CHAPTER III: Dawning Conflict.

“Enough with the secrecy! You wanted us all here, together, why?” Asked a stallion in makeshift robes. The room was made from nearly pitch-black brick. Beyond the stained glass windows was a field of stars and some distant puckered rocks that floated near. The room was filled with thestrals, all of whom had glowing eyes of different colours. Atop a balcony overlooking the hall was a mare in armour, it looked like that of a knight, however lacking the visor and beak. Banners were hung from the ceiling, they were a bright red with gold trim.

“How many of us have been killed by the Argents, how many have been persecuted by their ‘defective’ blood… How long have we all needed to hide inside this abysmal rock, just so we wouldn’t be tortured to death by those who claim to be our guardians!”

“What are you getting at Cacophony!” Interjected a mare.

“Brothers and sisters, I refuse to let their maliciousness continue! From now on we’re starting our own Order!”

“That is ridiculous, as much as I hate the Argents, we can’t do something like that, it will only draw attention to ourselves! We should flee! To the Kingdom of the Sun, or out into unexplored territory!”

“And how long can we continue running! This vessel will need fuel, food, water… If we settle our own world it will only be a matter of time until the expeditionary fleets find us, all while our kind is still hunted down on our homeworlds! This will only give us a few decades, at least! And worse, you suggest running to Celestia’s domain, her ponies already see thestrals as violent and unnatural creatures, and you would drag us there!”

The stallion broke in again, “But if we declare succession, that will only cause more trouble! Remember what happened to Order Astra!”

A sly smile crossed the Cacophony’s face, “We aren’t going to separate from the Kingdom, we will become one of its pillars, the Kingdom can’t exist without us, just look at the decades following Astra’s collapse! And I know that some of the leaders of the Order Luna have started to grow suspicious of Argent’s actions.”

At this, the tone of the room changed, several ponies started smiling as the full weight of Cacophony’s plan sunk in. “Y-Your going to start a civil war! If we declare ourselves as a successor to Order Astra then the Order Argent won’t respond kindly. If what you say is true, and Order Luna allied themselves with us-”

“Order Luna will put their forces behind ours, several of our kind are within their ruling council, political tensions between them and the Order Argent grow more and more hostile since the beginning of their little ‘inquisition’, and if they see us as a method of bringing order to the lawless expanses of the Order Astra…”

The mare continued, “Do you have any idea what this could cause… There are members of our kind all over the Kingdom and combined with support from Luna, we’d equal half of the entire Kingdom’s military forces… Argent and Polaris are the only Orders likely to be immediately hostile to our actions, Solar will remain as neutral as always to our conflict, and we can’t anticipate how Lupus will react.” An awkward silence filled the room, then once she had done the math in her mind, a glimmer of a smile crossed her face. “A-Actually, I like those odds…”

This marked another shift in the room as other ponies started to think a bit harder, then after a long and uneasy silence, Cacophony spoke up again, “From this day forward, those who have been dubbed ‘mutants’ by our foes shall be hunted no longer, instead, they will find their homes with us… The Order Sanguine!”

With that, the thrusters long hidden within this rock’s surface clicked to life, and for the first time in years, the lights within Silberfluch burst to life, then from out of the rock flew a much smaller ship, the Strigoi, and it set its course to Magnus.

The sparring arena, a large rectangular rise in the centre of the training room. There were punching bags, firing ranges, exercise machines, magical combat simulators, but nothing compared to the real thing. The room was filled with thestrals, however, only two were in full armour, those in the arena.

One was a stallion, pale brown with blue eyes and a black and white mane. Then other was a mare with a dark grey mane and spotted light grey coat, complete with bright golden-yellow eyes. Our armour was solid tungsten, enchanted so as to not impair our movement. Held in the bird-like faceplates of our armour were swords, long and straight, and shields were mounted to our forelegs, one hundred and fifty millimetres of tungsten, made to protect from more than swords, but also shots from bows, beams from crossbows, and the concussive blasts of spears.

I raised the sword in my grip, blunted so as to act more like a club than a blade, “Just for the record… I think this is terribly unfair-” The stallion turned to address the crowd.

“Hey Bastion, think of it this way… If you get more than one hit on her, you won’t be the worst member of the team anymore!” A mare, Gilded Gate, said.

“You know, when I was a colt, I thought the Knights were all about killing bad guys, protecting the innocent, helping the Princess, all that… Now I’m starting to think that it’s an excuse for everypony stronger than me to kick my ass-” He muttered sarcastically before I delivered a solid buck to his side.

He fell to the ground, but recovered quickly, staggering to his hooves, and tried to slash with his head. I smacked his blade aside with my own, the enchantments in the two blades sparking against each-other in a shower of magical sparks. Then with a swipe of a forehoof, I knocked his out from under him. Finally, I raised up my sword in my grip, found a hole in his armour, and slashed downward, striking hard against the chainmail on his back.

The sword’s enchantment was designed for training, it, for a few seconds, disables any other enchantments placed upon an object. Bastion fell limply on his side, breathing heavily, as the full weight of tungsten dragged him to the floor.

“Hey Bastion, what was that you were saying about getting your ass kicked!”

“Gilded, stop that, there’s no need for such cruelty, even if it is meant jokingly,” I said flatly. Gilded, in response, rolled her eyes at me.

The anti-magic enchantment wore off and Bastion clambered up. “I’ll admit, you got me that time, so… How about we finally go down to the mess hall and grab a bit-” I sent my hind leg into his flank, causing him to tumble over and out of the ring.

“Come on, let’s go… Next team down gets the training room,” An older stallion, a proper knight, unlike the rest of us squires, and the pony in charge of training us, addressed the room.

“Yes, sir Iron Keep.”

We made our way downstairs. Banners of the Order Luna were a common sight in the rooms and corridors, lit by magically-active gemstones planted in the walls and ceilings. We entered the mess hall, there were a few of the younger squire teams in training, we were the second-oldest of the squire team. The teams were divided not by the age of the ponies in the team, but rather by the year they were recruited… Thus you can have a fifteen-year-old, the oldest a squire can be recruited, in the same team as a thirteen-year-old, the youngest a squire can be recruited. A group of the younger squires passed our table, playing some foalhood game, as we talked among ourselves.

“I’ve been on this ship for four and a half years now, I don’t see why they don’t just make us knights right away,” Gilded Gate had a pale yellow mane and coat markings across a light grey coat much like my own.

You’ve said this already.

“That’s easy for you to say! Merlon and I have been here for four months more than you, and I’m still ‘the worst member of the team’”

I’ve heard this exact conversation more than eight times over the past month.

“Well, Merlon’s practically a knight already, she beat Keep in single combat!”

I can’t take this anymore… “Shut up! Every day it’s the same damn thing with you ponies, do you never talk about anything else!”

“It’s not like there’s much new to talk about!”

Fair point. I sighed, then just like during my last day of school, I trotted over to a corner, bringing a platter of chicken with me. I sat next to one of the windows. The glass was at least a metre thick and enchanted to the same durability as the rest of the ship, it was a stained-glass window depicting Magnus, the world the ship was constructed at, each of the windows showed something relating to the history of the ship, some showing fights with pirate vessels, some showing previous Grand Masters, some were glass renditions of the Order’s banner.

Outside the window was a sea of stars, glimmering in the colourful distortion of the glass… We were in high-orbit of Magnus, my homeworld… It had been at least a year since we last visited the world, thrice that number since I last saw my old friends and family. That doesn’t matter, I have a new family now. I glanced over to my table. Keep was laughing at something Bastion said. Portcullis was playing some kind of word game with Gilded. Crenel was blushing furiously following a comment by Postern. Glassy was drinking down all the ale. Skyrise and Green Heart were challenging each other for when next was our time to use the training room.

My old home looks so small from here.

I trotted away, down corridors back to my room. It was just like my room back home… Bed, table, wardrobe, but was just a bit smaller. I sat at my desk, gripping a quill in my mouth, pulling parchment from a stack I had borrowed from the quartermaster. “Dear White Rose… I don’t know if you’re getting my letters or not… It’s not like I can receive much mail out here, but if you do...” Damn… I don’t know what to write next… Something about how I beat Bastion in sparing today… No, I’ve already told her that plenty of times… Perhaps ask her how she’s doing… No, I’ve never gotten anything back from her…

I sat at my desk… Finally, I managed to put ink to paper and write one last sentence. “I’m sorry,” Then I rolled the paper into a scroll, then slid it into a hole in the wall. It disappeared with a flash. I sat there for a few minutes, vacant and tired, before flopping over and into bed.

I was… Depressed, even after a full meal I still felt an emptiness in my belly, and worst, there was a burning pressure under my tail that refused to go away. With a sigh, I pulled my pillow into my legs and slowly began to press my full weight into it- With a slam, the door opened, I gave a screech of annoyance, then suddenly all my damn horny emotions turned to a molten hot rage.

“Bastion! What in then Luna damned void is wrong now!” Could you have at least given me a few dozen minutes!

“It’s the Grand Master! He’s calling all of us to the bridge!”

Realization clicked, then I lept from my bed with a loud “What!”

The bridge was a massive rectangular room with vaulted ceilings and huge stone pillars. Massive vertical windows showed out into the void, and banners depicting the cutie marks of every previous Grand Master lined the hall. In the middle of the room was a magical image projector that projected unto a massive slab of pitch black material atop an altar lined with various magical devices and controls.

Projected atop the slab was an image showing a thestral with glowing orange eyes inside some dark building, there were hundreds more glowing eyes in the background. This mare had a dark blue coat with black markings and a pale violet mane. A mutant?

“C-Cacophony, you’re alive!” The Grand Master stuttered.

“Yes, in large part thanks to you… You still owe me.”

“Cacophony… What do you want of me.”

“I want you, Steeled Hull, with our help of course, to start a war with the Order Argent.”

A room fell deathly silent. What! How! That would break apart what little cohesion the Knightly Orders have!

“What!” Shouted Bastion, echoing my own thoughts. “The Order Argent protect us from monsters and radicals! Why! How!”

“The Order Argent… They send their soldiers into our cities, abduct citizenry who they believe pose a threat, sometimes on no other basis than rumours, then drag them off to Luna knows where, and most likely kill them! How can you defend that!”

“They have a very good reason for their actions, to stop ponies like you from tearing apart our civilisation!” But as much as Bastion tried to hide it, a tone of doubt crept into his voice.

“You’ve seen something to make you doubt the Order’s agenda, haven’t you.”

“Y-You-”

“Bastion! Quiet!” Shouted the Grand Master.

“You aren’t seriously listeni-”

“I said quiet!” There was a pause, then the Grand Master continued, “Do you know what you ask of me! I really don’t like the Order Argent, but I can’t just fight a war against them… Even if we survive this battle, I doubt the remaining forces of the Order will respond kindly.”

“I know for a fact that there are members of my kind within the Order Luna’s court on Magnus, I also know that your ship is an atmosphere-capable ship of the line… You can carry three full teams of knights and one regiment of hoofmares, and have room to carry at least one line of siege rams. That’s about one hundred hoofmares, forty-five knights, and three rams,” The Grand Master nodded, “I also know that the Order Argent’s base on Magnus is never fully guarded… Most of their forces are off policing the planet and Mangus is a heavily populated planet, they won’t be expecting us, so we have the advantage in numbers and surprise… I will send what forces I can once the fighting starts, but our ship isn’t as big or as well-protected as yours.”

“So… Once the battle’s over, what then,” Bastion growled as the Grand Master continued talking. “The Order Argent’s remaining bases will deploy their military forces as quickly as possible to stop us, once that happens there won’t be anywhere in the solar system we can hide.”

“I mentioned that I had allies within the Court, not to mention that the Argent’s harassment of Order Luna’s citizenry hasn’t gone unnoticed by many of the Court’s members, if they see that we’ve broken the Argent’s hold on Magnus, we will have enough support to begin a full-scale war.”

With a sigh, the Grand Master said, “The Judge won’t like this, are you sure that we’ll get seventy-percent support from the council.”

“Once the Argents see that the Order Luna has attacked one of their bases, they’ll get revenge on the populace of the Order, even if we don’t have support, a war will be fought, and that will swing the vote in our favour.”

“And what about the other Orders.”

“The Order Polaris will likely be hostile to our actions, they’ve always taken actions that favour isolationism and will actively try to impede any change in society… But thanks to that behaviour they’ll be slow to take any real action. Order Solar will remain as neutral as ever to any internal conflict, it’s a conflict with the Kingdom of the Sun that they're concerned with.”

“From personal experience, I know that the remnants of the Order Astra have been just as vilified by the Order Astra as your ponies… They’ll help us, this conflict might even help unify them a bit more.”

“Agreed, but the Order Lupus proves unpredictable…”

“Mercenaries usually are… Either way, the Orders Argent and Polaris don’t have the funds or political power to hire every one of the Order Lupus’s forces, so I doubt they’ll be much of a factor in the fighting.”

“So… You’ll do it.”

With a sigh, the Grand Master turned to the bridge. Some of his crew looked hopeful, some were concerned, some, including Bastion, looked angry with the Grand Master. I just stared into his eyes and gave a nod of my head.

“Ready the ship’s engines, we’re going to Magnus’s north pole! Everyone else, prepare for combat!”

Author's Note

Sorry for the shorter chapters, IV will be a bit longer, but I suspect there might be a small wait until the next.