Twilight Sparkle and Applejack stood in the clinic’s reception area, awaiting the official determination of the stallion’s cause of death from the fortress’ chief medical officer. Everypony involved recognized that this was largely a formality. How the green earth pony had died hadn’t really been in doubt. Even the zebras who had been there agreed that he had been killed in the fighting.

That didn’t mean that an autopsy wasn’t still a necessary step. While the purple unicorn highly doubted that any other outcome would come to pass, there was always the chance—

The doors leading deeper into the clinic opened. A yellow pegasus mare, covered nearly snout to hoof in scrubs that were now more red than white, stepped through them. Her wing reached out and swept the cap restraining her mane off of her head, allowing the long pink strands to once more fall over most of her face. A singular visible baby blue eye quickly found the two officers who had been waiting for the physician to complete her work.

Her other wing held out a folder containing her written findings. “...The cause of death was blunt force trauma,” she said softly. “Multiple kicks were delivered to his neck and head.” The pegasus closed her eyes and took a breath. When she regarded the other two ponies again, it was with a knowing look. “...I recognize the pattern. You both would too.”

The news wasn’t surprising, but Twilight found it no less unwelcome. Her horn glowed with a violet aura as she accepted the offered report. She glanced over it before nodding. “So she did kill him.” Neither of the other ponies reacted like there’d been any real doubt on the matter. “Now we just need to figure out if it was self-defense or not.”

“That ain’t gonna be easy,” Captain Applejack pointed out with a note of resignation. “The ponies say the zebras started it, while the zebras’re sayin’ the ponies threw the first kick.

“So far the ponies we got in custody are all stickin’ to the same story: they were in the bar, mindin’ their own business, when a buncha zebras stomped in and started pushin’ ‘em around.”

“And what are the zebras saying happened?” Twilight inquired.

“Wish I could tell ya, colonel,” the orange earth pony didn’t quite spit, irritation obvious in her frustrated expression. “Ah ain’t been able to talk to any of ‘em yet. That ‘Luteni’ feller told me to put in an official request with their embassy if I wanted to see ‘em—which I did. Now Ah’m apparently supposed to just sit on my tail and wait for a response.

“An’ who knows when that’ll be!”

Twilight frowned. Zecora had agreed to allow Applejack access to the zebras involved in the fight when the earth pony requested it. However, she supposed that there had been some degree of ambiguity when it came to the promptness with which that request was granted. “I’ll talk with Ambassador Zecora about getting your request expedited,” the unicorn promised.

“Ah appreciate that, colonel; but there honestly probably ain’t gonna be much point by now.” Upon seeing Twilight’s raised eyebrow, the earth pony elaborated. “Unless those zebras were segregated on that cruiser—an’ Mah understandin’ is that there ain’t a whole lotta room on a ship to do that in the first place—then they’ve had hours to collectively agree on what happened and get their stories straight.

“A big part of investigatin’ witnesses and fin’in’ the truth of what happened is seein’ where the stories don’t line up.” Applejack gave an annoyed snort. “Ah won’t be able to do that with the zebras now.”

“Does that mean that you found some inconsistencies with the ponies’ stories?”

The muzzle of the head of security scrunched up. “Kin’a? They all agree the ‘zebras started it’, but there’s a little variation on the ‘how’,” Applejack said. “Some say they heard the yelling first before the first kick happened. Some say they saw the zebras come in and start shovin’ everypony around the moment they were through the door. One said that she saw that zebra mare walk right up to the dead feller and buck’em without a word of warnin’.

“Ah don’t expect eye-witness accounts to line up perfect, mind you; but if they generally agree with each other, that’s usually a sign that they’re all telling the truth.”

“So you believe that the zebra did start the fight?” Twilight hedged. The unicorn wasn’t sure what it said about her that she’d privately been hoping for the opposite to be true. If the final findings of this incident really were reported back in Equestria as a group of Zebrican marines starting a fight and killing a pony mere hours after getting off of their boat…

Well, Twilight didn’t harbor much hope for that doing anything to exactly improve the public’s opinion of zebras back home.

“That’s what the evidence Ah have at hoof right now suggests, yes, colonel,” Applejack stated very carefully. “But there’s still a lot else to look at. Mah ponies ain’t asked around the area about other witnesses to the fight an’ what they might’a seen yet.”

“...If it matters,” Doctor Fluttershy managed to interject, a wing gesturing to the report still floating in Twilight’s magic. “Sage Brush wasn’t completely taken by surprise. His hooves showed evidence of him doing some kicking of his own.”

The purple unicorn opened up the report once more and flipped to the page detailing the condition of the deceased’s hooves. She read over the notations about the chipping of the keratin, the bruising of the frogs, and the signs of blood which were unlikely to have been the stallion’s own. He had indeed fought back. Given how Twilight recalled the zebra mare looking, he’d even given a decent accounting of himself in the fight before he was killed.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed before she turned back to an earlier page in the report, rereading it more closely. After a few long moments, she looked back up at the yellow pegasus. “Doctor, in your opinion, which blow would you say killed Private Sage Brush? Ultimately?”

The physician grimaced at that question, but appeared to give it considerable thought before finally answering. “...If I had to pick, then I’d go with the kick to his throat. It crushed his trachea. A few of his injuries could have killed him eventually, but that’s the one I’m inclined to lean towards right now, colonel: asphyxiation.”

“No real surprise there,” Applejack noted. “We’re taught to kick for the throat if you can back in boot camp. Ah can’t imagine it’d be too much different for the stripes.”

Twilight cast an aside glance at the orange earth pony’s use of a term for zebras that was ‘less-than-politique’, but elected not to comment on it at the moment. “It isn’t,” she confirmed. “Zebrican military training emphasizes quick, powerful, strikes to a target’s head and throat in order to take them down quickly and efficiently. Just like we see in this report,” she indicated the floating file folder.

“I want you to talk with Private Sage Brush’s section sergeant and his CO,” she said to Applejack.

“Okay…” the earth pony agreed with a wary note in her voice. “...why? None of them were anywhere near the fight; they wouldn’t’a seen anythin’.”

Twilight waved the report in the air between them. “It takes one tough son-of-a-bison to shrug off a surprise buck to the head well enough to go on and make a Zebrican marine bleed. I want you to find out from his superiors if this stallion really was that tough.

“And if it turns out that he really was some sort of Iron Pony contender, then I want you to find out why some recruiter put a pony like that in pony resources,” Twilight said after sparing a glance at the front page of the file, which contained the stallion’s identifying information, “and not in a frontline regiment where a pony like that belongs.

“I really don’t want to find out we nearly lost the last war because it turns out we’d been sticking all of our best fighters behind desks this whole time.” Twilight shared a sardonic smile with her head of security. For her part, it was clear that Applejack recognized what the unicorn was getting at, and was now wearing a thoughtful expression.

“Yeah…Ah’ll go have a talk with ‘em.”

“Thank you. And thank you, doctor. Your report was very thorough,” Twilight noted. The pegasus accepted the praise with a wordless nod.

“Well, I have a meeting with the donkeys to get to about those grain tariffs. They’re still not happy with the latest revision of the terms.” The purple unicorn gauged her present company and then allowed herself a role of her eyes in visible frustration. “Personally, I think that they just like being cranky all the time.” She sighed and shook her head.

“I’ll see the both of you at the staff meeting this afternoon. Carry on.”

After receiving acknowledging nods from both ponies, Twilight left the clinic to go and attend to her other duties. While the incident at the bar was a serious matter, it didn’t mean that everything else going on got put on pause. Twilight penciled in a reminder to herself to make some time to speak with Ambassador Zecora about letting Applejack speak with the zebra marines who’d been involved in the fighting. Even if their testimonies had had time to be compromised through group coordination, it might still be worth an interview. She certainly didn’t envy the idea of drafting a report which concluded that the zebras had started the fight without actually talking with the involved zebras. That certainly wasn’t going to help Equestrian-Zebrican relations…

A thoroughly emotionally drained Twilight Sparkle was dragging herself down the corridors of The Citadel several excruciating hours later. The session with the donkey delegation had been…trying.

If I hear the word ‘tariff’ one more time today…I’m blowing up the island.

She wasn’t certain that the thought was an entirely hyperbolic one…

Operating under the assumption that a good meal would help to undo so much of the stress that the day had brought with it, Twilight was on her way to the cafeteria when she heard somepony approaching from behind her. “Um…Colonel Sparkle?”

The little purple mare’s first response was to tense up and bite back a frustrated growl. The last thing that she wanted right now was to deal with any more ‘official business’ in either her capacity as the diplomatic representative of Equestria, or as the commanding officer of the fortress. She just wanted to eat something in peace, like a normal pony. To have an hour to herself.

Duty waited for no mare, however. So Twilight swallowed back all of her mounting frustrations, took a second to let out a slow breath, and turned to greet the pony who was likely going to be the latest contributor to a prematurely graying mane. She was a little surprised to see that it was Captain Rainbow Dash who’d approached her. “Yes, captain? What can I do for you?”

The prismatic-maned flier shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. Twilight hadn’t known the cerulean pegasus for long, but it was clear that this was not a common state for the mare. The fact that she was uncomfortable and recognized that somepony else was seeing her like this only served to make the squadron leader ever more uncomfortable. Her ears and eyes both scan the corridor, lingering on anypony else who’s visible.

“Can we talk? In private?” There’s a noticeable pause before the pegasus adds a belated ‘ma’am’ to her request.

Twilight cast a lingering look in the direction of the cafeteria before letting out a resigned sigh and nodding. “Come to my office, captain.”

The pair ascended back up to the administration level of The Citadel and entered Twilight’s office. It was still fairly sparsely decorated, having only been in use for a week. However, the unicorn had added a few personal effects in that time. She’d also sent out a request to her parents to have more of her things back in Equestria shipped over, now that the unicorn had seen just how much room she was going to have to work with on Harmony.

Rainbow Dash noticed a couple of items which stood out to her almost immediately. The pegasus was barely two steps into the room before magenta eyes locked onto a medallion set upon a black velvet backing sitting on a shelf behind the purple mare’s desk. It was a medallion which everypony in the Equestrian military recognized.

“You were at Canterhorn?”

Judging from the wince which immediately followed the flier’s words, Twilight suspected that the question had been intended to remain a purely internal one, escaping only because of whatever matter it was which had brought the mare to seek out Twilight in the first place. So the purple unicorn didn’t begrudge Rainbow Dash the question as her own gaze also turned towards the familiar medal. “I was,” she confirmed, and offered no other elaboration beyond that.

Nor did Rainbow Dash ask for details. Nopony ever did. The climactic battle of The Great War had happened only ten years ago, but it had already been cemented in legend. In Twilight’s opinion, it had reason to essentially hold a mythical status in the minds of ponies. After all, it was the battle which had ‘saved Equestria’. The moment where ponies finally stopped the zebras once and for all, inflicting such grave losses that the striped invaders had, ceased their hostilities, fled back across the seas, and begged the ponies to become their allies.

That was the narrative which the public had crafted for themselves to reconcile the events which had followed the Battle of Canterhorn Mountain, at least.
The official narrative wasn’t too different.
Twilight didn’t care for either.

Not that the unicorn had been privy to any other explanation as to how it was that the zebras had gone from being on the precipice of completely annihilating Equestria to withdrawing with all haste back to their homeland in a single night. Something about the Battle of Canterhorn Mountain had obviously reversed the willingness of the zebras to continue to prosecute the war to its ultimate conclusion; even with their ultimate victory clearly within their grasp.

Twilight’s own recollection of the battle was…fuzzy. She’d been hurt in the fighting; apparently seriously enough that she’d been rendered unconscious for the remainder of it, only being found by Equestrian medics the following morning after the Zebrica forces had withdrawn. What little of the fight that she did remember with clarity though was hard to reconcile with the aftermath that had been related to her in the hospital.

The zebras had managed to get so close to Canterlot under cover of darkness. They’d effectively caught the ponies by complete surprise. The same army that had flattened Fillydelphia had been poised to do the same to the last major pony settlement…

…And then they hadn’t. Their armies had gone home instead and then their government sent envoys to sue for peace, offering Equestria ridiculously equitable terms in the process.

The zebras had even paid reparations!

To Twilight, none of it made any sense; and she hated things that didn’t make sense…

The second item that Captain Rainbow Dash noticed was another medal of significance. This one was sitting on the corner of the unicorn’s desk. Unlike the medallion on the shelf, which had been commissioned specifically to recognize the participation of ponies in the Battle of Canterhorn Mountain, this other award was more generic; though arguably more prestigious.

The medallion for Canterhorn had been given out to every soldier who’d been in and around Canterlot that morning. Tens of thousands of ponies from the war had one just like hers. Whereas medals like the one on her desk had only ever been awarded to a relative few. At the time that then-Captain Twilight Sparkle had been presented with it, only thirty seven other ponies had been awarded an Equestrian Order of Valor.

Rainbow Dash’s wide-eyed stare indicated that she recognized that medal too. However, unlike the medallion on the bookshelf, she managed to restrain herself from asking about it.

For which Twilight was grateful. She took the opportunity to direct the mare’s attention back to whatever it was which had prompted her to request this meeting in the first place.

“Sit.” Twilight gestured to the chair in front of her desk while she took her own seat behind it. “So what’s the matter, captain?”

Rainbow Dash didn’t sit. She stood in front of the desk and fidgeted. “That fight this morning? I…might have some information on who started it.

“...It wasn’t the zebras.”

All of the purple mare’s weariness evaporated in an instant. She sat bolt upright on her seat, gaping at the pegasus. “You do? It wasn’t?!” A wave of relief crashed over her. Sure, it wasn’t great that ponies had started the fight, but it was slightly better than the other way around. “I need you to tell me everything that you saw,” Twilight insisted. “Then we’ll get Applejack so that you can tell her and she can put it into the report.”

Rainbow Dash winced. “Actually…I didn’t see anything.”

Twilight frowned. “But you know somepony who did?” she hedged, earning a nod from the cerulean pegasus. The purple mare paused for a moment while she sorted all of her observations from the last few minutes. “I’m assuming that there’s a reason they don’t want to come forward directly?”

The pegasus sighed and started pacing back and forth in front of Twilight’s desk. “The thing is, the ponies who saw what happened…well, they were doing something that they really shouldn’t have—nothing illegal!” She hastily clarified. “Just…very against regulations.

“Potentially career-ending, in fact.”

Twilight was grimacing now. “Are they trying to offer their testimony in exchange for us looking the other way?”

“No, nothing like that,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “That’s just the thing though: they could have not told me anything about what they saw or how they were in a position to see it—erm…” The pegasus cringed slightly before hurriedly continuing, though her cheeks looked slightly flushed now. “Who would have known, right? Instead, they came to me and outed themsel—” Another flushed wince. “Revealed what they had been up to, because they knew they had to tell somepony what they saw.

“They heard the rumors going around that the zebras were the ones that had started shit and killed a pony. They knew that wasn’t true, so they came forward. To me.”

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and then looked at Twilight. “They’re good ponies, colonel. Great fliers. I need them on my team, and I don’t think it’s right for them to get punished for doing the right thing by coming forward when they didn’t have to.

“So, if you want to talk to them, then you have to promise that there won’t be any official record of what they were doing when they witnessed the fight.” Captain Rainbow Dash held the unicorn’s gaze firmly. “That’s my requirement, not theirs.” A couple seconds elapsed before a belated “ma’am” was finally tacked onto the end.

Twilight considered everything that the pegasus had just told her. She leaned forward on her desk and steepled her hooves in front of her muzzle, returning the pegasus’ stare. “...Are you making demands, captain?”

“I’m protecting my ponies,” she insisted. “I’m already dealing with the regulation violation. Internally. There doesn’t need to be a record about that part.”

“Because it would impact their careers,” Twilight reiterated evenly. Rainbow Dash nodded. It didn’t take the unicorn long to decide that the matter of some ponies violating some regulations was far outweighed by the possibility of averting a possible diplomatic incident. “Very well, captain. Tell your ponies who saw the fight to come see me. Right now.

“I will have Captain Applejack here too to take their statements though.” Twilight saw the protest forming on the pegasus mare's lips and held up a hoof to fend it off. “I’ll talk to her about how to frame the specifics about where they were and what they were doing.

“Realistically, it should only really come up if there’s a formal court martial,” the unicorn pointed out, “and there’s no guarantee that it’ll actually get that far.

“As it stands, the ponies involved in the fight are insisting the zebras started it. If it turns out that’s not true, then it might be enough for Applejack to just mention the existence of other witnesses—without naming names—to get them to recant their statements. The final report probably won’t even need to mention your ponies at all.” She saw the leader of the fortress’ air squadrons visibly relax upon hearing her words.

“Thank you. Ma’am.”

Twilight spent a few moments internally wrestling with whether or not she wanted to press the pegasus for details about the nature of the regulations that her ponies had been violating. The idea that ponies on Harmony were breaking the rules—and doing so to a degree that apparently could seriously harm their careers—and weren’t going to face any serious punishment for it didn’t sit entirely well with the unicorn. After all, the regulations—and the consequences for violating them—existed for a reason.

On the other hoof, Twilight was also aware that, sometimes, extenuating circumstances needed to be taken into account. She also wasn’t about to make it her business to micromanage her subordinates. Otherwise it kind of defeated the purpose of even having subordinates. She’d trust Captain Rainbow Dash to keep her command in order. For now.

“Go and get your ponies,” Twilight told the pegasus. “I’ll send somepony to track down Applejack. We’ll have everypony meet here in—” Twilight froze as her stomach produced an audible rumble. The mare flushed and cleared her throat. “—half an hour.” Which, hopefully, would give her sufficient time to finally grab some lunch…

Twilight—reluctantly—shoved her to-go tray of an only half-eaten oatburger off to the side of her desk. She snagged one last hayfry to munch on before the tray was out of easy hoof-reach, casting the meal one final forlorn look before sighing and turning her focus to the four ponies who had just entered her office.

Despite the fortress commander’s best efforts to gallop to the cafeteria and back, she’d been waylaid by Rarity and an issue which wouldn’t have been able to wait to be addressed. By the time everything had been sorted, Twilight hadn’t had time to sit down to a meal anymore and had been forced to take her food to-go if she wanted to get back to her office in time for the meeting with Rainbow’s witnesses. She’d eaten as much of her meal as she could on the way back up to her office, and had hoped to have at least a few more minutes inside alone to finish, but she’d returned to find all four ponies waiting for her at her door.

Twilight vowed to buck whatever genius had come up with the ‘fifteen minutes prior’ rule right in their flank if she ever met them.

Resigning herself to a cold remainder of her lunch by the time interviewing the witnesses was over with, Twilight surveyed the two new ponies standing in front of her desk.

The first was a brilliant golden mare with a fiery orange mane and topaz eyes. The collar of her green flight barding was pinned with a lieutenant's bar. The mare was staring straight ahead—looking past Twilight—and standing at rapt attention. Her right hoof was still crossed over her chest in salute.

Standing beside her was another pony also standing mid-salute. He was a powder blue stallion with a dark mane and emerald eyes that were similarly locked onto some nebulous point beyond the fortress’ commander. His flight suit had no metal rank pin on its collar. Instead, there was a silver arch embroidered on his sleeve.

Captains Applejack and Rainbow Dash were standing off to the side, the latter looking considerably more apprehensive about this meeting than the former.

Twilight spent a few more moments looking between the two alleged witnesses to the fight before finally returning their salute. “At ease.” Both ponies shifted slightly, but neither looked particularly ‘at ease’ with what was happening. “Lieutenant Spitfire. Airpony Soarin.” Her amethyst gaze darted to each pony in turn. “I’m told that the two of you saw how the fight in town started.” Twilight sat back in her seat and steepled her hooves. “Tell me what happened.”

Lieutenant Spitfire spoke first. “Yes, ma’am! Soa—Airpony Soarin and I happened to be in the area at the time. We saw the whole thing. That stallion—the one who died? He threw the first kick.” Beside her, the light blue pegasus stallion nodded in agreement.

When it became evident that nothing further was going to be offered by way of a statement from either pony, Twilight looked over at the earth pony in charge of the investigation. Applejack shook her head and frowned. “Ah’m gonna need more than that. Ah don’t suppose either o’you two saw why Sage Brush kicked that zebra mare?

“Ah’m assumin’ that the stallion didn’t jus’ happen to come down with a case of ‘stupid’ and pick a fight with a buncha zebra marines because he was bored…”

Twilight agreed that they’d need to understand the events leading up to the first kick to be thrown in order to truly be able to determine who ‘started’ the fight. She looked back to the pair, her eyes shifting between the mare and stallion in search of further elaboration on what they saw. She noticed Soarin’s eyes dart in the direction of his superior.

“The lieutenant was the only one in a position to see what happened before the first kick,” he admitted, and then flushed before clearing his throat. “I only saw what happened after.”

Spitfire winced slightly, also looking a little more uncomfortable now. “I…wasn’t watching what was going on outside before the kick. I was…distracted.” She shifted nervously on her hooves. “But I heard a lot of yelling. I heard the pony soldiers telling the zebras to watch where they were going, and that they weren’t welcome at that bar.”

“How do you know it was the ponies who said that?” Applejack asked. “It could have been the zebras.”

Spitfire shook her head. “I heard the zebras talking too; they speak Equestrian with a completely different accent. It was definitely the ponies telling the zebras to leave.”

Applejack nodded, apparently satisfied with the lieutenant’s explanation for how she’d identified the speakers. “So there was yellin’ an’ then the stallion—Sage Brush—bucked at the zebra mare an’ so she bucked back and killed him?”

“Not at first,” Soarin said. “That stripe got bucked in the face by his first kick, but she backed up and dodged the next two. She didn’t start swinging back until she and her buddies got boxed in by other ponies.”

“It looked like the ponies wanted that fight,” Lieutenant Spitfire added. “They were all laughing and cheering. Until that green stallion dropped and didn’t get back up.”

“Suddenly everypony was trying to break up the fight after that,” Soarin chimed back in. He glanced at Twilight and Applejack. “You two showed up about a minute later.”

“An’ where were you two that y’all saw all of this?” Applejack asked. “Y’all weren’t there on the street. Leastways, Ah don’t recall seein’ either o’ya.”

There was a pronounced pause from the two ponies now as they exchanged looks. “We were across the street,” Spitfire finally responded with a sigh, “...on the second floor. We saw it from the window.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. Rainbow Dash winced. Twilight frowned. She wasn’t familiar enough with Harmony to know where and what every building in the civilian quarter was, and she certainly hadn’t been concerned with the nature of the buildings surrounding the fight that morning. Not that it really mattered much, as far as she was concerned; as long as it was good enough for Applejack.

Twilight was looking in the direction of the commander of her military police force once more. “So, captain? What do you think?”

The orange earth pony stopped smirking in the direction of the pair of pegasi and looked at her commander. “Ah think Ah got a better idea o’what happened. Enough to confront the other ponies involved in the fight, at least. Ah'll see what their story is after mentioning some of the details these two here talked about.

“Right now though, my workin’ theory is that it sounds like some drunk ponies didn’t like a buncha stripes comin’ down to drink at ‘their’ bar an’ got rowdy about it. Rowdier than they should have, certainly.”

Twilight nodded. That was along the lines of her own thinking at the moment too. “If that zebra marine really did get hit first, and if she dodged multiple other kicks before finally hitting back…I’m inclined not to press charges against her regardless. At best it was self-defense; at worst an accident in a fight she didn’t want or start.

“Either way, I don’t see a reason to make any kind of incident out of this with the zebras.” She received a provisional nod of agreement from Applejack. “I’ll have a message sent to Ambassador Zecora letting her know I’ll be dropping the matter.

“Though I will still want to see your official findings on the matter, captain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Applejack said with a nod.

Twilight looked back at the two pegasi standing in front of her desk. “Thank you both for coming forward with this. If we need anything further from you, I’ll let Captain Rainbow Dash know.

“Dismissed.”

Both fliers snapped back to attention and saluted before making a—very relieved—exit. Once the door closed behind them, Twilight heard Applejack sniggering, while the cerulean pegasus merely massaged her temple with a hoof. The purple unicorn frowned. “So, do either of you want to tell me what was across the street from the bar?”

“The No-Tell Motel,” Rainbow Dash answered with a groan.

Applejack provided some clarification when Twilight raised a brow. “Its actual name is: The Open Hooves Inn, but everypony calls it that,” she nodded in the pegasus captain’s direction, “on account of it havin’ somethin’ of a ‘reputation’.”

Twilight sighed and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Fraternization. Great.”

“I dealt with it,” Rainbow Dash insisted. “They're in different squadrons now; there’s no more chain-of-command issue.”

“That only solves part of the issue!” Twilight said, sounding more than a little annoyed. “She’s an officer, he’s an enlisted pony; if they’re involved in a physical relationship—”

“I promised them that coming forward wouldn’t hurt their careers!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “They trusted me, and I won’t betray that trust.

“We’re working on a solution.”

Twilight managed to bite back a retort, but only barely. The unicorn acknowledged that she had, indeed, assured Rainbow that there wouldn’t be any official record of what the witnesses were doing at the time they saw the fight. To take any action now would mean going back on that assurance. She didn’t want to set a precedent among her officers that she couldn’t be trusted to keep her word.

“Fine.” The word wasn’t uttered without a noticeable amount of strain. “They’re your ponies; I’ll let you handle them. But do handle them, captain.” She said with a stern look. Rainbow Dash nodded.

The purple mare took a cleansing breath and let it out slowly. “Alright. So…Applejack can get back to her investigation and you’ll deal with the fraternization. I guess that concludes everything we needed to deal with right now.

“You two are dismissed. Applejack, let me know when you’re ready to file your official report. I’ll try and talk with Ambassador Zecora after I’m done with my lunch.” Twilight cast a forlorn look at the certainly now quite cold remains of her meal.

Both captains nodded and turned to leave. They were halfway to the door when it burst open and a frantic-looking Major Rarity rushed in. “Colonel! It’s the Dominance; they’re leaving!”

Twilight was out of her seat, her lunch forgotten in the face of the sudden revelation. “What?!” The unicorn’s mind reeled with the news. Ambassador Zecora had assured her that the ship would remain at the fortress throughout the duration of the investigation. So either the Zebrican representative had lied, or Kapteni Trafalgar was making a run for it to protect his marines. The unicorn wasn’t sure she cared much for either explanation.

She was on her hooves and cantering for the door a moment later. The rest of her officers were following close on her cannons. There wasn’t any point in heading for the docks, nothing that Harmony Fortress had access to in the way of ships would be able to catch the zebra cruiser. To say nothing of being able to do anything to stop it even if they did. Twilight had a fleeting thought of ordering Rainbow Dash to scramble one of her pegasi squadrons to intercept it, but…

She didn’t foresee many scenarios where ponies trying to stop the zebras from leaving ended with anything but more casualties and only further exacerbated the situation.

Besides, if what Spitfire and Soarin had told them about the fight bore out, then there wasn’t any reason to retain the zebra marines anyway. Their leaving wouldn’t create any real issue where criminal proceedings were concerned, other than not having the—apparent—victim of the Equestrian soldiers’ assault present to testify if they court-martialed the ponies for starting the fight that led to a death.

None of that helped to alleviate the sense of betrayal that Twilight was feeling though. Zecora had promised!

All four ponies poured out onto one of The Citadels lookouts. Rainbow Dash wasted no time in taking to the air, but the pegasus didn’t go far. Presumably, she’d reached some of the same conclusions that Twilight had regarding the myriad of—fatal—ways trying to intercept the cruiser could end. She still didn’t look happy about the ship leaving though, and glared at it fiercely.

Twilight too wasn’t wearing a very happy expression on her face as she watched the zebra vessel moving through the water and start to turn…

…Towards the fortress.

The purple unicorn blinked in mild surprise as she tried to puzzle out what Trafalgar was doing. Because if he was leaving Harmony Fortress waters, then he was doing so in the least expeditious way possible. Twilight—very briefly—entertained the notion that the ship was preparing to engage in an attack of some sort, to the point that she almost ordered Applejack to go and round up a few of the batteries to ready some guns just in case.

Then the cruiser initiated another turn, shifting course until it was steaming parallel with the fortress’ perimeter.

“What in tarnation are they doin’?”

Twilight wished she had an answer for the earth pony. However, she was just as confused by the cruiser’s actions. She supposed that they might be trying to go around the island to head in that direction…? But there certainly wouldn’t have been any reason to get as close as they had, if that was the case. All they were doing was increasing their risk of hitting some particularly shallow shoals.

“I…I think I know,” Rainbow Dash said. She wasn’t glaring anymore. In fact, her eyes looked quite haunted. She raised a hoof towards the no-longer-quite-so-distant cruiser. “Forward mast; starboard yardarm.”

Twilight followed the pegasus’ directions and focused her gaze on the ship.

Her breath hitched in her throat.

“Lan’ sakes…” Came Applejack’s breathless epithet as she caught sight of it too. Rarity merely placed a hoof over her mouth to stifle the gasp.

“No…” Twilight heard the breathless word, but didn’t immediately recognize it as having come from herself.

All four ponies stood in silence on the lookout, watching as the Dominance continued on its journey around the island fortress. They weren’t leaving, Twilight recognized. They were broadcasting a message. The zebras were giving Harmony’s inhabitants an opportunity to see that they had addressed the issue of an Equestrian dying at the hooves of a Zebrican:

From the yardarm of the cruiser closest to the island, hung the body of a zebra mare wearing a crimson coat.

Author's Note

“Politics in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

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