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Iron Hearts: Book 1 - Planetfall

by SFaccountant

Chapter 1: First Contact

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Iron Hearts

Book 1

Planetfall

by SFaccountant


Disclaimer: I have no bloody idea what I'm doing.

Legal disclaimer: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro. Warhammer 40,000 is owned by Games Workshop.


Punctuation key: "Dialogue in Gothic", *Dialogue in Tau language*, +Dialogue in Binary+, Non-aural dialogue, such as telepathy


Dramatis personae:

Iron Warriors 38th Company

Solon - Warsmith, devotee of Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord, devotee of Khorne

Sliver - Vice Commander, devotee of Nurgle

Serith - Sorcerer

Kessler - Warpsmith

Dest - rhino driver

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos, Company Executor

Diomen - Dark Techpriest

Gaela - Dark Acolyte




Imperial database file 38196-646C

Rogue Chaos fleet "38th Company"


Classification level: secundus

Unit Composition: Renegade Astartes of the Iron Warriors legion, designation traitorous excommunicatus, various mercenary and pirate raiders, and Dark Mechanicus detachments

Fleet Composition: most reports place the company's fleet assets at 8 - 10 ships, ranging in size from a battlecruiser-sized megafreighter to small escort frigates. All are based on recognized Imperial pattern civilian vessels, and are designed to register as freighters and transports to low-intensity scans. These vessels have all been heavily modified to serve as effective combat craft, although it is believed they still utilize a great deal of their original cargo capacity.

Confirmed activity: there have been four hundred and sixty-nine confirmed incursions into Imperial space by the Iron Warriors 38th Company, and at least a hundred more suspected incursions in which there was not enough evidence remaining to determine that it was not the work of some other traitor legion operating in Imperial territory, such as the Alpha Legion or Night Lords. There are also 55 confirmed cases of this fleet operating in xeno space and contested regions; the fleet will apparently assault Ork installations and has been spotted numerous times on the Eastern fringe, raiding Tau colonies. There is even a confirmed report of the fleet assaulting a Necron tomb world.

Tacticae analysis: the primary objective of the fleet seems to be mass scavenging and piracy in order to feed the voracious appetite for material resources demanded by the Iron Warriors' sieges and fortifications. They primarily strike at Imperial supply lines, but not with the intensity of an enemy seeking to disrupt a war effort. The 38th Company prefers military equipment, but has been known to attack Adeptus Mechanicus research outposts and poorly defended agri-worlds regularly.

Learned Inquisitors will note that the objectives and tactics of pirate raiders sit at odds with the Iron Warriors' usual specializations in siege warfare and heavy fortification, and field reports suggest that their Legion orthodoxy tends to complicate their ability to engage targets quickly, capture them with minimal damage, and escape reprisal.

On the other hand, the 38th Company is extremely well-supplied thanks to their efforts, suffering little of the material shortages and equipment degradation that constantly plague other traitor Legions. In addition, the fleet, although small, possesses a number of unique technological artifacts salvaged from their raids, along with the usual assortment of heretical xenotech and accursed Warp sorcery that one would expect from the soldiers of Chaos.

On the battlefield, the 38th Company shows the usual preference for heavy weaponry and attention to their firing lines characteristic of the Iron Warriors, along with strategic attention to mobility in order to move captured supplies to the fleet's holds as soon as possible and escape an aggravated response. They use orbital-dropped weapon emplacements and temporary defensive walls extensively, and their rapid-built fortifications are often left behind in their withdrawal from their engagement zones, which has made it much easier for our inquisitors to confirm their activities.

Unusually for pawns of the Great Enemy, their combat zones rarely show many traces of the Warp-based corruption and heretical rituals typical of the Chaos legions, and most sites that have fallen victim to their attacks have been cleared by the Emperor's Inquisition as fit for rebuilding. They strike, they fortify, they scavenge, and they leave. Were it not for their combat forces consisting of traitor Astartes, they would be nothing more than common pirates, and be treated as such. Unfortunately, as they are the remnants of a traitor Legion, the Imperium cannot afford a limited response. The traitors must be destroyed entirely, and all traces of their existence purged.

History: records recovered from the forbidden archives detail the 38th Company being a combat group in the Iron Warriors' battalions dedicated exclusively to logistics and guarding supply lines. Given that siegeworks and fortifications require extensive supplies and expert management, the traitor Primarch thought it prudent for each of his Grand Battalions to dedicate an entire company to managing, scavenging, and protecting the Legion's resources rather than leaving such inglorious duties to Imperial Army detachments or Mechanicus aides like almost all other legions did before the Heresy. Regardless, even in the Iron Warriors, a legion that specialized in the most grueling and tedious aspects of warfare, this was considered a punishment detail. It is rumored that Solon, the Chaos Warsmith that commands the Company today, is the same Techmarine Solon that originally commanded the 21st Grand Battalion's 38th Company when the Legion betrayed their oaths to the Emperor, but our analysts find that theory to be highly unlikely. Presumably the name is an honorary title, or perhaps the result of some other ritual demanded by the Warp-addled traitors.

The modern incarnation of the 38th Company is, obviously, considerably larger than a military company component; Inquisitors who have interrogated captured soldiers from the group and studied its history believe that the fleet is composed of several surviving battalions' 38th Companies cobbled together and given duties that fulfill their old purpose with methods more appropriate for traitors and renegades. Why the fleet refers to itself under its old, obsolete, and inaccurate designation is unclear; some suggest it is simply a lack of respect for conventional military organization, while others suppose that the Company is still used as a dumping grounds for unwanted and incompetent traitor Marines, and the title is imposed upon it as a gesture of contempt by the Legion that depends on its efforts. In any case, the fleet's name is hardly important so long as Imperial forces recognize that it is not limited to a single company's worth of soldiers.

Recommended response: the 38th Company's outsize military strength and experience render them all but invulnerable to typical security measures used to combat pirate raiders. However, the relatively small size of the fighting force, combined with their unimpressive skill at infiltration and stealth, mean that they are unable to approach moderately sized military targets and must constantly be on the move to avoid retribution from Imperial fleets. In addition, their Legion combat doctrines encourage their forces to prepare a defense against resistance rather than move on, which causes the fleet to linger longer than it should in the face of overwhelming firepower. As such, this can be the only rational response once an incursion by the 38th Company Iron Warriors is detected.


Thought for the day: Let your pity beget wrath, not mercy; death is the greater kindness to the enemies of the Emperor.




Chapter 1

First Contact


In a large treehouse in the middle of Ponyville, a small purple alicorn yawned lightly over the weathered pages of her book.

It was the latest of many, obviously, and her previous conquests lay in an uneven stack on one side, while those tomes that hadn't yet been opened lay in a slightly neater and noticeably smaller stack on her other side. The soft glow of the alicorn's horn mixed with the candlelight currently illuminating the room as it slowly turned one page after another. Outside, meanwhile, night had already fallen, and a web of stars were scattered over the sky through the window of the treehouse's observatory.

"Twilight, you want some tea?" asked Spike, the tiny dragon walking up behind the alicorn with a steaming cup in his hand.

Twilight seemed slightly startled at being interrupted, but flashed the dragon a grateful smile. "Thank you, Spike. You can go to bed now, though, if you'd like."

Spike tilted his head to one side. He'd seen this sight before many times, which is why he'd known to get the tea without being asked. "You in for a long night?"

"Yeah. Well, maybe. It depends," Twilight admitted, "I'm just trying to identify a gemstone for Rarity, but I haven't been having any luck."

At the mention of Rarity Spike's ear fins perked up. "Oh? Where is it?"

Twilight resisted smirking and tilted her head toward the bookshelf. Lying on one shelf was a fist-sized gem that was cut into a strangely uneven polyhedron. It was a dull green streaked with blues, although at a glance Spike could see that there seemed to be a red shimmer within it. He guessed that was the stone's unusual quality that was complicating its identification.

"Now don't go eating that," Twilight warned, using her sternest voice.

Surprisingly, rather than getting upset or annoyed, Spike instead looked somewhat repulsed. "Not a chance. That looks like it'd taste awful."

"Oh," Twilight said blankly, blinking, "uh... good." She really had no idea that there were bad-tasting gems. in fact, she wasn't totally clear on the concept of gems having different flavors to begin with. She wondered why it wasn't mentioned in any of the gemology books she had been studying.

"Need any help?" Spike asked eagerly, eyeing the stack of books that Twilight had yet to open.

"Actually, yes," the purple alicorn said, standing up as she levitated her tea cup to her lips. After taking a sip, she continued. "Normally I'd be happy to spend all night researching, but obviously there's a lot of overlap between gemstone field guides, and it gets boring to read the same survey information over and over again. If you could..."

Spike had already picked up the first book on her unread pile and was flipping through it, casting occasional glances at the gemstone on the bookshelf. With a shrug and a small smile, Twilight turned toward the balcony and the telescope positioned at the edge.

Walking outside and putting her hooves up on the railing, she took a moment to appreciate the cool breeze flowing through her mane and wings while she looked up at the stars.

"Hey, Twilight," said Spike suddenly from inside, startling her again.

"What? Did you find it already?" Twilight asked, turning her head back. She would be almost upset if Spike happened to identify the rock in minutes out of sheer luck when she had been searching for hours.

"No, but I was just wondering if maybe this gem isn't in any of the books. What if it's a completely new type?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "A completely new type? Kind of unlikely. There must be thousands of gems listed and pictured in those books."

"Well, I was just asking. I mean, the library wouldn't be of any help if it were a new type, right? Hey, do you think it would get named after Rarity?"

Twilight tilted her head to one side. "I... suppose? I don't really know how that comes about. Rarity said she found that on the bottom of a sack of emeralds, probably from a seller who was hoping their customer wouldn't know the difference. She would have returned it, but it was so big and unique that she thought it might actually be more valuable than another emerald."

"Rarimite? Nah. Rarilite? Meh. Ooh, Raricite!"

Twilight rolled her eyes when she realized her assistant wasn't listening, and she went back to stargazing.

How much knowledge could still be out there, really? How many wonders could have escaped everypony's attention since they first started keeping records thousands of years ago? She had to admit that she herself had run into quite a few bizarre creatures and phenomena that she had never seen in books, but her case as Celestia's student was quite unique. And even then Celestia herself would usually know a thing or two about it, being a living repository of knowledge greater than any library.

She found old knowledge comforting. It was a beaten path, studied and scrutinized into submission.

But still, staring up at the stars, Twilight's thoughts lingered on Spike's question. How much was there left to discover and study? And, more importantly, how much of it might suddenly end up on her doorstep by sheer chance?

"Oh, wow!" the alicorn gasped as she saw a few streaks of light cross the starry sky. "A meteor shower!"

"Really? Let me see!" Spike asked, distracted from his research and rushing outside.

Twilight shifted to the side so Spike could join her, her eyes locked on the sky. Short bursts of light, like tiny lances, would appear briefly, streaking across the stars before vanishing. Well, some of them did, anyway.

"Why are some of them so short?" Spike asked, noticing that some of the streaks of light would appear for barely a moment before terminating.

Twilight considered it. "They could be moving into a configuration where they reflect less light, or perhaps they collided with something."

Suddenly, a spot of light in the sky flared brilliantly, and Twilight's eyes widened as she saw a star increase in brightness ten-fold before vanishing entirely.

"What was THAT?" Spike asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"A nova! I think we just saw a nova!" Twilight said excitedly, turning toward her assistant.

Seeing his puzzled look, she elaborated. "When a star runs out of fuel to burn, it collapses on itself, generating a burst of tremendous energy and light!"

"Oh. So a star went out just now?" asked the dragon.

"Well, no, not just now," Twilight explained, "that star could have collapsed millions of years ago for all we know, and its light is only now reaching us." Twilight stepped down and then started making adjustments to her telescope. It seemed to be an exciting night for astronomy, and since she was up anyway (and making little progress identifying rocks), she decided to make the most of it.

"Oh, hey, there's another one."

Twilight's head snapped up at Spike's voice, and she stared as the second nova in as many minutes twinkled out.

"That's... Wow. That's pretty unlikely," Twilight said slowly, returning to her telescope. "But I suppose it can happen."

"Hey, what're those little spots of light surrounding the meteors?" Spike asked, pointing a claw skyward. He had noticed that they seemed to precede and follow the second nova; tiny flares that flickered briefly, like glitter.

"I'll get back to you on that," Twilight said absently, turning her telescope carefully toward the region of sky they had been observing.

When she put her eye to the viewing lens, however, she was more than a little disappointed.

"Spike, is the lens cap on?"

The baby dragon raised an eyebrow. "No. Why?" Twilight had just prepared the telescope herself; how would she miss such an obvious detail?

The alicorn groaned, wondering what was wrong. For some reason, the entire field of vision through the telescope was blue. And not a bright, starry nebula blue, but a dull, dark matte blue that made her think that something was in the way. She even thought she could see some details of texture on the surface, like a line of rivets covered by paint. Weird.

Pulling her eyes away from the lens, she couldn't see anything in the way of her view. She returned her eye to the viewing end, and then engulfed the magnification wheel in her magic so that she could slowly start decreasing magnification.

"Okay, let's see if... if that... what?" Twilight frowned as more details of the obstruction started to come into focus. Matte blue gave way to black. As the focus spread, it gave way to blue again, and Twilight could see that the black part was just a thick stripe painted across an otherwise blue surface. "Wait... what IS that? That's not..."

The surface seemed covered with protrusions of various sizes and shapes. Some were large and bulky, shaped from the surface material itself. Others were small and mounted atop the surface, and some of these ones moved as they spat light from the ends of steaming gun barrels. Others had less obvious shapes or functions, being in the shape of long fins or clusters of rods.

The telescope magnification continued to decrease, although Twilight wasn't really thinking about that anymore. Her jaw hung completely open as the image slowly shrunk to fit within the view taken in by the telescope, to the point that she could finally see the edges of actual space around the vessel.

"Twilight? You okay?" Spike asked. He could see that her magic seemed curiously unfocused, and the telescope was rattling slightly as it shook in her telekinetic grip.

Vessel. Yes, she was sure of it now. There was an actual space craft of some sort hovering in the view afforded by her telescope. It spat darts of blue light out constantly, and with more or less the whole thing in view, she could see that what she presumed to be the rear of the vessel was smoldering and broken, the hull having been sheared through and the damaged remains glowing fiercely as gases and hot debris vented into space.

"Twilight?" Spike tried again.

Twilight ignored him, her mind trying clumsily to come to terms with what she was looking at. It didn't help much that her magic was now virtually strangling the telescope without her attention, causing the entire thing to shake, but she hardly let such petty distractions intrude on her thoughts as she stared at what she was absolutely sure was a space ship.

And then the space ship buckled, exploding into light as it snapped in half.

And then, with a sharp crack, so did Twilight's telescope.


****


Harvest of Steel - inner system


The echoing thud of metal boots on the deck plating interrupted the constant whine of alarm klaxons blaring through the vast halls. The space battle had entered its fourth hour, and the victors were seeing to their repairs as their fleet subdued the last of its foes.

A Dark Mechanicus acolyte led the way through the otherwise abandoned deck, her body encased from head to toe in thick, segmented power armor. A pair of servo arms hung over her shoulders like scorpion tails waiting to strike, one boasting a typical hydraulic claw while the other sported an array of needles, drills, melta cutters, and even a laser emitter. Her face was a sealed mask, with a pair of tubes running from the cheeks down behind her back, and though one eye was covered by a simple green vision lens, the other boasted a small array of whirling and twitching sensor lenses and optic scanners. A black robe of vulcanized rubber completed the ensemble, the back of it stamped with a grinning metal skull. The only hint to her gender was an unmistakable bulge in her chest armor; an utterly unnecessary accommodation, if one were to ask most Techpriests, since female breasts were practically vestigial, but one her armor nonetheless took into account.

"We're here. Double-check your suit seals," the Dark Acolyte barked, not glancing back.

Behind her were two men in void suits pushing a mag-lev cart. The cart held several huge plates of metal, each one etched from top to bottom with hymns in painstaking Binary.

The Acolyte approached a console next to the blast doors leading into the next section of the ship, raising her right hand. Unlike her left, which was fairly slender even taking into account the layers of adamantium and ceramite, her right arm was entirely augmetic; a blocky monster of metal and twitching wires with fingers. Moving it over the console, thread-like mechadendrites seeped out of her fingers and danced over the console controls. In moments the screen began to flash repeatedly, and she gradually overrode the security control codices.

After nearly a minute, the red lights vanished and the great rotary lock on the blast doors started to turn.

The two men in void suits turned off the mag-lev engine, letting the cart fall heavily to the floor, and then they braced themselves against its formidable weight as the doors cracked open.

The Dark Acolyte activated her mag-lock greaves with but a thought, securing the soles of her feet to the floor. The door opened more fully, and atmosphere was rapidly sucked out of the abandoned corridor and into the next stretch of hall. Her robes whipped about her for several seconds, and then fell back into place as depressurization completed.

The blast doors continued to open further, and before long the Acolyte was staring into the blood-red visor of a horned helmet as a figure appeared at the doorway with the intention of passing the other way.

The Chaos Space Marine stood more than a foot over even her servo arms, and his armor was a thick, gleaming shell of brushed steel trimmed with gold paint. His shoulder pads - one bearing the silver skull of the Iron Warriors Legion and the other the eight-pointed Star of Chaos - were painted black, though the matte patch seeming to emphasize the lack of color rather than alleviate it.

The Iron Warrior nodded to the humans, and his vox communications system crackled as it connected to hers.

"Dark Acolyte Gaela. The breach is thirty-two meters down. Gravity is off-line. Proceed."

The Iron Warrior pushed forward without another word, glad to be freed from the lockdown imposed after a hull breach but unwilling to speak thanks for it. The three humans quickly moved out of his way, letting the polished giant into the adjoining corridor.

The moment he was past, Gaela and her helpers moved into the breached corridor to begin their repairs. As the Iron Warrior had said, artificial gravity had failed in the damaged section, and the mag-lev cart automatically detected the change and switched off its magnetic field emitter. The two men in void suits struggled to guide their cargo in microgravity, but Gaela herself walked forward silently and easily, her gait only slightly slower with her boots magnetically gripping the floor.

The Chaos Space Marine had been fine despite the hull breach, but he had not been the only one in the corridor. The dead and disfigured bodies of the ship crew and deck slaves, none of whom were lucky enough to be wearing a void-rated armor suit at the time of the lockdown, floated about the corridor haphazardly. Gaela pushed the ones in her path aside without a thought, and her two lackeys were hardly any more sentimental as they moved toward the breach. The ship's walls, cluttered as they were with floating equipment and corpses, seemed to quiver and writhe the closer they got to the damage.

Soon enough, they reached the hole in the bulkhead. Here the ship's pain became too obvious to write off as wild imagination or misplaced empathy; the confines of the corridor had contracted inward, and the metal around the hole in the bulkhead pulsed visibly as wires and piping leaked fluids and heat into the void.

"How do you think the grayskins managed to get a hit in without breaking through the void shields?" asked one of Gaela's helpers through the vox.

"Tau tech is tricky like that. Very adaptable, and usually new. It's not like fighting Eldar, who were using their modern armaments back when fire was a novelty to us," the Acolyte responded, staring through the breach into the void.

Though a mere two meters at most, she could see the Tau fleet, broken and burning, through the hole.

A xeno battlecruiser glided forward powerlessly through the void, locked in the first phase of a long maneuver it never completed. Its hull was peppered with boarding torpedoes, and its reactor silenced. Along with its crew.

The scorched remains of an escort cruiser and two destroyers marked the path of a vessel in full retreat, slipping out of the relatively short-ranged weapons of the modified freighters. And leaning to one side, she could make out the edges of the hull of the Tau command cruiser. Its body was coiled in massive metal tendrils that originated from the bow of the Harvest of Steel, gaping open like a kraken's beak. The tentacles sought out the energy discharges of gun emplacements and sensor towers and ripped the equipment from its moorings, drawing them greedily into the "cargo bay" that dominated the bulk of the megafreighter. Before long any craft caught in the deadly assault tendrils was helpless, immobile... and within arm's reach of almost five hundred Chaos Space Marines.

As Gaela's helpers started pushing the bulkhead seal into place, the alarm klaxon cut out. The battle was over.

"Quickly," the Dark Acolyte spoke into the vox, "Warsmith Solon will want a report as soon as possible."

With the metal plate before her, Gaela spread her armored and augmetic fingers over the acid-etched surface, feeling the thrumming energy of the ship slowly creeping its way into the accursed metal.

Her servo tool went to work immediately, a laser welder pushing to the fore and the other assorted spikes and drills peeled away. As she began welding the patch of metal into place, she started speaking a rite of healing in Binaric Cant, and her voice was carried in harsh, electrostatic bursts through her armor nerve couplings and down to her fingers.

The pair of unaugmented humans holding the metal patch in place watched with nervous awe as the tiny markings of binary code lit up in red, digit by digit, in rapid succession down the surface of the plate. The hallway started to expand around them, and the bulkheads shifted like a muscle being relaxed. Before long tubing had emerged from the damaged bulkhead and was crawling across the surface of the plate, wires burrowing into its edges like hungry worms. They could not hear the chant, for Gaela had deactivated her vox, but they could see its effects: the ship eagerly patched its wound, devouring the material and turning it to its purpose.

Before long the ritual was complete, and Gaela stepped back before giving an electronic signal.

Her assistants promptly collapsed as gravity was suddenly restored, and the hiss of air being pushed once more into the corridor marked the beginning of repressurization. Within minutes the crew would be able to move through this section again without void suits, and in a few hours the Harvest of Steel will have "fleshed out" the metal patch to restore the bulkhead and exterior armor to its former thickness. Nothing but the "scar" of the Tau's weapons upon the deck plating would remain.

One of hundreds of thousands that decorated the corridors, to be certain.

"Dark Acolyte Gaela, Warssmith Ssolon requesstss a battle report," buzzed the vox in her ear.

"Affirmative, Lord Sliver. I'm beginning the data upload now. I'll be at the main forge in six minutes." She began walking away from the two men assisting her, and they quickly scurried off. They were quite eager to get away from a portion of the ship that was busy healing, and actively consuming material in order to do so.

The vox cut out without a reply.


Precisely six minutes later, Gaela was standing in front of a set of reinforced blast doors that stretched into a ceiling fifteen meters high. At her side and slightly ahead of her was another Iron Warrior. This one wore the massive tactical dreadnought armor, usually referred to as terminator armor.

The difference in his attire to that of the other Chaos Space Marines passing through the forge decks extended to more than just its bulk, however. Unlike the others, Sliver's armor was pitted and badly tarnished, with rust caking the joints and small tears in the rubber cables that leaked a foul-smelling oil. If one didn't know better one would think the Chaos Lord took atrocious care of his equipment, in stark contrast to his brother Astartes. Those that did know better usually noticed the three green circles arranged in a triangle on Sliver's left shoulder pad and kept their criticisms to themselves.

The pair of them stood in silence, facing the doors. Behind them, Dark Magi and their Acolytes and servants scurried to and fro, walking between workshops and armories while exchanging blurts of Binary.

They were in high spirits; this battle had been a good one, and yielded a great deal of intact xenotech. A wealth of parts, materials, and most importantly, secrets would soon be theirs to turn into fresh weapons and marvelous new tools. Such thoughts distracted Gaela's thoughts as well, although she made sure to keep the details of her battle report at the forefront of her mind.

All too soon, the doors to the primary forge rumbled open, and she prepared to enter behind Sliver. Toxic smoke poured from the enclosure and crawled along the ceiling before being sucked into the life support systems, and her external thermometer clocked a considerable increase in the room temperature from the rush of heated air.

Finally the doors finished opening and Sliver started moving forward, his armored bulk leaving grimy footprints behind him. Gaela followed a moment later.

The main forge was, as always, littered with junk, technological treasures, and innumerable artifacts that were making the transition from one to the other. Piles of Eldar weapons lay next to splintered Wraithbone and small, scuttling drones. Tau power systems were bolted into the walls with countless sensors and transformers attached to cages imprisoning snarling daemons. A few Necron gauss weapons were integrated into a massive treaded vehicle, with small chunks of writhing metal sitting in pits of molten slag nearby. And everywhere one looked, Imperial equipment and materials lay stacked in neat piles or shattered heaps of debris, testament to a thousand experiments and heralding thousands more to come.

"Ah, Shliver. Acolyte Gaela. Good, you're here. You may proceed with the shtrategic debriefing."

Sliver and Gaela stopped at once at the sound of Warsmith Solon's familiar slur emanating from a badly clogged vox grille.

The Warsmith hung over the forge like a spider, his lower torso consisting of a flat, broad base supported by six huge, arachnoid metal legs. His upper torso mostly consisted of his gene-enhanced Astartes heritage, along with a suit of power armor that had long ago sealed against its bearer's flesh and become more an exoskeleton than a piece of wargear. Numerous devices buzzed and fizzled from where they were mounted on Solon's chassis, along with a massive servo claw hanging over his head like a crane and a pair of prodigious smokestacks mounted on the rear that leaked vile chemicals into the recycled air of Solon's forge.

On a segmented strip of metal that hung down from his abdominal link between torso and chassis, Gaela could see the Mark of Nurgle corroded into the surface in a nasty imitation of the acid-etching process. Like Sliver, Solon worshiped the Plague God, but somehow managed to be less... obvious about it in his form. Although Solon's armor leaked foul oils and the toxic gases emitted from his exhaust stacks inexplicably contained a number of dangerous microbes, he seemed to be free of the more obvious corrosion that Sliver suffered from.

Not that any follower of Nurgle would consider corrosion something to be avoided, but Gaela's extensive knowledge of technology suggested that most equipment worked better without it.

"Warssmith Ssolon," Sliver began, slurring his speech as well. Even in this, Sliver seemed somehow "dirtier" than his master; Solon sounded as if he was speaking through an ill-fitting rebreather. Sliver gave the impression of a man talking through a mouthful of phlegm.

"The battle hass been concluded. We are victoriouss. Four of the Tau shipss have been captured, one with heavy damage. Nine brotherss have been wounded, and twelve killed during boarding."

He paused to take a heavy breath, and noxious gases seeped from the drum-shaped mask filter mounted on the chin of his helmet. The single large optics lens in the middle of it seemed to glow slightly when he spoke, though whether that effect was from data readouts, some emotional response, or a system malfunction Gaela couldn't begin to guess.

"The enemy'ss lossess are beyond counting. However, we have captured three hundred and ninety-four of the xenoss alive. Of thosse, thirty-one are wounded and twenty are critically wounded, ssuch that they will need augmentss if they are to ssurvive.”

Solon turned back toward his work as he replied. “Bah. They are moshtly the Air Cashte of the Tau, I preshume? Not very usheful. Put them in the shlave holdsh. The sheverely wounded will be fed to the reactor core.”

“The Tau have petty, weak ssoulss, Warssmith,” Sliver warned, “their bodiess will provide little ssusstenance.”

“Washte not, want not,” Solon replied, pulling up his right hand.

Like Gaela's, it was an augmetic limb. Unlike Gaela's permanent arm, Solon had replaced his shoulder joint with a custom nerve socket so that he could insert different arms according to his immediate need. His present limb possessed a full dozen fingers splayed out in a circle rather than the configuration of a human palm, and gossamer threads hung from the pointed fingers as he spun a series of monofilament wires into something.

“Tell the lesh sherioushly wounded that we will reshtore them to health if they will shwear shervice to the Legion. If they agree, treat them and have them sherve the Dark Mechanicush in the captured void shipsh Once we get a handle on how to operate the veshelsh, we can move them to the shlave holdsh where they belong. Thoshe that refushe will join their crippled friendsh ash fuel.”

“As you wish, Warssmith,” Sliver said with a shallow bow, “as for void craft, we losst no vesselss. We desstroyed eight. One masss lander esscaped into a planetary orbit, however.”

Solon stopped fooling with the monofilaments and his torso swiveled to face Sliver, staring down at his second in command through a dozen glimmering red optical lenses. “A transhport?”

“Yess... it would sseem that thiss wass a xeno ssurvey fleet for the Tau'ss colonization effortss,” Sliver continued, “they ssaw uss preparing a long-range Warp out of the ssysstem and attacked, thinking uss Imperial ssmugglerss.”

A deep, crackling chuckle came from Solon's vox grille. “Well, they know better now, don't they? Shtill, I'm shurprished a ship got away.”

“It iss the fault of Captain Dandross,” Sliver growled, his single eye lens flaring briefly, “the captain concentrated fire on the battlecruisser rather than intercepting the sstragglerss... and well after it had been boarded, Warssmith. Ssuch a nervouss hand cannot be allowed at the helm of our esscortss.”

Solon cocked his head to one side, and one of the numerous mechatendrils that snaked from his back curled up to scratch at the spot under his vox grille. “Competent Captainsh are sho hard to find nowadaysh, are they not? And executing Dandrosh won't make it any eashier.”

“Then... you agree with hiss decissionss?” Sliver asked. His tone carried a hint of warning.

“Not at all!” Solon said, his legs clanking as he finally climbed down from his perch above his subordinates. “You have millennia of combat experience, Shliver! You carry microbesh older than that pup!”

The floor shook as Solon's chassis hopped down, and the Warsmith casually grabbed the bicep of his augmetic arm with his mostly biological one. With a twist and a click, the limb went dead and separated from his shoulder socket.

“However, any failure which endsh in a total victory and with one'sh ship intact ish a failure that one can learn from! I'd rather sharpen my toolsh than throw them away! Give the Captain a threatening reprimand and be done with it.”

Sliver was silent for several seconds before he shrugged the massive, horned pauldrons of his terminator armor. “Very well. There are many officerss who would be willing to take up hiss command, though.”

Solon dropped his augmetic arm to the side, and Gaela winced as the monofilament wires collapsed onto the floor, shaving off thin flakes of metal as they bounced about.

“If you feel they're ready for their firsht command, they can have one of the xeno shipsh after retrofit!” Solon said happily as one of his optical sensors generated a hololithic manifest before his eyes.

“Yess, well... I don't think that will be happening,” Sliver admitted.

Solon froze in his perusal of the ship's cargo. “Why not?”

Sliver tilted his head toward Gaela and finally stepped back.

“Warsmith, casualties among the crew were low. Fifty-nine in total. No officers or Dark Techpriests, luckily,” the Acolyte said, her head bowed.

Solon's head tilted to one side again. “That'sh more crew losht than marinesh. Did we shushtain much damage? I thought the ambush wash a total shuccesh.”

“In a way, we did,” Gaela said wryly, “you see, the Tau possessed a new weapon on their ships. Some sort of phase beam that seems unaffected by void shields. Damage output is poor, but it did allow them to inflict... strategic damage before we silenced their resistance. The destroyer escorts Crimson Dagger and Athal had their engines attacked, apparently in an effort to prevent them from pursuing the mass lander. Their Warp drives have been critically damaged. They can only achieve sub-light speed.”

“That'sh wonderful!” Solon said brightly, his chassis rising briefly. Then it immediately sunk again. “I mean, the part about ush capturing a new shield-piercing weapon. The part about it hitting ush ish quite unfortunate.”

“Yes, my lord. No doubt you're also well aware that Tau vessels do not have proper Warp drives. None of the captured ships will be able to maintain speed.”

Solon scratched his head with a mechatendril. “Sho what ish the repair time on the Warp drivesh?”

“We do not have the necessary facilities to repair them,” Gaela admitted, "I'm afraid the drives are a total loss, and I'm sure you're aware that such things require specialized equipment for manufacture."

“Pah! Technological artifactsh from every corner of the galaxy at my fingertipsh, and you're telling me we can't build the mosht bashic of void ship componentsh?” Solon asked, annoyed. “What do you need to build it?”

“In lieu of a shipyard, we'd need a specialized manufactorum..."

“What about the Mechanicush craft we sheized in Haelim?” Solon asked, perking up.

“It would need to be properly deployed, my lord,” Gaela said cautiously, “we seized it from an Adeptus Mechanicus colonizer; it was meant to be installed as a permanent settlement.”

“But it would work, wouldn't it?” Solon asked, looming over the armored woman.

“Warssmith,” Sliver interrupted, “it'ss quite likely that the distresss ssignal from the reconnaisssance fleet hass alerted a proper Tau battlefleet. We cannot linger here long enough to manufacture new Warp enginess.”

Solon lowered his head, staring at the assorted junk and devices that lay scattered under his arachnoid legs.

“Our holdss are full to burssting after assaulting the Mechanicuss deployment. If we are to maintain sschedule, we musst sscuttle the desstroyerss and make for Warp sspace.”

Solon continued staring at the floor, though the whir of gears and the occasional spark of electricity about his helmet betrayed activity.

Suddenly, his helmet snapped up. “Oh, Shliver, you know ash well ash anyone that the Legion will wait however long it needsh to in order for ush to bring their shuppliesh. And I'm hardly in a hurry to kick-shtart Abaddon'sh latesht shlap-fight with the Imperium.”

The Warsmith activated a system hololith, and Gaela stepped back as flickering images of the local system appeared before her.

“Tell me, what planet did the mash lander flee to?”

Sliver very reluctantly replied, “The third planet, Warssmith. It will likely land and deploy as ssoon as posssible, in order to better withsstand purssuit and bombardment.”

Solon tapped on the image of the third planet with a snake-like mechatendril, and a flood of data poured down the hololith in front of him. “Ah, Centaur III, ish it? What a lovely world! Prepare a battery of shcout probe automata and deploy them on the planet, Acolyte Gaela. I want to find a nice, rich metal lode in which to deploy the manufactorum.”

Sliver looked startled by the decision. “Warssmith? What of the xeno fleetss?”

“Have the damaged cruisher make an emergency landing on the planet shurface. We'll make defenshive batteriesh from itsh carcash, and put our windfall of materialsh and workersh toward a proper fortresh.”

An electric chuckle emanated from the corrupted Astartes. “Oh, I haven't deshigned a new fortresh shince Kamino! Thish will alsho allow ush adequate time to retrofit the xeno craft!”

Sliver glanced away. “Warssmith, thiss iss a very... rissky propossition.”

“No worthwhile endeavor wash ever without rishk! Now go! Get thoshe probesh deployed!” Solon said excitedly, his torso swiveling back toward his forge.

“I... ugh... yess, Warssmith. As you wish,” Sliver looked defeated as he turned on his heel, turning the massive bulk of his armor quickly enough that he almost slammed into Gaela.

The Dark Acolyte merely stepped out of the way, allowing the diseased Terminator to pass by. "As you say, my lord Warsmith. I will deploy the probes and prepare for landing on the planet's surface."

"Yesh, yesh, good!" Solon chirped through his vox, his legs scuttling rapidly over the clutter of his forge. "Fortificationsh, shtarship refitsh, and xeno hunting! Thish ish going to be shuch fun!"


****


Centaur III - Ponyville


Applejack hummed to herself while she made her way through town, the sun just cresting over the horizon. She was on her way to Twilight's library, although it was still a bit early for Twilight to be up.

Applejack figured it wouldn't matter. It would do Twilight good to get up early every once in a while. She approached the treehouse and knocked her hoof against the front door.

She had been planning to enjoy the sunrise until Twilight or Spike roused themselves or she got bored and let herself in, but to her surprise the door opened in a matter of moments.

Spike stared up at the apple farmer, his expression carefully neutral and bags hanging under his eyes.

"Applejack. Hi," the young dragon mumbled, obviously suppressing his annoyance and probably a yawn as well, "what brings you by?"

"Here ta get a book, is all," Applejack said, hearing some sort of commotion inside, "Ah'm lookin' into some new crops this year."

"Oh, okay. I'm not really sure if now is the best time, though," Spike said, scratching his head. He looked exhausted.

"Why's that? Twilight stirrin' up trouble again?" Applejack chuckled, stepping past the dragon and into the library proper.

She didn't make it very far.

"Oomph!" Applejack hit the floor on her back, her hat drifting off to the side. She honestly didn't know how it had happened, by magic or sheer frenzied force, but next thing she knew Twilight was standing on top of her, looking down with her eyes wide and panicked.

"Applejack! ALIENS!!" Twilight screamed, her gaze frenzied and unblinking.

"Yeah. So, that was MY night," Spike grumbled to the pinned pony, "how are you?"

"Uh... did Ah miss somethin'?" Applejack asked, staring up at the purple alicorn. Twilight's mane and tail were a mess, and her wings were unfolded and twitching, as if she were getting ready to take off at any moment.

Then, just as suddenly as she had been tackled, the farmpony was free again as Twilight stepped off of her.

"But really, I can't just tell you. What are you going to do about it? Need to get the word out!" Twilight slowly walked away from Applejack and Spike as she mumbled, giving the impression she wasn't talking to either of them. "SPIKE! Take a letter!"

"No," the dragon said blandly, surprising Applejack.

"Dear Princess Celestia: Today I have made a historic discovery, the nature of which may change..." Twilight seemed completely unaware that Spike wasn't writing as her words trailed off. "No, wait! It was yesterday! Spike! New letter!"

"Still not writing anything," Spike said, his hands on his hips.

"Dear Princess Celestia: ALIENS! SPACECRAFT! EXPLOSION! Sincerely, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." The alicorn paused, though it seemed to Applejack that her eyes were still moving rapidly for no apparent reason. "I should include more details, shouldn't I? Spike! Take a new letter!"

Spike turned to Applejack as the orange pony got up again. "She's been like this all night, coming up with letters to send out and then trashing them. Sometimes she'll forget about the letters and go rummaging through the books in a panic, but it never lasts before she starts pacing and dictating letters again."

Applejack looked over the library interior, noting that it was littered with crumpled parchment and scattered books.

"Eventually I stopped writing her letters, but I'm pretty sure she didn't notice," Spike said.

Applejack considered the frantic alicorn for several seconds, idly rubbing at her chin with her hoof. "What'd she see?"

"I have no idea," Spike sighed, "but whatever it was, it shocked her enough that she accidentally broke her telescope in half."

"What if they land here? What if they demand to see our leader?" Twilight wondered aloud, flipping through a book that Applejack could clearly see was upside-down. "Should I take them to Princess Celestia? Or is that what they expect me to do?"

"You might have noticed that Twilight thinks she saw aliens," Spike deadpanned.

"Silly me! How can they ask me anything? They exploded!" Twilight said, shaking her head and giggling to herself. "But wait! What if catastrophic exothermic reactions make them STRONGER? Why aren't there any books about this?!"

Applejack adjusted her hat as Twilight started stamping the floor furiously. "Alright Spike, Ah got this. Why doncha catch a nap?"

With that, the earth pony stepped up to the ravaged bookshelves and began searching for the book she had come for.

"Applejack!" Twilight shouted suddenly, turning sharply toward her friend. "ALIENS!"

"Yeah, so Ah heard," Applejack said casually, finding her book and grabbing it in her mouth.

She placed the book in her saddlebag, and then placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "Ah'm borrowin' this book, Twi. Now let's go out fer a trot."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Applejack, now is HARDLY the time for a leisurely stroll through Ponyville. Beings from another world are at our very doorstep! Or were, before they exploded. Not really on my doorstep, though. My doorstep would be on fire. And it's not. But what if-"

Applejack calmly placed her hoof under Twilight's jaw, and then closed the babbling alicorn's mouth. "Now's the perfect time fer a stroll through Ponyville. Ya'll need some fresh air before ya have a heart attack. Now ya can follow me back home, or Ah can tie ya up and drag ya behind me. What's it gonna be?"

Applejack removed her hoof from Twilight's mouth, and the frantic pony calmed down just enough to rationally consider Applejack's demand.

"Let the record show that I'm accompanying you under duress," Twilight said evenly, sticking her snout up, "and friendship. But mostly duress."

"Swell. Then maybe ya can make a proper letter to Princess Celestia when ya get back," Applejack said, turning toward the door and giving a quick wink to Spike, "now let's get a move on, sugarcube, Ah got chores to do."


Soon they were outside and making a good pace toward Sweet Apple Acres in silence. Twilight seemed to want to speak, but she was utterly consumed with glancing around at the sky, as if it were about to fall down on top of her at any moment.

Applejack said nothing, content with the silence.

The pair of them actually made it most of the way to the farm before Twilight finally spoke up, her voice far more collected and annoyed than before.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

Applejack chuckled. "Of course Ah believe ya, sugarcube."

Twilight was actually quite surprised to hear the earth pony admit it with a straight face.

"Why wouldn't Ah? Ah'm no expert on UFOs and space ponies. Got no reason to doubt ya." Applejack tilted her head to one side and flashed Twilight a bright smile.

"No, it's not a UFO," Twilight said, exasperated, "UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, and could be anything from a magic flare to a pegasus trying out a Nightmare Night costume. What I saw was clearly a space-faring vessel of some sort. And the likelihood of the aliens being 'space ponies' is quite small."

She would have continued, but Applejack started chuckling.

"See? Ah knew some fresh air would do ya right. Yer back to yer old self again."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "For someone who believes that I saw an alien spacecraft last night, you're taking it awfully well."

"Well, maybe Ah'm just too grounded to be worryin' about all that," Applejack said with a shrug, "Ah don't see no aliens down here, so it don't make much difference to me."

"Perhaps you don't appreciate the enormity of what I'm telling you," said the clearly irritated alicorn, "this isn't JUST a confirmation of extraterrestrial life; whatever built that vessel was highly intelligent, and came to our planet! Their own motivations aside, think of what we can learn from someone with that kind of technology!"

"Well, Ah guess we could if they hadn't exploded on us," Applejack admitted.

Twilight winced. "Well... uh... yes. There is that. But there are probably more of them! I doubt that any intelligent species would pack their entire population onto just one cramped hunk of metal and take off into space!"

"Hm, true. That makes sense," Applejack agreed easily as she saw her home in the distance.

"I still think you're way too calm about this," Twilight insisted through clenched teeth, "what would you do if one of the aliens came down and met you?"

"Try and sell 'em some apples," she said breezily.

"It would be likely that their digestive systems aren't adapted to consume pony food. Assuming it even absorbs energy via ordinary chemical digestion like we do!" Twilight said, going into another intellectual lecture. "Also, how would it pay? Bits are an Equestrian currency!"

"Well, Ah guess Ah wouldn't have much luck, then," Applejack said with a shrug, "but until them space fellers come down here, Ah don't gotta worry about it, do Ah? Won't help nothin'." She could see Big Macintosh by the edge of the fields now, plowing the fields. Apple Bloom was up as well, and she and Winona were playing next to the barn.

"So... you think I should just forget about it?" Twilight asked, looking extremely doubtful.

"Naw, Ah ain't sayin' that," Applejack said, "ya should do what ya think ya need to do. Write Princess Celestia a letter, or learn a new spell for zappin' space invaders, or get yer telescope fixed. What ya shouldn't be doin' is flippin' out in the library and workin' Spike into a coma."

Twilight blanched, and her purple cheeks reddened. "Oh, uh... yeah, okay. That's... good advice."

The alicorn glanced around, as if finally noticing where they were. "Hmmm... you know, I think I managed to dictate the approximate angle I had the telescope at on one of the letters to the Princess that I never sent. If I get my telescope fixed, I should be able to find some debris from the detonation. Perhaps there are even some other extra-terrestrials lurking nearby."

"Now that sounds much better'n yer last plan," Applejack said with a grin.

Twilight laughed. "Yeah! Thanks, Applejack. I think I needed that. I'm going to go fix my telescope. And then I think I should get some sleep."

"Any time, sugarcube. Ah'll see ya later."


Applejack stopped to watch as Twilight galloped off back toward Ponyville, and then she chuckled as she approached her two siblings.

"So apparently, Twi thinks she saw some sorta alien whatsit last night, creepin' about in space."

Big Macintosh quirked an eyebrow silently. Apple Bloom stopped rolling around and listened intently, her ears perking up.

"Now, Ah dunno what she saw, but Ah gotta admit that space invaders wouldn't really be the weirdest thing Ah've run into 'round here," Applejack shrugged, tilting her hat up, "so ya'll be on the lookout fer any visitors or their shenanigans, ya hear?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said casually, returning to his plowing with his usual sleepy expression.

Apple Bloom's reply came a few seconds later. "Ya mean like that, Sis?"

Applejack and Macintosh both stopped and turned toward their little sister, who had a hoof raised toward the sky.

A distant jet of flame descended from above the clouds, dropping toward the edge of the Apple family's orchard. As it rapidly approached the trees, light flared from the bottom of the mysterious object, and it slowed down dramatically before finally vanishing below the tree line.

Applejack stared, stunned. At this distance, she couldn't hear anything from the descent, but anypony who had been looking in the right direction would have been able to glimpse that landing for miles around.

That certainly didn't include Twilight, who was trotting in the wrong direction.

"Aw, fer pity's sake," Applejack grunted, her ears drooping.

Big Macintosh considered the sight for a moment, and then unhooked his harness with his teeth before approaching the road toward Ponyville.

"Now hold up, Mac," Applejack warned, stopping the red stallion in his tracks, "Ah just finished talkin' some sense into Twi. Ah don't wanna freak her out again over nothin'."

Big Mac raised his head slightly, glancing toward the spot where the object had landed.

"Let's go check it out first 'fore we get her all worked up again. It could be nothin' after all, like a prank from the Princesses or Derpy droppin' somethin' flammable."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, turning around toward the orchard. Applejack dropped her saddlebag at the farmstead and then followed closely, her lasso out and ready if need be.


The Apple siblings made their way through the trees silently, each of them projecting an appearance of calm but more than a little worried about this new development. Within minutes Applejack could spot a plume of smoke rising into the air.

"Whatever it was landed at the far edge. Ah hope it don't start a fire," the orange mare mumbled.

"What're ya gonna do if it's an alien, Sis?" asked Apple Bloom, her voice more excited than it had a right to be.

In response, Applejack and Macintosh both flinched, finally realizing that ALL the Apple siblings were investigating this strange phenomenon.

"Apple Bloom, what do ya think yer doin'?" Applejack demanded. "Get back to the house, pronto!"

Apple Bloom wilted as her older siblings glared at her. "Aw, c'mon Sis! Ah'll be good!"

"It don't matter if yer good! We don't know if it's safe!" Applejack said, stamping a hoof on the ground. "Now git!"

"Awww..." Apple Bloom turned around and started a slow trudge back toward the farmstead, her cheeks puffed up indignantly.


Applejack breathed a sigh of relief as she watched her younger sister leave the area. "Can't believe Ah didn't notice she was followin' us," she grumbled, turning back toward their objective, "Ah don't know which of us has got less sense, her or me."

"What would ya do?" Big Macintosh asked suddenly, breaking his characteristic silence.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"What would ya do if it's aliens?" Big Mac elaborated slightly, gazing toward the distant landing site.

Applejack couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, Ah did tell Twi Ah'd try and sell 'em some apples, and Ah wouldn't want some space varmint makin' a liar outta me."

Her mirth settled quickly as they approached the source of the smoke, and the orange mare took a deep breath before moving past the final cluster of trees between them and their intruder.

There it was, lying at the base of the smoke column, in the middle of a circle of scorched dirt and grass. It was vaguely shaped like a bowl, and it was big enough for either of the ponies to fit inside comfortably if they were daft enough to want to. Large spikes protruded from the outer edges, while at the bottom smoke still seeped from large bulges.

Applejack scratched her head with her hoof, disturbing her hat. The "alien" wasn't moving, and seemed to be made entirely out of metal.

After nearly a minute of standing off and silently perusing the strange object, Applejack glanced at her brother. "Well? What do ya think, Mac?"

Big Macintosh stepped closer to the curious object, staring inside briefly. Then he scuffed at the ground with a hoof.

Finally, he turned toward Applejack. "Ah think somethin' was in this when it landed. Landed softly, too. The ground's burnt, but not broken. Some kinda pod, or harness, Ah reckon. Ah don't see many movin' parts."

Applejack ventured closer to the object, tapping the edge of it with her hoof. "Ya think it's dangerous?"

"Nnnope," Macintosh confirmed.

"Well, good, but that don't mean it wasn't carryin' somethin' dangerous," Applejack reasoned, searching the ground. After a few seconds, she found what she was looking for... probably. A small, sharp indentation in the ground, like someone had poked a railroad spike into the dirt.

"Ah think Ah found its tracks!" the orange pony said, seeing several similar marks in an uneven line leading away from the landing site. "C'mon Mac, let's go sell this thing some apples! And then tell it there's no parking on mah farm!"


****


Sweet Apple Acres - primary orchard


+Atmosphere analysis complete: seventy-one percent Terra equivalent. Carcinogen count at sub-threat levels. Radiation levels viable.+

Constant blurts of Binary spat out of the probe automata as it crawled over the ground, its four insectile legs easily navigating the well-worn land beneath the Apples' orchard.

The legs were arranged symmetrically around a barrel-shaped body that was carried about a foot off the ground. Atop the body was a rotating cluster of antennae, optics lenses, and a comparatively large sensor dish. These instruments rotated and jerked to and fro as they absorbed information from the surroundings as quickly as possible.

+Local flora shows seven percent mean structural variance among one-hundred and seven sample organisms. Hypothesis: locally homogeneous population is result of artificial selection. Acquiring soil sample.+

After the latest string of buzzes and bleeps, the probe lowered its body toward the ground and a drill emerged from the bottom. The drill started to spin penetrate the ground, and the sensors atop the automata quivered wildly.

+Magnetic scans and soil analysis conclude less than point-three percent ferrous material to approximate depth of two-point-seven-nine kilometers. Conclusion: chances of viable metal lode negligible. Deployment site to be moved to short-list tertius. Unit proceed-+

"Hey, Ah found the alien!"

Probe automata C-98381 halted as its programming prioritized an interrupt to its scanning procedures.

+Auditory intercept: Low Gothic. Scanning for source,+ the probe spat, its primary optical sensor whirling around.

Apple Bloom didn't speak Binary, or know what that was, so she didn't really know what to make of the assorted noises coming from the extraterrestrial machine. It did seem to react to her voice, though, which she figured was a good sign. Kind of.

As a large green sensor lens tilted downward and then extended with a soft whirring noise, the yellow filly was reminded of her siblings' insistence that she not follow them to the landing site because it could be dangerous.

Well, she had run into the alien on the way back to the house, so she couldn't really be blamed for that, could she?

Apple Bloom flinched as a bright red span of light suddenly poured out of the lens at her hooves, but quickly relaxed once she didn't feel anything. The light span slowly crept up her body, and Apple Bloom idly wondered if she should call for her older siblings.

The alien wasn't much to look at, to be honest. It was just a bit larger than Big Macintosh, with a barrel body and four long legs sticking out of it. Each leg tapered to a point from a fairly wide joint, forming an arrow-shaped shield, and they were painted black on the outer facing.

Painted on the nearest leg was some sort of weird silver face. It didn't look like a pony's face, though. It had no snout to speak of and had a curiously prominent chin. It seemed to be smiling, although rather than teeth its mouth had several bars running through it like a cage.

+Analysis complete. Xeno life-form categorized: equine equivalent physiology observed. Noting extended brain case and complex vocal chords in local adaptation. Threat level negligible. Continuing reconnaissance mission.+

The probe's sensors twisted around and it began to walk away, leaving Apple Bloom somewhat disappointed. Still, it hadn't done anything except shine a light on her, so that meant it wasn't dangerous, right?

"Hey, can ya understand me?" Apple Bloom asked, following behind the automata.

The probe could, in fact, although it was not equipped with a vocalizer that could respond in kind. Seeing as the young pony had already been dismissed as a threat, however, the probe ignored her.

"Do ya wanna meet mah siblings, Mister Alien? They're around here somewhere," Apple Bloom offered, "Ah think ya should meet 'em. They seemed worried about meetin' you."

The probe halted. Not at the prospect of meeting Apple Bloom's family, but rather because it had just detected a curious pattern of electromagnetic radiation permeating the area. The radiation wasn't powerful enough to harm it, but it was unraveling its data transmissions.

+Warning! Jamming signal detected! Long-range and orbital communications off-line. Medium-range communications off-line. Atmospheric energy scans compromised. High potential of enemy activity. Initiating mission protocol alpha-lambda-alpha, priority secundus.+

"Hey, are ya listenin' ta me?" Apple Bloom demanded. She walked up to it and stood up against its leg, frowning at what she assumed were the thing's eyes.

The probe, now on heightened alert and operating under a new threshold for defending itself, sensed the contact of the filly leaning against it and turned its main sensors around to prepare an agitated response.

It dropped the alert a moment later. The tiny pony was still no threat whatsoever, and its mission parameters required it to avoid unnecessary conflict with native life-forms. Certainly it was an unusual prerogative of any Chaos machine to avoid violence, but the probe was tasked with gathering as much data as possible and was poorly equipped for combat. Picking fights with harmless xenos could only make its job harder.

The automata scuttled away toward a tree, letting Apple Bloom drop onto the ground.

"Hey, what're you doing?" Apple Bloom asked anxiously. Two of the probe's four legs clambered up the side of the apple tree, tilting its body at an angle toward the trunk. She then recoiled as a drill pushed out of the bottom, whirring furiously.

"Hey! Quit it!" Apple Bloom shouted, running up to the strange machine and banging a hoof against its leg. "Ya can't just march in here and start hurtin' our trees! Stop that!"

The probe ignored the filly's request and drilled deep into the apple tree, sucking up sap and wood pulp for genetic analysis.

"APPLE BLOOM!" screeched a new voice, followed by the pounding of hooves against dirt.

"Ya see? Ah warned ya," Apple Bloom chided as her siblings galloped through the orchard toward her, "yer in for it now, Mister Alien!"

The probe's drill finished drawing back into its carapace as it identified the last statement as a threat.

Once again it twisted its sensor arrays around to take stock of potential hazards and judge whether they warranted a violent response.

To the probe's credit, it actually got a fair bit of data on Big Mac's back hooves before they slammed into it.


Apple Bloom winced as the alien thing-a-majig went flying, the impact of hooves against metal ringing in her ears.

The extraterrestrial object bounced once, gouging a bit of dirt out of the ground with its leg, and then slammed hard into an apple tree, coming to a full stop before sparks blasted from its limb actuators.

The sensor lenses flickered repeatedly, and a leg twitched in the air. The probe's relatively delicate internals were scrambled by the impact, ripping the probe's cogitator core free from its power couplings.

As C-98381 went dark, an apple shook free from the boughs above and dropped onto the automata's shuddering body, adding a dash of insult to grievous injury.

Applejack stood over Apple Bloom protectively as she watched the intruder stop twitching, ready to follow up on her brother's initial attack if it got up again.

It did not.

"Geez Big Mac, ya didn't hafta hit it that hard!" Apple Bloom complained.

"Quiet, you," Applejack growled, "what were ya doin' messin' with that thing? Ya coulda been hurt! Ah told ya to go back home!"

"Ah did!" Apple Bloom protested. "Ah found the alien on mah way back! Honest!"

Applejack grimaced, and then glanced up at the probe. "Well, head back the rest of the way. Me and Mac'll handle this varmint."

Apple Bloom sighed, but did as she was told. This time Applejack watched her little sister until she disappeared completely behind the trees. Then, with no small sense of trepidation, she approached their insensate visitor.

Big Macintosh was already standing over the intruder, his head occasionally swinging to one side or the other to get a look from a different angle.

Applejack joined him, her nose picking up the smell of something burning from within the alien object.

"So... what do ya think, Mac?" Applejack asked again.

"Ah think it's some kinda fancy contraption," Big Mac said after a brief pause, "it's the right fit fer that thing back in the field, and it's metal, all the way through. Harder'n steel, too." He idly shook a rear hoof to ward off the numbness. He had kicked at steel objects before, and knew the weight and resistance he could expect. The plating on the probe, however, had only been slightly dented by the force. If the object had been much heavier, Macintosh figured that he could have broken his leg hitting something so hard.

Applejack tapped one of the probe's legs with a hoof. "Ya think... Ya think it's broken?"

Big Macintosh tilted his head to one side. "Eeyup."

Applejack winced, her ears falling flat against her head. Perhaps they HAD overreacted just a bit.

"Well, nothin' fer it now, Ah guess. Let's get a cart and put this thing in the barn. That 'harness' or whatever too. Ah'll get Twilight over here this afternoon to take a look at it."

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh turned away from the probe and began to head for the barn.

"And if anyone asks, Ah tried to sell that thing some apples 'fore ya decked it," the orange mare added.

The red stallion couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Eeyup."


****


Harvest of Steel - in high orbit over Centaur III


The bulkhead doors slid open with a slow growl, and Gaela stepped into the logistics dome of the megafreighter. In the ship's original design, this area had been specifically set aside for managing the freighter's manifest, determining trade routes, and holding meetings amongst the merchants that presumably owned such a vessel. Whereas the bridge was the center of the ship's operations, the logistics dome was the center of all operations aided by the freighter's travels.

And so it was even now, although the operations being planned were of a very different sort than those envisioned by the shipwrights that built it.

+Dark Magos Kaelith, I was instructed to report to you to begin organizing planetary deployment resources,+ she said in Binary, the stream of blurts and beeps issuing forth in less than two seconds.

Stooped over the large table in the middle of the room was the Dark Magos, his form a tall, serpentine shape cloaked from head to what used to be toes in thick, black, rubber robes. His body must have been over five meters in height, but the Magos was constantly bowed over, as if he was stooping to look at something. Which he may have been, for all Gaela knew. Perhaps he just found it more efficient to stay like that rather than expending energy to constantly shift downward to address others. Near the end of his body were a set of a dozen smaller legs of the insectile form so often favored by members of the Mechanicus over thick, clumsy, anthropomorphic legs.

Currently he was hooked up to the main cogitator bank and was staring at a hololithic projection of Centaur III hovering above a round table that dominated the room. There was a long delay before the Dark Magos acknowledged his subordinate.

+Interrogative: Why were you given formal command of the manufactorum deployment?+

Gaela almost grimaced behind the mask of her helmet as the Dark Magos turned toward her. His face was a wild cluster of glowing sensors, tubes, and cables, completely devoid of anything human. She honestly wasn't even sure where his voice synthesizer was located, since his mouth and esophagus were long gone.

+It was a decision given to me by Warsmith Solon himself. I have no authority to question his orders or provide strategic alternatives.+

Kaelith turned his head back toward the hololith silently.

+If I may hypothesize, perhaps the Warsmith has another task of equal or greater import for you, Magos? There are many other necessities requiring the attention of the Dark Mechanicus, including the refit of the xenos ships and the study of their weapons.+

It was a perfectly rational explanation, and both of them knew it was almost certainly incorrect. Solon was infamously whimsical, and treated the chain of command as a bureaucratic formality. It was also well-known that he often consulted and gave orders to Gaela personally, despite her low rank and relative inexperience. As the Executor of the Dark Mechanicus detachment serving the 38th Company, it should have been Kaelith managing the manufactorum deployment, or at least it should have been Kaelith prerogative to delegate the task to a favored lackey.

But of course, ignoring the will of the commanding Warsmith was hardly respectful of the chain of command, either.

+Magos Kaelith, I see that you're perusing the probe data. Did you find anything interesting?+ Gaela asked, changing the subject.

+Affirmative: The probe data has already yielded three viable drop zones. Interrogative: have you observed the probe data, Acolyte?+

+I have not. I have been organizing the ordnance and material-+

+Hypothetical: You are unaware then that the Tau have deployed a jamming device that has disrupted long-distance communications on the planet surface,+ Kaelith interrupted with his own more formal and haggard Binaric Cant.

Gaela paused. +... I was unaware, yes. It has prevented the probes from transmitting?+

+Affirmative: The jamming signal began disrupting the planet's ionosphere point-zero-six-two standard cycles ago. I have managed to salvage some of the corrupted data transmissions and find the previously mentioned drop sites. However, orbital vox will be off-line until the signal is terminated, and deep scans are impossible.+

The Dark Magos started moving, his body gyrating bizarrely and mechatendrils seeping out from under his robes. +Hypothetical: Disruption of long-range communication will necessitate extra care and additional planning in order for deployment to proceed on schedule. Addendum: Your abilities will not be sufficient to ensure the success of the operation. Conclusive: in order to maximize efficiency, I will take command of establishing the facilities alongside construction of fortifications.+

It was a self-serving string of logic, but still valid. That, however, left Gaela with an important query.

+So, what are to be my duties during deployment, Dark Magos?+ she asked.

+Directive: Data extraction. The probe automata still contain useful data, and accessing their scans will allow us to pinpoint xenos resistance. You will be deployed with the first wave of combat troops on my orders. Locate the probes and secure the data.+

Field work. Well, it was better than manning lifters.

+What sort of resistance is expected from the Tau survivors?+ Gaela asked, already organizing her deployment loadout in her head.

+Hypothetical: Resistance will be minimal. This fleet was part of a colonization reconnaissance and will have token military support. Reassurance: The xenos will be taking precautions to avoid further confrontation. Their expected prerogative is survival.+

+Understood, Magos. When will I be deployed?+

+Directive: you will make planetfall in one-point-seven-three cycles. Prepare yourself, Dark Acolyte. May the Dark Gods empower you.+


****


Centaur III - Ponyville


Applejack was near the end of her second trip to Ponyville that day, but the difference in her attitude between then and now was palpable.

She wasn't convinced that Big Macintosh had done the wrong thing by kicking that machine silly, and she could guarantee that if he had hesitated, she would have done it instead. But that didn't mean she felt good about it. Apple Bloom insisted that the extraterrestrial device was harmless aside from some minor tree damage, and Applejack had to admit that if it had wanted to hurt her little sister, it had plenty of time to do it.

But right now she was less worried about the precise moral ramifications of assaulting a machine for being too close to her sister and more worried about how hard Twilight was going to throw them in her face.

Coming up to the treehouse, Applejack could hear voices inside, near the door. She couldn't make out what was being said, but it still sounded like a stark improvement over the ruckus from that morning. Adjusting her hat and setting her jaw, the orange pony knocked on the door.

It opened within seconds, and Twilight grinned when she saw Applejack standing on her doorstep.

"Applejack! Perfect! I was actually going to send Rainbow Dash to go get you!"

Glancing over Twilight's shoulder, she could see Rainbow Dash making strange faces with her hooves up over her head, like antennae. Pinkie Pie was laughing at the sight, while Rarity and Fluttershy appreciated her behavior in a more quiet, dignified manner.

"Oh, everypony's here," Applejack said awkwardly, "that's... great. Uh... what did ya wanna talk to me about?"

"Well, I got my telescope fixed, so I thought everyone could stay over tonight and we could take turns searching for signs of debris or other space vessels! Doesn't that sound like fun? Spike is out right now picking up snacks!"

It didn't really sound like fun to her, but Applejack had to figure that for her a lot of the mystery of alien discovery had already been spoiled.

"Hey, AJ!" Rainbow Dash said eagerly, hovering above everypony else's heads as usual. "Wanna bet that we don't find anything? Pinkie's already in for five bits!"

The farmer quashed a brief urge to take that bet. "Ah... Ah wouldn't go puttin' money on that, if Ah were you," she said with a wince.

"Then you believe there are aliens too?!" Pinkie Pie said, jumping up behind Twilight. "Isn't it cool? I'm going to plan a 'Welcome to Equestria' party for them!"

Rainbow Dash scoffed as Applejack entered the library proper. "Well, excuse me for being a little suspicious! Nopony else saw this thing, right?"

"True, but the pony who DID see it was Twilight," Rarity pointed out, "she's not exactly known for elaborate pranks. If it were one of YOU I wouldn't pay the claim a bit of mind." She pointed a well-manicured hoof at Rainbow and then Pinkie, the former of whom stuck her tongue out.

"Now, now, Dash is right to be skeptical," Twilight admitted, her expression somber, "to be honest, I got so excited at seeing something strange that I completely lost my head this morning. But that's why we're here, to see if we can confirm my hypothesis!" Then the alicorn turned toward Applejack again. "So what do you say, Applejack? Can you stay?"

When Applejack started looking away and scratching at one foreleg with the other, the others started picking up that something might have been wrong.

"Well, uh, that seems like an... interestin' night, Ah guess," she mumbled, "o' course, we could always hold this alien-seekin' slumber party at mah farm, ya know."

Twilight blinked. "Well... I suppose we could. Why? Do you need to be home tonight?"

"Naw, nothin' like that." Applejack smiled nervously. "But the alien gizmo we have cooped up in our barn will make the search fer alien gizmos a lot easier, doncha think?"

Silence dominated the tree house as Twilight's eyes slowly expanded until they were almost popping out of her head.

"You have an alien? Awesome!" Rainbow Dash said, zipping over to float over the earth pony. "What's it look like?"

"Kinda like a trash can with legs and a buncha fancy widgets piled on top," Applejack answered, still looking quite uncomfortable.

"Oh, so you believe Applejack right away?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Element of honesty, DUH," the blue pegasus replied.

"Habba... seewaj... glaawa?" Twilight said, her eyebrow twitching.

"Ya see? Now this is exactly why Ah didn't wanna tell ya right away," Applejack said, shaking her head at Twilight's reaction, "well, one o' the reasons, at least."

"This is great! I can throw my party tonight!" Pinkie shouted, already dancing about the library.

"Now hold up, y'all," Applejack said, her expression firming slightly, "this ain't really an alien. It's some kinda machine that came from space, Ah guess. It probably just belongs to the aliens. So Ah was hopin' Twi could come take a look at it."

"Can we come too?" Pinkie asked, instantly leaning up against the orange mare. "Pleeeeeeeeease?"

"O' course ya can," Applejack mumbled, "why not? Sorry to mess up yer slumber party, though."

"Jaahaamr," Twilight said, her jaw hanging open.

"She said it's fine!" Pinkie said brightly. "Let's leave right away!"

"Is the alien scary?" Fluttershy asked timidly, speaking for the first time since the door had opened.

"Oh, naw, not really," Applejack said, cringing, "Ah don't think it's very menacin' at all right now... let's get a move-on."

Applejack turned around and opened the door for the others, and Rainbow Dash promptly shot out ahead of everypony else as if in a bid for freedom. Twilight moved rather stiffly on her way outside, and still had her expression frozen in one of shock. Once they were all outside Rainbow again took the lead, flying up far above the others and constantly scanning the area as if searching for more extraterrestrials.

Twilight eventually shook her head to dispel her stunned state. "What? Where? When? How?" she demanded, her voice still manic but finally intelligible.

"Ah already told ya what," Applejack replied, "it came down in mah orchard just after ya left. As fer how... shoot, Ah dunno, it just came screamin' down from the sky, like RD in a nosedive... 'cept it landed a lot more gracefully, far as we can tell."

"I heard that!" Rainbow shouted from overhead.

"Were you able to communicate? Did it speak? Did it appear sensitive? Hostile?" Twilight stepped closer to Applejack, who started to lean her head away.

"Uh... naw, we couldn't talk to it," Applejack said simply, not making eye contact.

"Then how did you get it in your barn?" Twilight asked, leaning over further.

Applejack started to break out in a nervous sweat, and didn't reply immediately.

"Applejack, tell me you didn't use force on this thing!" Twilight implored her, looking extremely distressed at the prospect. "Your actions toward this device probably represent the first contact between our species and theirs! The first impression of all ponykind! Acting with violence could have far-reaching consequences!"

"Ah... Ah didn't use violence to get it in the barn," Applejack said, her wording obviously deliberate and still quite nervous.

"AJ, darling, is there something you want to confess?" Rarity asked, trying to keep from giggling at the farmer's strained expression.

"All right, all right," Applejack said, her ears drooping, "but Twi, ya gotta promise not to be mad."

Twilight gave the orange pony a reassuring smile. "Of course I won't be mad! I trust you, AJ!"

"Ya Pinkie Promise?" Applejack asked. Pinkie promptly materialized next to Twilight, as if to record her oath.

Twilight's expression darkened instantly. "No. Now what did you do?"

Applejack cursed the alicorn's caution silently. "Well, here goes nothin'... ya see..."


****


Sweet Apple Acres - Apple family barn


Big Macintosh stifled a yawn as he laid next to a hay bale, keeping watch over their new prisoner/victim until his sister arrived with a pony more qualified to study the remains of the alien device.

The extraterrestrial machine sat in the middle of the barn, its drop harness outside and laid against the exterior wall. Apple Bloom was crawling all over the battered probe, tapping on it with her hooves and staring closely at the most complex devices. Macintosh had considered warning her away, but relented. He had already assaulted and handled the machine, so it seemed safe enough to him. He did warn his sister not to touch any sharp edges, though.


Deep within the probe not all was inert, however. The impact of Mac's hooves had jumbled the cogitator core, knocking several crucial connections loose. In such a state its memory had quickly degraded, and there was no mechanism to repair the connection. Without a connection to the core, the automata's reactor had shut down automatically, as it had nothing to provide power to.

No power and a broken mind. And yet there was another force at work within the device.

Decades of exposure to Warp energy and filtered scrapcode had inevitably polluted the probe's machine spirit, leaving behind a spark of something... more than the collection of strict electronic doctrines that made up its wetware engrams.

The Iron Warriors did not expose their equipment to such things lightly, much favoring the strict, efficient rites of the Mechanicus to the corruptive debasement of machines favored by some other traitor Legions. Scrapcode programs were filtered and equipment was checked after heavy Warp exposure for anomalies. Outside of the experiments of the Dark Mechanicus, when daemonic rituals or xeno artifacts touched their gear it was done with clinical control and with a firm expectation of what the result would be. One's machines carried one's life with them on the battlefield, and predictability was a virtue.

Still, the Iron Warriors were a Chaos Legion, and Chaos rarely appreciated such efforts.

Within the cogitator core, jumbled circuitry started to tilt back into place as wiring started to writhe about like worms roused from slumber. The wires stretched and squirmed against each other, seeking the circuits necessary to restore thought and motion.

After several minutes of trying, the probe's interior resembled a nest of snakes, each metal tendril searching for energy to feed its circuitry.

A few such wires found the cable coupling that had been shaken loose by the impact, and they stabbed into it like hungry parasites.

Seconds later the core detected the lack of power and the means to deliver it. System start-up was initiated.


Big Mac's ears perked up as he heard a soft whir coming from the middle of the barn, and his eyes widened when several lights on the outer shell of the alien machine started to flicker to life.

"Apple Bloom!" he shouted, jumping to his hooves. "Get behind me!"

Apple Bloom backed away from the device as its legs started twitching to life, and then she turned around and dashed behind her brother's much greater bulk.

"Now doncha go kickin' it again, Big Mac," Apple Bloom demanded, glaring up at her eldest sibling.

Macintosh gave a noncommittal grunt, watching the extraterrestrial device carefully.

Within a few seconds the probe was once again fully active, and its sensors flickered on. Its legs flexed and shifted against the floor, and it slowly pushed itself up to a standing position.

The ponies watched silently, waiting for any hint of aggression from the device. Then it spat out a distorted burst of Binary-speak, causing them to flinch back.

+System restart complete. Resolving directive primarus.+

It searched its memory banks.

+Directive not found. Memory coil corrupted. Establishing alternative operation parameters...+

The probe automata was in a quandary. The Warp energies that permeated its cogitator engine had restored function and even given it some minor autonomy, a nascent spark of sentience. But the damage, combined with the unconventional repair process, had erased crucial data. It had no idea what its mission parameters were or who to report to, and all long-range transmission links were being jammed. It didn't know what to do.

"Ah think it's tryin' to talk to us!" Apple Bloom said, darting out from between Big Mac's legs before he could stop her.

The probe's machine spirit and its heretical Warp-sentience were influenced both by the malevolence of Chaos and the violent bitterness of its masters, but in the end its programming counted for much more in its disposition. To explore, collect data, and surrender that data to others for use. It gave the probe an overwhelming sense of curiosity, and a rather cool temperament.

So when a small mammal walked up to it and stood on its legs, the probe only briefly considered drilling through its skull before deciding to acquire a deep scan in a less aggressive manner.

"See, Ah told ya! She's harmless!" Apple Bloom insisted, assigning the probe a gender for no apparent reason.

Big Macintosh started as a red span of light suddenly engulfed Apple Bloom.

"Don't worry, Mac, Ah'm fine," the yellow filly insisted as the ray of crimson moved from her hooves to her hair, "she does this sometimes. It don't hurt or nothin'."

The older pony looked skeptical, but within moments the light vanished and Apple Bloom seemed unharmed. Then the probe swirled its sensory clusters toward him and did the same thing, sweeping the red beam up over the stallion.

Just as Apple Bloom said, besides the glare in his eyes when the light swept over his face, he didn't feel a thing. Within seconds the scanning ray ceased, and the probe spat out another string of gibberish.

"Ah think ya should apologize," Apple Bloom said, pointing a hoof at Macintosh. When her brother frowned, she elaborated. "Ya bucked her like ya were tryin' to get apples outta her. Ah told ya, she wasn't botherin' me none." The probe continued sputtering noise, swiveling its sensor arrays back and forth.

Big Macintosh mulled it over silently. It didn't make sense to him to apologize to some contraption that had crashed down on their property and started drilling holes in their trees, even if it had turned out to be much less dangerous than he had imagined. On the other hoof, what could it hurt? The silly-looking thing probably didn't even understand them.

"Ah'm sorry Ah kicked ya earlier," Macintosh said, feeling quite awkward as he spoke to the automata. Was it even looking at him? "That was a mite hasty of me."

The probe fell silent, and its analysis of the auditory logs reached its conclusion.

The large red bio-form had expressed remorse at the request of the tiny yellow one. The probe didn't understand the gesture, or even remember being attacked, but in its cogitator engine it shifted the smaller pony to a position of higher authority.

"Oh! Ah've got it!" Apple Bloom said happily. "Yer legs remind me of the way a crab walks, so Ah'll call ya Crabapple!"

The probe once again cast its sensors downward toward the filly.

It had been given a designation. That was an indicator of ownership and command authority. As such, it seemed the small, yellow bio-form was claiming it as her own. As it so happened, the probe required a command authority in order to receive orders and fulfill its functions. Whoever fulfilled this role previous to the data purge wasn't around, so the yellow bio-form would do nicely.

It wasn't a great decision, but in Crabapple's defense, it was new to this self-determination thing.

+New designation accepted: Crabapple. New command directive accepted: tiny bio-form speaking poor Gothic granted full command authority. Awaiting commands.+

"Now don't go namin' things that ain't yours, Apple Bloom," Big Macintosh warned.

+Tiny bio-form speaking poor Gothic designation accepted: Apple Bloom. Awaiting commands.+

"Aw, but she ain't got anywhere to go!" Apple Bloom protested.

"How do ya know that?" Macintosh asked.

"Well, she could leave if she wanted to!" the yellow filly said, pointing a hoof at the barn doors. Granted, they were closed, but they weren't locked, and Mac hardly thought such a minor obstacle would thwart a space-machine if it wanted to go outside.

Apple Bloom crawled underneath Crabapple to look over every nook and cranny of the extraterrestrial machine, and Big Mac frowned. It DID seem curiously content to stand there staring at them, although the way it occasionally bleeped at them made him think that it was trying to communicate with them.

"Hey, do ya think Twilight's gonna get here soon?" Apple Bloom asked, poking her head out from behind one of Crabapple's armored legs.

Big Macintosh silently considered how long a trip to Ponyville and back took, and how long ago Applejack had left the farm.

"YOU DID WHAT?!?!" Twilight's scream helpfully rendered his calculations moot as it echoed over the orchard, and Apple Bloom winced from the volume. Even Crabapple seemed disturbed, shifting slightly on its four legs and spitting out a complaint in Binary.

"Eeyup. She's close," Macintosh assured his youngest sister.

It wasn't long after the outburst that they heard another pony's voice, although this time it was much closer and, thankfully, much quieter.

"Hey! Anyone in there?" asked Rainbow Dash from outside the barn.

Big Macintosh didn't bother answering, walking up to the door and pushing it open a bit with his snout.

The blue pegasus was hovering at nearly ceiling height in front of the barn, grinning excitedly. Macintosh couldn't see anypony else with her, though, so he assumed that she had taken off ahead of the others.

"Hey, Mac! Heard you bagged yourself an alien! Can I see?"

Big Macintosh wordlessly stepped to the side and Rainbow landed in front of the barn door. Her eyes widened when she saw Crabapple standing over Apple Bloom in the center of the structure.

"Whoa! Applejack said you killed it!"

"Nnope," Macintosh said, walking up to the probe. One of its optical lenses tracked him as he approached, but otherwise the automata didn't budge.

+New bio-form entering engagement range. Scanning.+

Rainbow Dash halted at the strange beeping noises, and she quirked an eyebrow once the scan beam started passing over her.

"Crabapple does that when she meets someone new!" Apple Bloom said, now completely comfortable with explaining the unfathomable drone's motivations to others. "It's how she says hello!"

Rainbow Dash laughed, and then she quickly turned around and stepped out of the barn.

"I'll be right back! I have to tell the others about this! Twilight's chewing out AJ right now because she thinks it's dead!" Chuckling to herself, Rainbow bounced up and took off into the air, her multi-colored tail whipping about behind her.


****


Sweet Apple Acres outskirts


"What were you thinking, murdering the first extraterrestrial you found? This could be one of the most important discoveries in Equestria's history, and now it's dead!"

Applejack's head was near the ground, her ears drooping and her hat in her hoof. "Ya promised ya wouldn't get mad!" she protested.

"But she didn't Pinkie Promise, so it doesn't matter!" Pinkie Pie said brightly and without a hint of irony.

"Besides, like Ah told ya, it wasn't an alien, just some kinda machine!"

Twilight fumed with her teeth clenched and her mane askew. "So, what if it was a cybernetic life form? Or an alien intelligence using the machine as some sort of transport?"

Applejack blinked. "They can do that?"

"We don't KNOW!" Twilight shouted, stamping a hoof on the ground. "And even if it was just some machine, you were acting as the first impression of all ponykind!"

"Actually, it seems Big Mac made the first impression of all ponykind!" Pinkie interjected. "The impression of his hoof in the alien's face! Ha!"

"But it was threatening Apple Bloom! Possibly!" Even Applejack thought her protest sounded lame. "Well, Ah mean, it was too close ta her! And it drilled into a tree!" They weren't getting better. "Big Mac did it! Yell at him!"

"All right you two, calm down," Rarity said, finally deciding to intervene before Twilight could start haranguing the earth pony again, "Twilight, Applejack clearly feels bad about what she's done. There's no helping it now," the white unicorn chided, using her magic to grab Applejack's hat and place it back on her head, "let's go see what's left of our visitor before you berate her any more."

Twilight didn't look like she wanted to let go of the issue, however. "We really have no sense of the potential scope of this catastrophe! What if she triggered an intergalactic war or something?"

"Then I'm sure she'll feel bad about that, too," Rarity said, rolling her eyes as Applejack nodded enthusiastically.

Twilight was still mulling over the costs and benefits of another angry tirade when everypony heard Rainbow Dash's voice from above.

"Hey guys! Good news!" the blue pegasus shouted down, flying a wide circuit around her friends. "The alien's still alive after all!"

This piqued the interest of Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy, while Twilight and Applejack seemed stunned by the revelation.

"Is it angry about being welcomed to our planet by having the space-tar kicked out of it?" Twilight asked, shooting a glare at Applejack.

"Dunno, I didn't ask," Rainbow replied, completing her circuit and hovering above the alicorn.

"Well, what was it doin'?" Applejack asked, looking quite worried about having an alien device in her barn after her brother had already attacked it.

The pegasus shrugged. "Not much, just standing on top of Apple Bloom."

For the life of her, Rainbow Dash couldn't figure out why this just made her panic MORE.


"AH'M COMIN', SIS!!" the orange pony shouted, bolting toward the farm in a full sprint.

"Applejack, wait!" Twilight shouted after her, getting a late start to chase the farmer. "Consider the repercussions of further conflict between our species!"

"That metal varmint is gonna wish it stayed broken when Ah get my hooves on it!" Applejack snarled, clearly not in any mood for proper intergalactic diplomacy.

"Applejack! Calm down!" Twilight shouted, straining her legs but unable to catch up to the adrenaline-fueled earth pony.

"You know, you might actually be able to catch up with her if you practiced flying more," Rainbow Dash said from above. Her hooves were crossed over her chest, and she matched Twilight's ground speed easily while flying alongside her.

"Dash, I do NOT need criticism on my flying right now!" Twilight shouted. "Why aren't you stopping Applejack?"

"Because you're both totally overreacting," Rainbow said with a snicker. She shifted her pose to fly backwards just in front of the alicorn. "Maybe you should magic up Rarity's fancy crying couch and-"

"Dash, could you move a foot to your right, please?" Twilight interrupted, still galloping forward as sweat stung her eyes.

"Huh? Oh, sure." Rainbow Dash made a quick correction to her position, and then continued. "Like I was saying, you need to-GURK!"

Twilight thundered ahead after the blue pegasus was clotheslined by the low-hanging branch of an apple tree, swatting her out of the air.


Applejack reached the front door of the barn, and was going to charge straight through it like an angry bull when she was suddenly scooped off the ground and into the air.

The farmer growled as she saw a bubble of telekinetic magic surrounding her, and she glared back at Twilight, who was gasping for air as she slowed to a stop. "Twi, Ah swear to Celestia that if Apple Bloom gets hurt 'cuz ya slowed me down like this..."

"ALL I'm asking is for you to actually survey the situation before putting another dent in this alien artifact!" Twilight said, breathing heavily. "Violence should be the last resort, not the first!"

Applejack grumbled unintelligibly, flailing her hooves in the air as if hoping to get traction on the magic holding her up.

Before either of them could complain further, the barn door - already left open slightly from Rainbow Dash's visit - shifted open further.

Big Macintosh raised an eyebrow at seeing his sister magically suspended in the air above him, and then glanced down at Twilight meaningfully.

"Hi, Big Macintosh," the alicorn said, her voice overly sweet as she carefully lowered Applejack back to the ground, "Apple Bloom wouldn't happen to be in imminent danger from any extraterrestrial objects, would she?"

The red stallion turned his head toward the barn interior, and then back toward Twilight. "Nnnope."

"Good!" Twilight nodded sharply toward Applejack.

"Fine. Fine! Ah panicked, all right? That's whatcha wanna hear?" the orange mare grumbled. "Now let's hurry up and get that hunk o' space bolts away from mah sister!"

Big Mac stepped back to let the two younger mares into the barn, but the sight that greeted them stopped them dead in their tracks before they even entered.


Apple Bloom knocked a rubber ball into the air with her hoof, grinning.

Crabapple bleeped briefly as it calculated the trajectory of the object, and then it raised a leg off the ground and levered it forward to knock the ball back toward the yellow filly.

"This is... not what I expected," Twilight admitted.

"Yer tellin' me," Applejack mumbled, finally admitting to herself that the alien machine really did seem pretty harmless.

Crabapple turned its primary optical sensor toward Twilight, and several lights on its instruments lit up in warning.

+Pattern beta psionic waveform detected. Initiating alert protocols,+ the probe blurted. Suddenly it moved, rushing to stand between Twilight and Apple Bloom.

"What's it doin'?" Applejack demanded, walking next to Apple Bloom and glaring suspiciously at the automata.

"Don't worry, she's peaceful!" Apple Bloom said brightly.

"Ah'll let Twi be the judge o' that," Applejack said with a frown.

Said Princess was slowly circling the probe at a few feet's distance, her eyes taking in every detail: the articulation of its limbs, the thickness of its plating, the locations of gaps in its casing, and exposed wires.

The entire time, Crabapple's sensor array rotated to follow her, keeping its primary optics locked on the purple pony.

As Twilight started to get close to Apple Bloom on her circuit around the probe, Crabapple moved quickly to stand between them again.

"Is it... guardin' ya from Twilight?" Applejack asked her little sister. She couldn't help but notice that the machine hadn't budged when she had walked up to Apple Bloom.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh confirmed. He was lying down again at the edge of the barn, but still watching the proceedings carefully from behind his sleepy-eyed gaze.

"What? Why? That's not fair! I'm not the one who attacked it!" Twilight protested to the Apples.

Then her expression hardened, and she bowed her head toward the probe. "I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, and student of Princess Celestia! I come in peace!"

Crabapple spat out an annoyed sound and raised a leg over the alicorn's lowered head.

"Crabapple! You be nice!" Apple Bloom said sternly, tapping a hoof on one of the probe's back legs. "Why don't ya say hello?"

Crabapple paused, and then lowered its leg without spearing Twilight's brain on the way down.

+Commander Apple Bloom previously indicated scanning operations with "saying hello". Order confirmed. Scanning psyker bio-form.+

Twilight was boggling over the fact that it had clearly responded to Apple Bloom's command when the red span of light struck her hooves, sweeping up her body.

"There! Now yer friends!" Apple Bloom said brightly.

"I... I don't follow. Can you understand it?" Twilight asked, scratching her head with her hoof.

"Naw, but ya kinda get a feel fer what she's doin'!" Apple Bloom said with a grin.

Twilight had so many questions she needed to ask. So many mysteries that needed to be solved. She could have penned a whole book already with her thoughts and observations on this event, and she'd studied this machine for less than a minute so far.

But for the life of her, the first question that came to the fore was: "You gave it a gender?"

"My, is that the alien?"

"Ha ha ha! It really does look like a trash can on legs!"

Crabapple, now assured that the psyker was no particular threat, swiveled on the spot to face the newcomers. Three new ponies were entering the barn, albeit the last one had squeaked and seized up the moment it had turned its optics toward her. A few seconds after that the blue pegasus from before staggered in after them, her mane full of leaves and twigs.

"Twi, what the hay was that back there?" Rainbow Dash demanded, shaking her hoof at the alicorn.

"It was an important lesson about watching where you're flying," Twilight said dryly, "I'm sure Princess Celestia will be very interested in reading about all the wonderful things you've learned."

As the two winged ponies exchanged quips, Pinkie and Rarity were observing Crabapple up close.

"Hm. It looks rather plain for something so fantastic. And WHAT is that disfigured face on its leg? Atrocious!"

"Hey, don't make fun of Crabapple's cutie mark!" Apple Bloom complained.

Crabapple issued a string of noisy Binary with its main sensors locked on the white pony. This psyker didn't register as strongly on its sensors as the purple one did, but the sentient probe wasn't about to let its guard down around such creatures.

"Ah don't think that's a cutie mark, Bloom," Applejack pointed out.

"I certainly hope not," Rarity agreed, "it would be dreadful to have that branded on you for life. Could you imagine?"

Pinkie, meanwhile, was already standing up against the probe, completely heedless of any possible danger.

"Hey, what're these glowy thingies?"

Apple Bloom looked up at the pink pony, squinting at the assorted sensors. "Uh... Ah guess they're her eyes?"

"The glass lens suggests they're used to take in light, although not necessarily in a normal spectrum," Twilight said, leaning closer to the probe, "but the sheer number of them, and the fact that-"

"Can it do any tricks?" Pinkie asked, cutting off Twilight's musing before she jumped on top of the automata such that one hoof stood on each of its legs.

"Ya mean besides messin' up our orchard?" Applejack groused.

"She sure can! Crabapple, say hi to everypony!" Apple Bloom commanded.

Crabapple beeped something back to her, and then its sensor array started moving, spreading spans of red light over the barn interior like a mono-color disco ball.

"Ooh! Pretty!" Pinkie said, leaping down from atop the probe and then standing up against it. "Hey Crabapple, I'm going to throw you a party! Can you bring your alien friends down here to join in?"

+Negative. Long-range vox has been compromised,+ Crabapple answered, +orbital communication is off-line until jamming signal has been terminated.+

"Aw, that's too bad," Pinkie said, her smile weakening a fraction, "I'm sure you'll love your 'Welcome to Equestria, Space Robot!' party, though!"

Rainbow Dash cocked her head to the side. "Wait, Pinkie... did you understand that thing?"

Pinkie Pie snorted. "Of course not! That would be silly! I just have subtitles turned on!"


As the others puzzled over this, Applejack stepped over to Twilight, speaking low and close to her ear so that nopony else could hear them.

"So level with me, Twi: can ya get this can outta mah mane fer me?" the orange mare asked.

Twilight blinked. "I... I suppose? But why would you want to be rid of it? It seems completely-"

"Harmless, yeah, fine," Applejack grunted, "but excuse me if Ah ain't thrilled havin' some alien rustbucket on mah property anyway. And what if more of 'em come crashin' into the orchard like meteors and drillin' holes in mah trees? Ah want this thing gone!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Your attitude toward extraterrestrials has changed a lot since this morning."

"Well, sue me, but Ah'm runnin' a business here! Ah don't need the trouble!" Applejack hissed. "Just like ya said, it turns out that aliens don't make good customers!"

Twilight rolled her eyes, but on the whole Applejack's request seemed reasonable. "All right, I'll see what I can do. But I'll need to spend some time here to try and communicate with it. It seems to understand us somehow, but so far its own language is completely unintelligible."

Applejack glanced across the room. "But didn't Pinkie just-"

"Nothing Pinkie does counts," Twilight said sternly, her eyes narrowing, "you know that! This requires actual study and analysis! That makes sense!"

"Fine, fine. So whatcha need?" the earth pony asked with a sigh.

"Well, honestly the biggest difficulty I can foresee is that it seems to be following Apple Bloom's orders specifically," Twilight mused, cradling her chin with her hoof, "if it would listen to anypony, then I could just ask it to follow me home, and I'd be happy to study it there."

Applejack winced, biting her lip. "So yer saying that Ah need to..."

"Get Apple Bloom to make it listen to me. Or at least to make it stay at the library," Twilight said with a nod and a smile. She really didn't care where she had to be in order to study the automata as long as she had access to it and it didn't treat her as a threat. Just the thought of being able to observe such a marvel of technology nearly made her giddy.

Applejack wasn't nearly so happy. Apple Bloom could be as stubborn as any other Apple, and she had obviously taken a strong liking to the infernal contraption. Which wouldn't have been such a big problem if the feeling didn't seem to be mutual. Getting her to give it up to Twilight willingly was going to be an uphill battle.

Glancing over at the alien device in question, Applejack was surprised to notice two new ponies staring in wonder at it. One was a cream-colored earth pony with a mane in two colors, while the other was a gray pegasus with a blonde mane and yellow eyes that seemed to be staring in two directions at once.

"Wait, what're Bon Bon and Derpy doin' here?" Applejack asked, finally raising her head away from her hushed conversation with Twilight.

"They're here for the party, silly filly!" Pinkie said, bouncing by with a tray of cupcakes on her head. "Ponies have already started showing up!"

Applejack groaned. "And yer gonna hold it here and now, huh?" She didn't especially mind hosting parties on her farm, but she doubted it would help get the extraterrestrial probe out the door any sooner.

"Don't worry, Crabapple wants to keep the party small, so I only invited a dozen other ponies!" Pinkie chirped, handing a cupcake to Twilight. "She says that more than twenty-five ponies in a building this size constitutes a fire hazard, especially with psykers around!"

Twilight hesitantly took up the cupcake with her magic. "Psykers? What's that?"

"Dunno! Ooh, there's Berry! Laters!"

Pinkie Pie quickly tossed a cupcake toward Applejack, bolting across the room to welcome the new guests.

Applejack watched her go, and then glanced toward Twilight. "So Pinkie can definitely-"

"The answer is NO, Applejack!" Twilight snapped, looking annoyed at having to once again refute Pinkie's apparent expertise in interacting with alien cybernetic beings. "Anyway, it looks like I won't be getting any time tonight to study it in detail, but I'm sure observing it in a social setting will yield some interesting data too. Is it okay if I spend the night?"

"Sure thing, sugarcube," Applejack said, taking a bite out of her own cupcake, "it's not gonna be a problem fer ya?"

"Nope!" Twilight said brightly. "I can stay here as long as I need to! I don't have any particular reason to go back home anytime soon!"


****


Ponyville - Twilight's library


"Twilight! I'm back!"

Spike opened the front door to the treehouse, looking quite winded as he dragged a cart nearly as big as he was behind him.

"Sorry it took so long. I had to borrow a cart from Carrot Top to carry every... thing... back......"

Spike trailed off as he stared at the empty interior of the library, searching for any sight or sound of the ponies he had been shopping for.

Not so much as a note.

"... Seriously?"

Next Chapter: Second Contact Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 48 Minutes
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