” Twilight replied, her translated voice emerging from the air next to her. She looked out across the city; it had grown quite a bit in the last eighty years. The buildings were delicate, soaring things, held together by spellware woven into their structures that made them vastly tougher than they looked. It leant Equestria’s capital an ethereal appearance. She turned back to her alien friend with a smile. “Would you like a tour?”

Eklsee’s quills stirred, and she made a gesture with one hand. “Yes, I would. I need to see for myself that this world still belongs to you.” She stepped closer, pulling a small device out of a pocket. “Shkarku… this is a signal jammer. It is preventing any Council eavesdropping devices from being able to transmit, and generating white noise that will foul any attempt to spy on us with laser microphones or long-range audio systems.” Twilight could believe it; the second Eklsee had pulled the thing out it had started making a tooth-grating buzz. “You can speak to me now without any fear that they will hear you. Are your people in danger?”

Twilight swallowed hard. The concern her friend was showing touched her heart, especially since if the suspicions the alien held were borne out, she had put herself into mortal danger by coming here. The unicorn smiled up at the Tazaft. “No, Uhlsie, I don’t think so. I’m not entirely sure what is going to happen, but they don’t seem like they want to conquer us, and they did actually fire on their own ships, when those ships tried to kill us.”

The Tazaft looked at her searchingly, making Twilight wonder if the alien could read her facial expressions. The reverse wasn’t true; Eklsee had a rigid, mostly-immobile face, with most of her expressions clearly generated by the quills on her head and back, cues which Twilight hadn’t fully deciphered yet. Finally, though, the alien gave a quill-nod. “Very well. If you need us to, we can stage a diversionary attack to pull their forces away, and I have five hundred bulk freighters with enhanced life support systems waiting one jump away. All you have to do is ask, and we will do everything we can to evacuate as many as possible.”

Twilight smiled. “Thank you, Uhlsie. The offer means a lot to me.”

She spent the remainder of the day leading the Tazaft through the streets of Canterlot, showing her the sights and introducing her to the ponies and other creatures they passed. She even called back to her office in the Bureau of Technology, getting them to send a hoverdisc so she could take the Tazaft up to the small pegasus town that managed Canterlot’s weather.

Eklsee seemed fascinated by the tour, exclaiming occasionally about the architecture or the scenery, more than once referring to the city as the most beautiful she’d ever seen. Canterlot’s inhabitants were initially hostile to the alien, assuming that she’d come from the fleet that had assaulted the system, but that attitude quickly changed when Twilight explained what the Tazaft had actually done.

When it was time for her friend to leave, Twilight escorted her back to the landing field.

“Your world is lovely, Thlaaht Shkarku,” Eklsee observed, “and your people as well. It does my soul good to see that you do not lie under a conqueror’s blade.”

“Thank you, Uhlsie,” Twilight replied with a smile.

Eklsee’s quills stirred in small, circular motions. “It is time that I departed, then.”

“I’m sorry, Uhlsie,” Twilight said softly. “You’ve done so much to try to help us, but it looks like we won’t be able to help you as much as I’d wanted to.” Equestria’s space forces were, for all intents and purposes, gone. Dauntless was all that remained, and she was a crippled hulk. Without the shipyard, it would take months, possibly years, before she was fully functional again. And with a truce with the Council likely, based on what she’d heard from Fluttershy, Twilight doubted that Equestria would be able to fight alongside the Tazaft.

Eklsee made that quill-smiling gesture. “I knew that when I returned with you, Thlaaht. At the time, I sought only to preserve you that you might help later. Now, though… I think that someone who is able to speak in peace with both my people and our foes may be more valuable than a battlefield ally. The Tazaft are used to having a mediator in our conflicts, and this one has lacked that. Now it may not. I wish your people had not suffered so… but I am pleased to have gained a friend who can speak to my foes.”

Twilight’s heart warmed. That was a kinder reaction than she had even hoped for. Despite her alien appearance and demeanor, the Tazaft was a good person. She bid her friend a fond farewell, and watched as the shuttle streaked off into the sky, before heading back to her office. She had a meeting with the Council tomorrow, and she needed to be prepared.

Twilight was considerably more tense the next day, as the shuttle carrying the Council delegation descended through the atmosphere to the Canterlot spaceport. Her friends, waiting beside her, were just as tense. This was going to be the first official contact between the Unified World Nation of which Equestria was part and the Baltornic Council, and the pressure she felt to make sure that the war didn’t re-start was immense. Fluttershy had invited the griffons, zebras, and buffalo to send representatives of their own, but all had declined for different reasons, so it was up to Equestria to handle it.

Twilight and her friends were alone on the landing pad, but they weren’t unprotected. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both armed; the former with a harness-mounted energy gun and the latter with a pair of low-profile light levinguns plugged into her forelegs. There was a full company of armored Warden troops standing by as a response force, too, complete with heavy armored support and technogolems. She didn’t intend to let them ambush her the way the tribe of reptilian creatures had ambushed Fluttershy, and she didn’t want to take any chances on their sincerity. Ponies had been standing by on the planetary defenses since the shield had been lowered, but they were at a high state of alert right now, and the Princesses knew that they might have to raise the shield again. The thought of making them do that chilled Twilight to the bone; the two winged unicorns had had a chance to rest and recover, but they were still badly fatigued, and she feared what might happen to them if the siege began again.

The Canterlot constabulary had cleared the sky for the Council shuttle’s arrival; there were no flying vehicles or pegasi visible anywhere in the sky while the vehicle came smoothly down from space, following the course it was directed on without wavering. Twilight watched it come, evaluating it carefully. The vehicle seemed a little more responsive than the Tazaft shuttles, though it clearly employed a field-based drive rather than the noisy reaction drives her allies used. It still made a lot of noise as it shoved the atmosphere out of the way, and from its maneuvers it didn’t have anywhere near the kind of maneuverability or agility of an Equestrian vehicle. She filed the information away for later; she wasn’t sure how it could be useful, but all information was potentially valuable and deserved to be remembered.

The shuttle settled down on a pair of skids that extended from its belly, and Fluttershy stepped forward. They’d decided to let the soft-voiced pegasus speak for them; it let Twilight stand back and evaluate. It was something she’d realized would probably have worked better in their contact with the Tazaft, when going back over the records.

A ramp lowered from the shuttle’s side, and there was a long pause before anything emerged.

The creature that stepped out was a member of a species Twilight had seen before; one of the stocky, armored creatures that had been on board the cargo ship she and Rainbow Dash had boarded. This one had a different attitude; it carried itself more smoothly, and held its head higher, further from its carapace. Probably because it wasn’t frightened, Twilight mused. It was clad in soft, comfortable-looking robes, rather than the uniform she’d seen the other creatures in. The alien walked toward them across the tarmac, alone, its slightly lumbering gait unhurried and outwardly unconcerned.

“I greet you, gentlebeings,” the alien said in perfect Equestrian, with a slight accent. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you directly, though I do wish the circumstances had been different. I am Representative Shuur Delsinac; Shuur is my given name, Delsinac my clan name. You may call me Representative or Shuur, whichever makes you most comfortable; the clan name is not typically used as an identifier among my people.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Shuur,” Fluttershy said with a soft smile. She introduced herself and her friends, who all had different attitudes. Rarity was looking at the fine, soft cloth of the creature’s attire with a slightly critical eye, though she was smiling welcomingly. Pinkie Pie was beaming widely, though there was a hint of nervousness to the expression. The pink earth pony hadn’t completely gotten over her trauma at the ambush she and Fluttershy had been through, though she was putting on a brave face and she was genuinely happy at meeting new creatures. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were watching both the alien and his vehicle closely, with a strong air of suspicion. Twilight was deliberately holding herself somewhat aloof, watching the alien with what she hoped was a cool, unimpressed look.

She really hoped that’s how she looked, anyway. She’d practiced this expression in the mirror, and it had looked alright, at least to her…

“A pleasure to meet all of you.” The Council representative said warmly.

“Hey, weren’t you bringing two admirals with you?” Rainbow asked suspiciously.

“And how exactly is it that you speak Equestrian?” Applejack added with matching suspicion.

“I did indeed bring both High Admiral Turthak and Admiral Glenmore with me, but I wanted to meet with you alone first.” Hmm. Twilight thought, I wonder if he’s trying to show us that he’s the one in charge? “As for your language,” Shuur heaved a surprisingly Equestrian-sounding sigh. “That’s a long story, and it has to do with everything that’s happened here. Would you mind if I called Turthak and Glenmore out here to join us?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Fluttershy said gently. “I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

Shuur started to turn, but paused. “Ah. Before I do, there’s something I need to warn you about.” Twilight braced herself, and she saw Fluttershy’s expression turn uncertain. “Admiral Turthak is from a species called the Kao Ur, and most people who speak a gendered language have a little difficulty dealing with them. Gender is a very private subject with them, and you must be very, very careful not to refer to the High Admiral by any gendered pronoun. The High Admiral will not react violently, or any such thing, but it would be deeply offended, and I would prefer to avoid that if possible.”

Fluttershy blinked. “So… what should we call… the High Admiral? Using the title every time would get awkward, wouldn’t it?”

Shuur made a wheezing sound that Twilight couldn’t identify. “Very. Just use ‘it.’ I know it sounds disrespectful, but in your language that pronoun is far more palatable in the Kao Ur’s eyes than ‘he’ or ‘she’ would be.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, okay, I think we can do that.” She looked around at her friends. “Right, girls?” She received nods from all five other ponies. The pegasus turned back to the diplomat, something else occurring to her. “Representative Shuur? Will the High Admiral be offended if we refer to each other as ‘he’ or ‘she’?”

Shuur made that wheezing sound again. “No, not at all. Some Kao Ur do have problems with that kind of thing, but Turthak has been working with other species for most of its life. As long as it’s not directly addressed in such a matter, it won’t take offense. You won’t face any similar problems with me or Admiral Glenmore; both my species and his are difficult to offend by accident.” He turned around, tapping at his ear and speaking a short phrase or command in what Twilight assumed was his own language. A moment later, the first figure emerged.

It was large, was the first thing Twilight noticed. Quadrupedal and taller than most ponies, it was also incredibly heavyset, with a wide build and a thick body. It didn’t seem to have a distinct head, instead having a small mouth set directly into what looked like its chest, while two eyes waved on short, thick stalks, and four stumpy tentacles drooped from the front of its body. It was a mottled dark brown in color, and was really shockingly ugly to look at, especially with the odd appearance of its uniform, which was clearly the same type of garment they’d seen on the Council crew of the ship they’d boarded. There was a metallic mass on its back that Twilight couldn’t identify.

“That’s Turthak,” Shuur said in an undertone, as the creature began making its way carefully toward them. “Don’t let the slow movement fool you; it isn’t particularly slow by nature, it just comes from a heavy-gravity world, and thus has a habit of moving carefully.”

The second figure made Twilight’s jaw drop. Taller than a pony, slender, standing on two legs with two arms hanging down from its shoulders, the creature looked very familiar.

“No way…” Rainbow whispered, noting the resemblance. It looked very much like Duran in build. It was shorter, considerably so, and its skin was a bit darker than his had been, but it… he... was clearly the same species.

“And that’s Admiral Glenmore,” Shuur said turning back and pausing at the ponies’ expressions. “I’m sorry, does he bother you?”

“No,” Twilight interjected, speaking over Fluttershy, “No, not at all. His species… are they called ‘humans’?”

“I… yes, they are. Humans, or Terrans.” Shuur said slowly. “Have you encountered them before?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash’s voice was dry and quiet. “We met one. A long time ago, almost ninety years now. He was from something called the Tethinar Imperium.”

“The what?” Shuur sounded confused. “I’ve never heard of that. Ninety years, you say? Equestrian years, I assume?” Rainbow nodded wordlessly, still looking at the human approaching them. “Council scouts found you a little over a hundred years ago, but they weren’t human-crewed, and as far as I know, humanity has never visited this world. I’ll check, but…”

“No need,” Twilight whispered. “Rainbow, he wasn’t from this reality,” she said to her friend, quietly. “We know that. Crazy as it sounds, this species must have evolved in both places.”

“Three places,” the pegasus corrected quietly. “The guys who made that base were human, too.”

“True.” Twilight frowned. "I wonder why we could understand them, and not these humans?"

“Can we talk about this later?” Fluttershy whispered emphatically.

“Yes, of course.” Twilight cleared her throat. There were more important things to discuss.

Shuur was looking at them oddly. “If he bothers you, I can send Admiral Glenmore back to the fleet, but humans are a fairly prominent species in our government…”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, no, he doesn’t bother us. You don’t have to do that.” She looked up at the two approaching aliens. “Welcome, um, gentlebeings, I think was the word?”

“Thank you.” Turthak’s voice bubbled in its own language, translated by part of the metal equipment on its back. Its mouth didn’t move when it spoke, the sounds instead emerging from either its back or side, it was difficult to tell.

“I am honored,” Glenmore added, also through a translator he wore. “And may I again express my deep gratitude to you for trusting me. After what happened, I’m not sure I would have done so in your place.”

“Speaking of what happened…” Fluttershy prompted.

“Yes.” Shuur’s voice was sad. “I wanted the Admirals to be here, so they could contribute the Enforcement perspective.” He sighed again, and Twilight wondered if the expression was natural or if it was one that the diplomat had learned along with the Equestrian language. “This is a bit of a long story. I told you that the Council found you a bit over a hundred years ago. The Infiltrator Service at the time appears to have undertaken an operation on its own authority, aided by one of the probationary members of the Council, to… well, to slow or prevent development of non-spaceflight-capable species.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Why would they do that?”

“To preserve their own power.” Shuur made a gesture with both hands that Twilight couldn’t interpret. “The probationary members of the council get one vote that they all share. They vote among themselves, then the outcome of that vote is considered one vote in the Senior Council. Does that make sense?” Fluttershy and Twilight both nodded. “At a certain point, probationary members are accepted as full members, typically after consultation with the full Council. The problem with this system is, well, probationary members don’t like seeing other probationary members admitted, because it dilutes their vote.” Shuur’s eyes closed for a moment. “Believe me, there have been major scandals over this, and endless debates over how to fix it, but no one has decided anything. Maybe they will now. Regardless, your world was the target of a long-term operation designed to effectively destroy your civilization by causing a massive, global war.”

Twilight blinked in shock. “What? How in the world were they going to do that?”

“By increasing tensions between your nation, Equestria, and the zebra nation, hopefully causing you both to go to war,” Shuur said grimly. “You were the two most advanced civilizations on your world. An annihilating conflict would cripple both of you, and hold you back considerably.” He snorted. “Instead, you seem to have rocketed ahead, and the infiltrator service lost touch with its agents.”

“What kinda agents would these’ve been?” Applejack asked.

“Surgically altered or rebuilt operatives, modified to resemble your people,” The High Admiral answered before the representative could. “It is a disgusting practice that nearly always irreparably damages the agent. It is a mystery why the Council allows the infiltrator service to continue it.”

Applejack gave Twilight a significant look. “Betcha a thousand bits that those ‘changelings’ we caught way back when weren’t changelings at all.” The orange mare’s voice was grim.

Twilight shook her head, remembering the captured changelings who had somehow suicided and destroyed their bodies. “No bet.”

“Regardless,” Shuur continued, shooting a look of his own at Turthak, “The gambit failed. The infiltrator service went through a reorganization around that time, and it appears they forgot about you. They rediscovered those records about a year ago, and decided to re-implement their plan, with a different probationary member assisting them this time.”

The Interloper, Twilight realized. The ship whose attack had galvanized the construction of Dauntless.

“You encountered the ship they sent to drop off their agents,” Shuur continued, confirming Twilight’s suspicion, “showing them in the process that you’d advanced much faster than most species do. You should still be starting out your space program, maybe colonizing one of the more benign worlds in your own system if you were going particularly quickly. Instead,” the alien gestured around him, at the soaring buildings of Canterlot. “You have managed to surpass our level. That touched off a huge debate in the Council over how to properly contact you, especially once the news about the infiltrators’ prior contact with you came to light. I got involved early on, and I was given the records already gathered on your culture and language. I’ve been studying your people for over a year, learning your language, your mannerisms… I was supposed to be the one to lead the first-contact mission, once the Council had decided on the tone it would take, and how we would approach. Unfortunately for us, the debate and the fact that their operations had been made public knowledge sent the infiltrator service and their sponsors into a panic. They reached out to a frontier admiral in the Enforcement branch, and made sure he was transferred to this region. That was Admiral Peters.”

“That bastard!” Glenmore suddenly spat, his face twisting in fury. Twilight blinked at the human’s vehemence, and Shuur turned to give him a quelling look.

“Are you all right?” Twilight asked, recognizing the human’s anger and remembering the way he’d spoken when his fleet had moved to shield her ship.

“Yes, ma’am.” Glenmore took a deep breath. “I apologize. I know Admiral Peters personally, and I detest him. Even more so now, after he’s managed to make my entire species look bad.”

Shuur turned to lay a hand on Glenmore’s arm. “I assure you, Admiral, the rest of the Council will not blame humanity for Admiral Peters’ crime. We could scarcely throw one of the founding members out, after all. He and all his co-conspirators have been arrested, and the trial will show everyone who the guilty parties are.” Interestingly, the alien continued to speak in Equestrian.

“Every tree has its bad apples, sugarcube,” Applejack added in a reassuring tone. “Just ‘cause one went bad don’t mean they all did.”

The admiral offered the Warden a tentative smile. “Thank you.” He turned to Shuur. “And thank you, sir. I apologize, I won’t make any further outbursts.”

“See that you don’t.” Turthak burbled.

“Admiral Peters,” Shuur sighed, turning back to the ponies. “After the infiltrator service realized the state you were in, and that you had possibly uncovered its operatives in a previous attempt, they seem to have pressured him to cover up what they had done. We aren’t sure exactly how; it scarcely matters. What matters is what he did.”

“Which is to nearly destroy us.” Twilight interrupted.

Shuur’s eyes lowered. “Yes. Murder on an unprecedented scale, and attempted murder on an even larger one. Nothing like this has ever happened in our history. To attempt to kill an entire sapient species… several, with your world’s unique biosphere…”

“Monstrous,” whispered Glenmore.

“Thoroughly,” Shuur replied. “When the Council received the courier from Peters’ chief of staff, we almost didn’t believe it. But she’d included a huge amount of information, and after an initial debate, we decided we couldn’t afford to ignore it, especially since it would take several days for a fleet to reach this system.”

“We put together a fleet as fast as we could,” Turthak interjected in its deep, bubbling voice. “I grabbed every ship that was available. Ships in refit, squadrons in transit. I sent couriers to the nearest worlds, but we didn’t have time to muster their full defense fleets. I took the first responders, and every ship that could be made ready, and came here as fast as I possibly could once I judged that I had a large enough force. We received the courier from Ta Ahii just before we left; it was what convinced me not to wait any longer, and to take what I had and go right away.” There was a pause. “I should not have waited for the defense fleets. That was a severe mistake, and it cost me several hours. You have my abject apology for my failure, and if you wish for me to atone, I will.”

Fluttershy frowned. “What kind of atonement are you offering?” She asked warily.

“The sacrifice of all my wealth and my position. Should you ask it of me, I will donate everything I own, resign my commission, and should you wish it, move to this world and work to rebuild what was destroyed by my failure. I have significant organizational skills developed by my work in the fleet; I could be quite useful.”

Fluttershy looked to Twilight, and the unicorn responded for her. “You don’t have to do that, Turthak,” she said quietly. She was starting to believe that maybe this really had been some huge, awful crime. It was hard to accept, hard to imagine that this could have been essentially one person’s fault, but Turthak’s offer broke through a wall in her heart. “I can understand not wanting to believe that this could happen.”

The alien’s tentacles twitched in what looked like agitation. “Even now, it is difficult for me to comprehend. It is against every ethical code, every moral imperative. I should have believed it, but it was so difficult…”

“It was hard for all of us to accept,” Shuur interjected. He met Twilight’s eyes. “The Council owes you a debt for the harm we have done, Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. I have been directed to offer you nearly anything you could ask for. The Council will aid in reconstruction of your destroyed industry, we will compensate you in resources and time for each of your slain citizens. Whatever you need. There is already a convoy on the way, carrying doctors, rescue personnel, and food that should be compatible with your biology, though since the planet itself wasn’t harmed, you may not need any of it. Whatever we can do to make up for the harm we have done you, please, just ask.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “What if I ask you to stop your war against the Tazaft?”

Shuur paused. “That… is a complicated request. We would not be willing to let them simply kill our citizens, or destroy our property. Indeed, we have been looking for a way to end that conflict for some time now. I…” he hesitated, then continued. “If… this may be an imposition to ask, but you actually have friendly relations with the Tazaft. If you would be willing to mediate negotiations, then we may be able to do as you ask.”

Twlight glanced at Fluttershy, and got a subdued but emphatic nod. She didn’t even pause to think about how the pegasus had managed to combine the two. “I would be quite willing to serve as a mediator in that issue.” It was, after all, exactly what she had promised Eklsee.

“What else?” Shuur asked. “This is something I’d planned to ask you for anyway, later. It is hardly fair to offer it as restitution.”

Something else occurred to her. “May I speak to my friends in private?”

Shuur nodded. “Of course.” He gestured to Turthak and Glenmore, who followed him as he stepped away to give the six ponies space.

“What are you thinking, darling?” Rarity asked the moment she judged that the aliens were out of earshot.

Twilight bit her lip. “I’m tempted to ask for membership in the Council,” she whispered. “I mean, if we had a say in their government, we might be able to change it so something like this never happens again.”

“I think that sounds like a very good idea,” Fluttershy said firmly. “Very good. Turn this into something good, instead of just letting it end in blood and hate.”

“I agree,” Rarity said softly.

“Oh, me, too,” Pinkie murmured, feelingly. “Oh, I really, really do. More friends is always a good thing.”

They turned to look at the two Wardens, who shared a glance. Rainbow looked back, and nodded firmly. “I’m with ya, too.” The pegasus’s voice was as hard as her expression. “I mean, if nothing else, we can find out exactly who did this to us. They’ve been kinda cagey about that.”

That had occurred to Twilight, too. “So it’s settled, then?” Her friends all nodded and made noises of agreement. “All right.” The huddle broke up, and Twilight called Representative Shuur back over to her.

“You have something, then?” The alien asked.

Twilight nodded. “We want to ask for membership in your Council. This happened once, and we want to be in a position to make sure it never happens again.”

There was a long pause, before Shuur lowered his head and let out a long sigh. “I had hoped you would ask that, but I had feared we had wounded you too badly for you to consider it.” He raised his head again, looking Twilight in the eyes. “I pushed for exactly that in the Senior Council. While Turthak was gathering the fleet, I was arguing in the chamber, and I told them that we should offer this. They agreed just before we left.” The alien straightened his clothing. “In the name of the Council of Baltor, the Meeting World, I hereby offer the Unified Nations full membership, with all the rights and duties entailed therein. You would be immediately given the position of full voting member; the pain we have caused you entitles you to that, at the least.”

Twilight nodded, smiling. “That… that sounds good,” she said. “What exactly are these duties and rights?”

“I can explain them to you fully,” Shuur offered. “Might we step inside? The weather out here is nice, but my people prefer shade.”

“Of course.” Twilight and her friends led the three aliens into a nearby terminal building, one that she knew firsthoof had a very comfortable lounge. The diverse group of beings kept their pace to a comfortable walk as they crossed the open field, the words they exchanged seemingly inconsequential, but tremendous in importance. They were the words that would build the future, that would lead from the blood-drenched nightmare of the previous days into a new day, one that had hope.

But that's... another story.

END