"Your highness." The term was a bit unusual for an American, but he wasn't in America, and the cooperation of the large horse in front of him was required. "I've completed my tour of your productions."

"What do you think?" asked Celestia with a gentle smile. "I have spared no expense."

"It doesn't look like you're cutting corners." The human flipped his tablet around to show the charts and maps he head ready. "But you've never been in the space business, that seems clear. That's half of why I'm here."

"And why I called you," agreed Celestia with a little nod. "Can you take us the rest of the way? Know that what you build will be Equestrian owned, though we will gladly pay those who help us handsomely."

Free commerce was not quite the same thing in Equestria as it was in America. Nationalizing things was quite standard, and Celestia was ready to do just that. There would be no private space industry under her watch.

The man offered a hand. "We have to hash out the specific numbers, but if you are paying for our services and what we launch, this can become an agreeable arrangement."

She met his hand with a hoof, allowing him to hold her as she shook his hand gently up and down. "Cooperation is the key to moving forward. I'm glad to hear Boeing is ready to assist us in this."

Boeing was ready to make money. "Of course, Your Highness." He flipped the notepad back around. "About those numbers..."

"We need more magic... and I know where to get it." Grogar rubbed his hooves together. "From a creature close to the ponies, but estranged. They only rarely communicate with them, despite being 'friends'. They have plenty of magic, waiting for us to take."

Tirek flexed a mighty arm. "Tell me we're going to grab them, no games."

Grogar snorted at Tirek's display. "In this case, you are correct. Speed is the requirement, not being subtle." He threw his head and conjured an image of a smiling kirin. "Look at them! So brimming with magic, but only a few of them know how to defend themselves. They sequestered themselves away from the world and forgot what it means to fight."

Tirek ground his hands together. "They look nice and soft. You're sure they have the magic we want?" He licked his lips, hoping they would be tasty to drain... Even if he could only do a few of them while catching them all.

"There is one you need to be careful of." The image flicked to the largest kirin. "She has no official title or position, but they look up to her as a sort of a community elder of sorts. 'The largest one is in charge', I think. Either way, she has the most power, for good and bad. Neutralize her, and the rest will be easy." Grogar sliced across his throat. "But keep her alive. I think she would make a fine member of our army... Our first to have such a bounty of magic already, it should make her an especially terrifying beast. Maybe I can make a new coming of dragons."

"But we have dragons?" Tirek shrugged softly. "Who you don't want to attack?"

"Ugh." Tirek rolled his eyes. "I have nothing but disappointment in how they've turned, but they remain combat ready. Attacking them will not come free. Still, the dragons were once my mightiest creation. It would be nice to make something as terrible, hopefully without the unsatisfying conclusion."

Tirek raised a brow with a sudden new thought. "Did you make all the monsters?"

"I'd love to claim that title..." Grogar chuckled darkly in appreciation of the idea. "While I was away, others came into being, and others ceased to be. Discord made no few. Speaking of him, it is somewhat surprising he hasn't made a mess yet... Probably because we haven't interfered with 'his' ponies."

Tirek rolled his shoulders. "He can be a pain, but is manipulatable. I've done it before. His head is too big for the rest of him."

"Which is part of the problem." Grogar shook his hoof at Tirek. "He'll be on his guard around you, expecting you to try again. No, that won't work. Regardless, them!" He pointed at the floating image of the kirin leader. "Take her and her friends. Bring them all in for... career reassignment."

"With pleasure." Tirek headed for the exit, laughing darkly as he gathered up a force to accompany him on the way. He had creatures to subjugate and enjoy doing so.

"You don't have everything."

The Boeing represenative frowned at the phonecall. "We have enough, and we have a place to launch from."

"But you could have more, faster," urged the man on the phone. "Now is not the time to try to grab it all. It took a bunch of us to do it right."

"That's why we're talking." If they had no point, he would have hung up a while ago. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting SpaceX has more experience with getting rapid, re-usable craft into the air, dropping sattelites off. I'm thinking a lot of grateful Americans, to say nothing of what Celestia will pay, will be very happy the sooner we get the sattelite network back up." A soft tapping could be heard. Typing, or drumming on a desk? Hard to tell.

"SpaceX? You want to bring them in?" The represenative brought the phone away a moment to peer at it skeptically. "I thought you hated them."

"Times change. While we're landlocked, we have nothing. Better to share and get up there than that. The ULA's contracts with the US Government has become as arid as a desert. They can keep arguing, but we want to get moving. You got your foot in the door first; bravo on you. You're holding a pie too big for you to eat. Share it and we'll all be happy."

"A pie can be handled carefully..." And alone, he said without saying it directly. "What do we get for even considering sharing it?"

"You get in the air faster." One could almost hear him thrusting fingers with the count. "You get a larger technical crew that understands how to run a launch. We'll owe you, and we'll put that in writing."

In writing? "You have my attention..." America would open its skies, eventually. Having favors from them wasn't nothing... "This is going to remain a Boeing operation, under authority of Equestria, whoever we decide to hire out from there, we're at the top."

A suffering sigh. "Right. Right... I'll have to touch bases with my people, but that was mostly a given. Will you share?"

"You'll be paid fairly for the services you render." He hung up without further word. More calls would come. Emails with it. There were countless details to work out, but it was moving forward.

The world would reach the stars, just under a different flag.

"Sir." The otter army member saluted sharply. "Something feels off, Sir."

His commanding officer raised a brow at his furriest soldier. "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that." Still, he didn't shoot Hoku down. He'd shown himself true several times. "Is this serious?"

"Serious Serious," assured Hoku in solemn tones. "Water not right. Hear wrong ships. Something swimming, not supposed to swim." He made swimming motions with paddles in the air. "Can't see."

"Damn right..." The forced agreements to disable sonar in most cases had rendered the navy half-blind. But that didn't apply to their army otter. "You see something?"

"Hear something." Hoku tapped at his head. "Navy can listen too?"

"They can. Look, I can suggest, but I can't order them."

Hoku saluted sharply. "All ask. Serious Serious."

The officer patted Hoku on the shoulder. "I'll put out feelers, but no promises." As if there could be many in that sort of case.

"Holy hell..." He had full access to everything. Cozy Glow had no idea how to manage her electronics, which meant there were a number of emails that were... bothersome. For one, she had a string of people sending her lovesmitten emails that she had been ignoring.

He marked them as unread after peeking, but he did peek. People that worked in the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security. They were doing a naughty thing, sending their loving letters from work computers. He could get them fired for it without much effort. But that wasn't his job.

More important was the contents of the emails, which he printed out.

Miss Cozy Glow,

It was an absolute pleasure working on your case. Immigrating can be quite a challenge. We should put some time aside to help you properly settle in. You must be so lonely, coming to a whole new country, by yourself.

Half of it was skill-less attempts to woo Cozy Glow, but the other half hinted they had done her favors, and were hoping for some favors in return. There were few good reasons for anyone to get a 'favor' from Homeland Security. He casually scanned the emails right back in and sent them, from another email, flying towards the President, or at least those who checked her email, which was probably not her. He knew that from experience.

But something bothered him. The Secret Service that had been with him and been knocked for a loop, they hadn't remembered a thing, and certainly didn't send love letters afterwards, at least as far as he knew. Why were these?

He could toss this all to the president and let her mull it over. He'd done his part.

As if he'd be satisfied with that. Something was going on. Something big. If only...

If they sent email from government computers, maybe they weren't that smart to begin with. It could work...

He pulled out his new phone and dialed up a new email. Cozy.Glowing@freemail.com He filled the public-facing portions with data to imply that Cozy was in charge of it, then got to drafting a new mail to one of the smitten people.

Gosh!

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. You have no idea how incredibly busy being a represenative can make you. But I wanted to reach out. Sorry this is coming from a new email, but I want to keep this quiet, just between us. What you send here won't end up in the news.

Do you remember our time together? It was just like yesterday, golly. I still think about it.

Enough to get them to spill the details? He hoped so. His phone vibrated with an alert. New email! Usually nothing of great importance, but it was coming from his new account. A few quick taps and he could see his mark had eagerly replied, talking enthusiastically about their quality time.

Paul, er, Mateo smiled wickedly. Things were looking up. But he had a job to do too. He walked into her office with a collection of paper. "As requested." He slid it onto her desk. "The writeup of that proposed law."

"Yeah, great." Cozy snagged the collection and spun away from the door as she read it. "This job involves a lot more writing than..." She didn't finish, thumbing through it intently. "You can go."

"Of course." Mateo made for the door, confident that he'd done his part for that --

"Hey." She looked up over the top of her papers. "Thanks for getting the papers under control."

"It's my job." Not his only job, sure, but one he had agreed to take. "The filing room is a lot neater now."

"I noticed, Gosh. You practically live there. I thought that was just a rumor."

"Rumor?"

Cozy rolled a hand. "It's a rumor that gay men are especially prone to being neat and orderly with their space. I thought it was one of those silly myths, but you're proving it true."

Why was she convinced he was gay? Mateo had shown no preferences either way, distracted as he was. Still, there was no reason to actively combat it. "When keeping papers in order, a clean workspace is an effective one, ma'am."

Author's Note

And... tag! Another month of updates, complete! Mostly? I think I may have one more... (paper shuffling noise)

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