Iron Hearts

Chapter 4

Maim, Kill, Burn, etc.

****

Ponyville - Scootaloo's home

Big Macintosh yawned lightly as the sun slowly crept over the horizon, finally illuminating Ponyville after a long night.

The stallion was used to getting up early, of course, but had been up quite late as well. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were all still fast asleep, and likely would be for some time. They had made quite a fuss over Crabapple the previous night, and had stayed up late as a result. Big Macintosh, in turn, had stayed up later, walking short patrols around Scootaloo's home to ensure that the premises were free of aliens skulking about.

He had encountered nothing, thank Celestia, but he wasn't about to let his guard down so soon; the gash he had taken from one of the tall, spindly ones hadn't even healed completely yet.

The clanking of metal interrupted his viewing of the sunrise, and the stallion turned his head. Crabapple scuttled out of the open doorway to join him.

The drone's body had been painted over, more or less. The outer facings of its legs, previously a solid black, were now a bright red bordering on pink, in imitation of its namesake. Crabapple's body was not painted uniformly, as the fillies couldn't decide whether or not to paint the main body. Apple Bloom had insisted (correctly) that if they got paint over the optics sensors Crabapple wouldn't be to see, while Sweetie Belle insisted on evening out some paint splatters that had landed on the carapace plating by accident. The result was that the bottom-most portion of the automata was painted with a wavy, uneven border giving way to unblemished ceramite. Or rather, mostly unblemished. The fillies were rather clumsy.

The paint had obscured Crabapple's Iron Skull emblem, of course, so Apple Bloom had painted it a new "cutie mark": a dark red apple with crab legs sticking out the sides and a smiley face plastered over the fruit.

Really, the machine looked absolutely ridiculous now, but then an alien reconnaissance robot being commanded by a rural filly was perfectly ridiculous on its own, so he supposed it fit.

+Unit Big Brother has completed cursory recon survey. Unit may now withdraw to base. Beginning wide-spectrum scan...+

Big Macintosh laid down on the grass and continued watching the sunrise, ignoring Crabapple's buzzing. While he was fairly sanguine about the machine itself, he did have to admit that its so-called "language" grated on the ears. And given that nopony could understand it anyway, he wished it didn't bother trying to talk to them.

+Analyzing local weather patterns... twenty degrees Celsius mean average, twenty-eight percent humidity, well within tolerance thresholds for mammalian bio-forms. An ideal day, indeed.+

Crabapple's body rose higher above the ground, and its antennae quivered in the cool morning breeze.

+Tight-beam transmissions detected. Expected deployment origin: Tau colonial reconnaissance. Deploying ion emissions tracking...+

Crabapple's sensor dish whirled about.

+Tracking multiple anti-gravity signatures consistent with Tau armor drive patterns. Pathing... analysis complete.+

Big Mac glanced up at the automata while its buzzing increased in pitch and its sensor array spun about wildly.

+Xeno deployment will bypass current location. Current speed and trajectory places 38th Company detachment at high risk of enemy engagement.+

"Crabapple? Crabapple, where are ya?" came a voice from inside the house, beckoning the probe back to its master.

+Dispatching warning vox... unable to access active channel.+

Apple Bloom stepped into the doorway, brightening when she caught sight of the automata.

"There ya are! G'mornin' Big Brother!"

Macintosh mumbled a greeting, although his sleepy-looking eyes were still locked onto the probe. It seemed... upset, somehow.

"Apple Bloom, get Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," Big Mac said, his voice showing no particular sense of urgency as he stood up, "we're gonna go into town for breakfast today."

Apple Bloom's expression brightened even further. "Okay!"

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Gaela rubbed her eye as she descended the stairs of the library, still wearing only her body suit and shaking off the effects of waking up.

"Hey, you don't look half bad without a half-inch of metal surrounding you, Acolyte," Daniels said, pausing in-between bites of his breakfast.

"Eh. I still prefer 'em with hair," mumbled another soldier while cleaning his pistol.

Gaela ignored the comments, looking over her men that remained. The were all awake and working, to their credit, either maintaining their weapons or eating a ration tin of nutrient gruel to prepare for the day's mission.

Dest was in a corner, reading a book taken from the shelf, exactly as he had been when she had gone upstairs. She wondered if he had even bothered going to sleep.

"Well, you all seem to have had a good night's rest," she mumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts, "didn't have any ponies crawling all over you while you were trying to sleep, no doubt."

"And a good morning to you too, boss-lady," offered another gunman, "can I offer you a ration tin? And the dragon already has morning tea prepared."

"Or if you need to take a piss, the lav's over there," Daniels said, pointing briefly to the side of the treehouse before gulping down some tea.

Gaela made a face. "You used an equine latrine?" Not that she really expected the soldiers to be picky about such things.

"Actually, weirdest thing: they have toilets. Like, normal human toilets," Daniels said with a shrug.

Gaela mulled that over for several seconds. "I'm starting to put together the pieces as to these creatures' origins."

"You mean the Warp didn't do it?" asked a gunman sarcastically.

"Shut up and eat your gruel."

Gaela took up a tin of the nutrient paste herself and popped open the lid. Then she felt something poke her leg.

Turning her head, she saw that the purple lizard thing with the green fins on its head was standing next to her, holding a filled tea cup and saucer.

"Here you go, space pirate lady," Spike said, his voice only slightly nervous.

Gaela quirked an eyebrow, and then took the tea without a word to the young dragon.

"So what's the plan today, Acolyte?" Daniels asked, cleaning the edges of the tin with his fingers and then licking off the last of the nutrient paste. "We could explore the rest of the xeno settlement. Maybe meet a few more of 'em, get in good with the locals?"

"You're on a mission, not shore leave," Gaela spat, taking a brief sip of tea. Licking her lips for a moment, she continued. "Our objective for the moment is to eliminate as many of the Tau jamming substations as possible as quickly as possible. Our secondary objective is to gather as much information as we can on their military presence on this planet."

"So, no reinforcements, then?"

"Not until we destroy enough substations to either weaken the field or allow our scanners to pinpoint the location of the primary jamming array," she took another sip of tea, her lips pressing into a thin line, "we cannot expect any support other than what we might stumble into unexpectedly. We're not the only team on deployment, after all."

"Well, then it sounds like ya'll might need a guide, sugarcube."

None of them needed to turn to look at the stairwell to see who had just spoken.

"Morning, Applejack," one of the soldiers mumbled as he finished cleaning his rifle.

Gaela grimaced. "A guide would be welcome, I suppose, but I wish to leave quickly. As soon as I finish eating I'll be putting on my armor and we'll go."

"Ah gotcha," Applejack said, tilting up her hat, "ya wanna get the jump on those grayskin critters, don'cha?"

"No, I want to leave before the pink one wakes up," Gaela said bluntly.

"Then you probably shouldn't look behind you," Daniels warned.

Gaela did just that. Impressively, she remained perfectly calm when she found Pinkie Pie standing behind her, grinning.

"That's impossible," the Acolyte stated firmly, as if the declaration would banish Pinkie from her sight, "the stairwell is over that way, and there is no other way down." She glanced up at her soldiers. "You were all WATCHING, right? How did this happen?"

"Ooh! Are you eating? What's that?" Pinkie practically jumped on Gaela and started sniffing at the ration tin, although the gruel didn't have much of a smell.

"Gaela! You're awake!" Twilight had apparently been awakened by the brief ruckus, and she was quickly descending the stairs.

"And now we've woken up the rest of them. Great," Gaela mumbled, perhaps forgetting that she wasn't wearing her helmet and thinking she was speaking too quietly to be heard. Pinkie practically had her snout in the tin by now, and looked completely intrigued by its contents.

"If you're leaving, I can accompany you as well. Spike, can you make enough food for everyone?" Twilight asked. Her mane was unkempt and she looked slightly haggard as she spoke, probably from jumping out of bed so quickly, but she was clearly intending on following the humans.

"No need, Sparkle. We're good for food," Daniels said, raising his empty tin. Spike breathed a sigh of relief that he had been spared having to make breakfast for more than a dozen individuals; he didn't even know what the humans were supposed to eat.

Gaela took a spoon and scooped up a mouthful of her nutrient paste, endeavoring to ignore the ponies as best she could until she'd gotten to eat. She wasn't all that surprised when Pinkie Pie's mouth clamped down onto the spoon the moment it cleared the tin.

"Pinkie! Stop that! What are you, a dog?" Twilight admonished angrily. WHY did her friends keep embarrassing her in front of the aliens?

Pinkie swallowed the mouthful of gruel, and then her smile promptly melted away. "BLEUGH! That stuff tastes horrible!"

"Then don't eat it," Gaela suggested dryly. She scooped up another spoonful and ate it, watching Pinkie with an expression of mild amusement.

"But why would you eat something like that?" Pinkie asked, looking quite distressed at the thought of it.

"Nutrient paste is not created for flavor. It's a concoction of vitamins, proteins, and carbohydrates perfectly balanced for the human diet and ground into a state that is effortless to digest while generating minimal waste." She swallowed another spoonful of gruel, and then took a sip of tea before continuing. "A human could live a perfectly normal, healthy life subsisting on nothing more than a single ration tin per day."

Twilight seemed positively entranced by her explanation, which was becoming the norm whenever she explained any aspect of human technology. Pinkie, as expected, was unimpressed.

"But it TASTES bad!" the pink pony protested, her eyes narrowing. Her expression was almost hostile, as if the presence of bad food was offensive to her.

"Yes, well, I have to admit the tea does help with that," Gaela said with a shrug as she polished off the cup, "assistant, refill my cup."

As Spike quickly brought in more tea, Applejack and Twilight were staring curiously at the ration tin.

Twilight in particular was tempted to try the strange alien food; Pinkie's complaints, if anything, made her more curious.

"Do you think this is safe for ponies to eat?" Twilight asked. "Our dietary needs shouldn't be THAT different, right?"

"You'll be fine," Gaela deadpanned, "even if there were some element in the paste that your biology finds objectionable, in this state your body would be able to isolate and neutralize it easily. If you want to try it, go ahead."

And that was all the encouragement Twilight needed. The spoon was seized in her telekinetic grip and she quickly stuck a mouthful into her jaws, her eyes squeezing shut as she swallowed.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that Pinkie had been overreacting; the paste didn't have any particular taste, although the slimy texture was unpleasant. Pinkie's tongue was probably just so used to sugar by now that anything else might as well be grass to her.

"So, do you survive on this exclusively?" Twilight asked before downing another spoonful.

"No, thank Tzeentch," one of the gunmen replied, "we happen upon enough agri-worlds that we get real food every once in a while."

"And you're worse off for it," Gaela pointed out, fetching herself another tin.

"I already sold my life to the bloody Gods of Chaos, thankyamuch, I'd be willing to give up a day's 'balanced' meal for a steak."

Applejack's ears twitched. "Steak? Steak of what?" The others not being farmers and them all being herbivores, she was the only one who knew anything about cuts of meat; not all Fluttershy's animals ate plants, after all.

"Whatever. Cows, lamb, pigs... hell, that Gnarloc would make quite a feast if we'd had time to hack it up."

Pinkie Pie recoiled, grimacing. "You guys eat animals?" Twilight froze in the middle of taking another bite of the rations. Applejack raised an eyebrow, but was clearly the least bothered by it; so long as the humans weren't murdering her livestock, she wasn't about to criticize their diet.

"Oh, calm down. We wouldn't eat you lot," Daniels reassured them.

"Unless you died through no fault of our own and we had nothing else to do with the body," another man added quickly, "I mean, it'd just be wasteful otherwise."

"You're not helping, Jacob."

Twilight stared uncomfortably at the ration tin, the spoon still floating above her snout.

"You needn't worry. There are no meat products in the rations. The process of raising livestock for slaughter is far too energy-inefficient. All the protein components are plant-based or chemical recombinants," Gaela explained between bites of her own meal.

Twilight looked relieved. "So then why would humans still eat meat?"

"Because it tastes good, obviously." Gaela's biological eye stared meaningfully at Pinkie Pie. "Anyway, will the rest of your companions be joining us in the field? It's likely to be dangerous."

Twilight took another bite of the gruel as she considered it. "Well, Rarity just got up, so she won't be finished primping for half an hour or so. Rainbow Dash was doing a circuit around Ponyville to stretch her wings, but I'm sure she'd want to come."

****

Ponyville Outskirts

*We have two energy signatures. One is in passive mode, the other active. Definite mark on a heavy gue'la, Astartes-class. Unsure about the other.*

Five Tau Pathfinders were gathered behind a house, their position shielded from much of the rest of the town by a series of overgrown hedges.

Their recon armor was painted in a green camouflage pattern in contrast to the fire teams, with nothing but a small disk inset on their chest boasting the sept colors of blue and black. The squad leader was attending to a sensor drone that hovered close to the ground, whirring softly as its numerous sensor fins shifted.

*If there are only two, then let us take care of them ourselves,* one Pathfinder suggested, hoisting his pulse carbine.

*Negative, Shas'la. We recently lost a kill team in this region, and then lost contact with a Kroot heavy assault unit soon afterward. Even if there are only two armor suits, we don't know how much light infantry support they possess. Our scanners are unable to differentiate between the gue'la and the native life forms.*

A snort from some of the other Pathfinders informed him of what they thought of the human soldiers, but none protested the decision.

*I've already contacted an armored convoy en route to the transmitter field base. When they arrive we will provide markerlight support to crush the enemy unit with overwhelming force, and then-*

"Found you, alien freaks!"

The Pathfinders immediately dropped to a crouch, their weapons at the ready and all visible approach vectors covered as per their training.

Well, all visible approach vectors on the ground, anyway.

Only one of the Tau realized that the shout seemed to have been coming from above the house rather than the streets, and that Pathfinder briefly broke his unit protocol to look upward rather than protect their flank.

He was rewarded for his vigilance by a pair of blue hooves to the face.

As the rest of the team was alerted that they were under attack by the sound of a cracking helmet, Rainbow Dash rebounded off the stunned Pathfinder and toward the sensor drone, smashing into the squad leader head-first and plowing him into the floating machine.

*What the blazes is that?*

*Is that a gue'la unit?*

*Hold your fire! You'll hit the Shas'ui!*

Rainbow staggered to her feet as the squad leader did the same, although the alien soldier was clutching his arm in pain. The sensor drone bobbed around them wildly, trying to stay tethered to its location despite the hit it had taken.

"Welcome to Equestria, slowpokes!" the pegasus snarled, kicking out the Pathfinder's leg and sending him to the ground again. "Enjoy your TRIP!"

She took off again in flash of blue and one Pathfinder fired a panicked pulse shot as she zipped over his head, accidentally blasting the sensor drone before a kick to the back of his helmet sent him tumbling.

The drone sputtered briefly while the energy bolt cooked its circuits, and then a gout of smoke billowed from the device as it dropped to the ground.

Rainbow Dash flew a wide arc around the aliens, passing behind the house that they had been sheltering behind.

*F-Fall back! Run!* the squad leader commanded, crawling toward his pulse carbine.

*What, are you serious? We're going to flee from one of the local birds?* demanded one Pathfinder, his eyes scanning the sky.

*We're not here to start a fight with the natives, Shas'la! Our position has been compromised! Move!* a squadmate pulled the veteran to his feet, although it seemed as if his leg was broken.

*Oh, this is just pathetic,* growled the other Tau, covering their retreat as his squadmates dashed for the trees.

*Hey, if it comes back, then you can feel free to take a swing at it,* snapped the Pathfinder whose helmet now had a pair of vaguely U-shaped cracks in its front, *I don't do close combat!*

*Forget it! The convoy will be here soon! They'll manage without us!*

****

Ponyville - library

"You guys! We've got trouble!"

Human and pony alike looked up as a shout came from the balcony upstairs.

It was followed by a yelp and a dull thump, and many of the humans snickered along with the ponies as they heard muffled cursing from above.

"We're downstairs, sugarcube," Applejack said, "don't hurt yerself on the way down!"

"Rainbow Dash, I hope you didn't break anything up there! I just fixed my telescope!" Twilight warned, not bothering to turn toward her room as she shouted.

"This is more important than your dumb telescope!" Rainbow Dash insisted as she staggered down the stairs. "I just saw a bunch of those Tau jerks skulking around Ponyville!"

That quickly silenced everybody save Gaela.

"Number and location," the Acolyte commanded.

"Five grayskins, forty clicks off at six o'clock!" Rainbow barked, saluting with her hoof just as she had seen in a Wonderbolts promotional video once.

Gaela paused. "That's... well outside the town's perimeter."

"I... I don't actually know what a 'click' is," Rainbow confessed. Then she glanced at a clock on the wall. "Also, I guess it was more like six-fifteen. But anyway, I saw a bunch of those alien creeps playing around with one of their stupid gizmos and I chased them off! I even got the machine they were messing with!" Technically, of course, the sensor bot had been a victim of friendly fire, but since she had caused the accident, she decided that it still counted.

"Hmm... if they're already fleeing the area, then we'll be hard pressed to catch them," Gaela considered, pausing briefly to gulp down the last of her tea, "also, this could easily be a trap to lure us out of the village and into a fire team..."

As the human soldiers awaited the Dark Acolyte's decision, Dest glanced up from the book he was reading.

"Ah, that reminds me: there was a vox transmission earlier that my helmet detected, but couldn't pick up properly. You might want to check yours, since your transmitter is probably stronger."

Gaela's jaw slowly fell open, and she made several unintelligible noises before she finally broke into a sprint straight up the stairs toward her armor.

Pinkie Pie tilted her head to the side. "She seemed kind of upset. Was that important?"

"Meh. Who knows?" Dest closed the book and then stepped up to Twilight, who immediately gave the Astartes her full attention. "In any case we'll probably be leaving soon, so I'd like to check this out."

Twilight put aside the now-empty ration tin and glanced at the book. A Guide to Canterlot. Not her favorite title documenting the history and layout of Equestria's capital - she found it was a bit too tourist-oriented - but still an interesting choice.

"Okay, sure. Let's just get you signed up for a library card and-"

"SON OF A BITCH!!" came a howl from upstairs.

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "What do dogs hafta do with anythin'?"

"Oh, that's just an expression of general anger and frustration among our people," Daniels explained, pulling his optics mask down, "she must've gotten some bad news."

"TAU ARMOR COLUMN INCOMING!!" a second shout explained.

"Yeah, that's pretty bad news," another soldier agreed, putting on his optics visor.

Dest held up the book in his hand, and then wedged it into his ammo belt. "Well, it looks like the card will have to wait. But you can feel free to take the book off my body if I don't survive this," the Chaos Marine said conversationally, pulling his boltgun free of its magnetic lock on his armor leg.

Twilight winced at that, but Rainbow Dash just looked confused. "Wait, I don't get it. What's an 'armor column'?"

"It means we're facing enemy tanks and APCs," Daniels explained as he grabbed his lasrifle, "and if we're lucky, that's all. Battlesuits would have a hard time keeping pace with the vehicles, but who knows?"

"Okay, but you can take 'em, right?" Applejack asked.

"Not really, no," another soldier admitted, "we weren't supposed to be fighting an armored column. There isn't supposed to BE an armored column. These are some of the most vicious colony scouts I've ever heard of."

"Yeah, well what if we helped out?" Rainbow Dash asked, gesturing to herself with a grin. Applejack nodded grimly in agreement, while Twilight winced again.

"We'd appreciate any help, but I'm not sure what you plan on doing to a tank," Daniels admitted, "these targets are even harder than the Gnarloc. Thick armor, low-level flight, and plenty of guns on Tau machines." then he glanced at Twilight. "Although... a psyker might be able to do some damage."

"Er..." Twilight shrunk in on herself slightly. "I'm... not sure I'm comfortable with murdering one species of aliens on the behalf of a different one I just met. Especially since you already admitted that you're only fighting the Tau to loot and pillage their ships."

It certainly seemed like a rational position to her, but she couldn't help but noticing the bemused looks on her friends' faces.

"So much for the magic of friendship," Pinkie snorted, rolling her eyes.

"I think it's a little different when warfare is involved!" Twilight protested.

"Well, Ah'm on yer side," Applejack said, raising a hoof and tilting up her hat, "those filthy grayskins destroyed mah home!"

"Not that I'm blaming them for that, but you DO realize that the humans technically were what brought them to your farm in the first place, right?" Twilight asked, only to be ignored.

"Whatever. Element of loyalty right here! Let's kick some Tau flank!" Rainbow Dash cheered.

"Girls, please, don't do this to me," Twilight groaned, planting a hoof against her face.

"On your feet, soldiers!" Gaela shouted as she rushed down the stairs, her heavy greaves pounding against the wooden steps. "Outside, now!" her mask was still down, for whatever reason, but otherwise she was fully armored and ready to go, her plasma pistol on her thigh and her power axe hoisted in her bionic arm.

The humans poured out of the library in short order, spreading out and keeping watch on all the sight lanes with their rifles down. There were several more ponies out and about Ponyville now than there were last night, and the unit received no shortage of shocked expressions as Dest and Gaela joined them. The expressions lightened considerably when Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash followed, although they were still understandably curious.

"What's the plan, Acolyte? Where we going?" Daniels asked, looking at the hills that covered one side of the town.

"The town square. There's enough room there," Gaela answered, taking a fairly large cylinder from her belt as she walked past him.

The soldiers hesitated briefly before following her.

"Enough room for what? Aren't we retreating?"

Gaela snorted. "If you think you can outrun xeno skimmers, feel free to try."

"Hiding, then?" another gunman asked.

"The xeno forces are going to have strong enough sensors to track us down," Dest concluded, following behind Gaela while Pinkie Pie hung from his backpack, "our only option is defense."

"Defense with WHAT?" Daniels asked incredulously. "I don't think a plasma pistol, boltgun, and a handful of lasrifles are going to be enough to ward off a devilfish APC!"

"We leave that in the hands of our brothers in orbit," Gaela said, sounding mildly amused as she twisted the cylinder in her hand.

One end of the metal shell slid free, revealing a complex bundle of wirework and a single glass projector at the end. Gaela's mechadendrites seeped from the fingers of her artificial hand, entering the crevices of the device and entering a complex array of electronic triggers.

"What is that?" Twilight asked Daniels, nudging him with her hoof.

"Ah, not quite sure, actually," the gunman confessed, "I can tell a krak warhead from a fragmentation munition, but Mechanicus gear always tends to be hard to work with for anyone else."

"It's a beacon," Dest said simply, waiting patiently as the Dark Acolyte placed it on the ground in the exact middle of the town square.

"Aren't those used to call in artillery strikes?" one soldier asked skeptically. Not that such a thing wouldn't be useful with enemy forces barreling down on them, but calling one into the middle of Ponyville long before the enemy arrived wasn't likely to help anything.

"Not all of them, no," Dest assured him.

Gaela stepped back as a rapidly building whine came from the beacon. After a few seconds, a bright flare of light pulsed from the device, and a beam of light briefly lanced upward into the sky.

Then the light faded away, the beacon going dark.

"So... are we getting reinforcements?" one man ventured to ask.

"In a manner of speaking," Dest said, his massive armored shoulders shifting in a shrug, "you're going to want to stand clear."

Gaela stepped back as well, looking up at the clear blue sky while leaning on her axe.

"Have you considered talking to the Tau, rather than fighting?" Twilight offered, approaching the Acolyte. "I know that I'm new to intergalactic conflict and all, but from what I've seen and heard it seems to me that you actually have some ground to work out a solution without getting anybody killed."

"I have not considered such a solution," Gaela said flatly, "a wolf does not negotiate with its prey. It either succeeds and survives, or it fails and dies."

"From what your soldiers have told me, I'm not sure you qualify as the predator in that analogy," Twilight pointed out.

"And yet the point remains the same, doesn't it?" Gaela said with a slight smirk. "The incoming Tau have no reason to negotiate with my unit while they hold military superiority. The 38th Company has no reason to negotiate with the Tau forces for the same reason. We have an impasse."

The whirring of gears came from her power armor as her helmet shifted up into position, the mask sliding up over her mouth as metal folded up and around her face, closing shut with a hiss of pressurized air.

"That means it's killing time."

"But by all indications you're throwing your lives away!" Twilight protested. As much as she didn't want to fight the Tau, she really didn't want to see the humans gunned down in front of her, either. "At least let us hide you, or... or..."

"Hush, Sparkle," came the harsh, static-filled bark from Gaela's vox grill, "our salvation arrives."

The front door to Twilight's library opened up, and Spike quickly moved to hold the door open as Rarity stepped outside.

"Really, I might have expected this from our visitors and even some of my friends, but even Twilight was content to just rush outside without telling me a thing?" Rarity complained as she searched left and right for her companions. "Really, can't a lady take a few minutes to put her face on without being abandoned all by herself?"

"Well, I'm here for you, Rarity!" Spike quickly volunteered, closing the door behind them.

"Yes, yes, I know. Now where did they go?"

As the glamorous unicorn glanced about, Spike looked upward and squinted his eyes. "Well, if I was going to guess, I'd say they'd be wherever those things are landing."

"Landing? What?" Rarity looked up where Spike was pointing, and her eyes widened considerably, her expression matching that of nearly every other resident in Ponyville as three drop rigs descended on the town square like gleaming meteors.

Rockets on the bottom of the drop rigs flared as they approached the ground, slowing the containers down below a threshold that would smash their cargo apart. Even so, the rigs hit the ground with far greater force than the recon probes, shaking the earth as they kicked up dirt and flames.

Each one was much smaller than a drop pod, which most of the men had been hoping for, and was shaped into a rectangular metal block with the Iron Skull stamped onto the side.

Gaela wasted no time, rushing up to the nearest one and gripping an exposed metal handle with her servo arm.

+Access code 3381929300791, tacticae authorization secundus. Engage deployment sequence.+

With her blurt of binary, all three pods split open slightly, air rushing out of their metal shells and small red lights blinking on at the tops of the rigs.

Gaela's servo arm rotated and the drop rig unfolded like a flower, three sides releasing to fall onto the ground as she held up the fourth.

"Ah, I see," Daniels mumbled, watching as four gun barrels longer than he was tall ratcheted upward, "now THAT might put a hole in a devilfish."

Gaela went to work with her servo limbs, hooking up the ammunition hoppers and unfolding the gunner's platform as her mechadendrites activated the targeting computer. Large armor plates shifted up and to the side of a raised platform to shield the gunner from incoming fire, and as the barrels of the quad gun dropped into firing position a pair of hand levers stuck out over the platform.

The moment Gaela stepped away from the active weapon emplacement Dest jumped up onto the platform, taking hold of the levers and pulling on one of them to test the responsiveness of the turret. The entire emplacement swung around with great speed, and the Iron Warrior nodded in satisfaction.

"What are these things?" Twilight finally asked as Gaela stepped past her to unlock the next emplacement.

"Kaius pattern drop rigs, quad gun configuration," Gaela explained as she opened up the next rig, "they can be dropped from orbit and set up in moments to provide heavy firepower for an otherwise outgunned infantry force. Like ours. The jamming signals may be too thick for vox, but without a jammer nearby our ships can pick up our beacons."

As she started connecting the ammo hoppers, she spared a glance at Twilight. "By the way, not that it matters that much to me if we have spectators, but your little xeno friends are going to be at serious risk of injury and death if they stand around watching for long."

Twilight grimaced as she realized that, unsurprisingly, having three alien machines drop into the middle of town from orbit had attracted quite a crowd of amazed and curious ponies. She promptly moved to warn them away.

"All right, this rig is ready!" Gaela barked, stepping back from the platform. "One of you gun monkeys get over here!"

"Aye-aye Acolyte!" Pinkie Pie said in an overly gruff voice before she jumped onto the firing platform and stood up on her hind legs, placing her hooves on the control levers.

Gaela wasted several precious seconds staring incredulously at the pink earth pony.

"What are you doing?" she finally demanded.

"I'm helping!" Pinkie cheered. Gaela had set the controls lower for the benefit of a human controller rather than an Astartes, so Pinkie was barely tall enough on her hind legs to make use of them, but as far as the Dark Acolyte could tell there was still no way for her to use the firing levers without hands.

"Okay, quit that. Get off, now," Gaela demanded. "You can't use this weapon, so you-"

"Ooh! What're these red dots on the screen?" Pinkie asked, tapping a hoof against the quad gun's sensor display.

Gaela recoiled, turning toward the human soldiers. "We have incoming! Take cover, now!"

As the human soldiers rushed to hide behind whatever they could find and the less curious ponies decided that they had better things to do elsewhere, Gaela gave up on talking sense to Pinkie and rushed to the third drop rig.

"Hey, I see it!" Rainbow Dash shouted from high above. "Two of 'em, moving fast!"

The sound of Dest's turret firing marked the beginning of the battle. A noise like thunder hitting the earth in rapid sequence filled the air as the quad gun opened up on the pair of light skimmers the moment they came into view.

One of the relatively small vehicles took a hit straight to the front right away, the autocannon round smashing through the weak plating and blowing the entire thing apart.

The other skimmer turned hard as its wingman vanished in a fiery cloud of shrapnel, and bright yellow tracer rounds from the quad gun followed it as it tried to evade.

"Piranhas! Don't let them get close to the heavy guns!" Daniels shouted, huddled behind a fruit cart. A few of his squadmates fired at the speeding attack craft, but he didn't bother; even sustained lasgun fire wouldn't damage most vehicles.

"What's going on?"

"What are these things?"

"The horror! The HORROR!"

The second Piranha tried to skim over a house and drop in behind it for cover, but as Dest's turret fire closed in it took a round to the engines, blowing one of them out and crushing the antigravity drive. The skimmer spun wildly as fire blasted out of its rear armor, sending it spinning to the ground to dig a scorched furrow in the dirt.

"And that's two," Dest remarked, letting his guns cool as he checked his augurs, "I don't suppose anyone would like to help out with the next wave?"

Gaela finished activating the last quad gun and jumped onto the firing platform, a cable hooking up from the back of her helmet to the control console. "I'm ready!"

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie said brightly. She had been spinning her turret around in circles and giggling since Gaela left, but the pony finally leveled the weapon out properly. Somehow.

"So, I don't really have time to explain everything," Twilight shouted to be heard as the quad guns opened up again, "but things are going to be rather dangerous around here for the next few minutes or so-"

She and many of the ponies she was speaking to flinched when a detonation came from behind her, and a hunk of black poly-ceramic plating bounced along the ground at her side, trailing smoke.

"So you should all stay inside for now, until it's safe!" Twilight finished, giving an uneasy look at the hunk of wreckage.

"So, wait, if these two alien groups are fighting it out, whose side are we on?" asked Bonbon.

"We're not on a side!" Twilight insisted, slicing her hoof horizontally through the air. "We're neutral in this affair!"

"Wait, what? I thought we were friends with the humans." Rarity asked, her and Spike approaching cautiously as two more Piranhas zoomed overhead at top speed.

Twilight groaned. "It's not that simple!"

"Hey, I see a couple big ones over there!" Rainbow Dash shouted, pointing her hoof south.

"Infantry, get ready to charge after we break the APCs open!" Gaela shouted. "Pie, seriously, how are you firing that quad gun with no fingers?!"

Carrot Top quirked an eyebrow. "It sure looks like we're on the humans' side to me."

Twilight pressed a hoof to her face. "That's... It's just... Look, just hide somewhere safe, okay?"

"Go humans! Get those nasty aliens!" Roseluck shouted, pumping her hoof in the air.

****

Fast asleep in her bed, and utterly unaffected by the roar of violence outside, Lyra's ear twitched.

****

A Devilfish transport swung into sight, opening fire as another APC moved behind it to unload its cargo. The hovercraft was bulky but nimble, with two heavy engines mounted on either side of its hull near the back. The hull tapered to a snub nose near the front, with two fins attached to either side of it, and its burst cannon mounted underneath it. The weapon loosed a stream of energy flares that sawed across the ground as it sought targets, eventually settling on one of the defensive emplacements.

A storm of crackling blue splashed against the front of Gaela's turret, and her firing display flickered briefly as the ablative armor plating started to break apart under the barrage.

The Devilfish suffered considerably for the opportunity, and autocannon fire pounded hard against its frontal armor, boring large, smoldering holes in the skimmer's plating. Eventually one shot managed to break through to the reactor core, and the engines flared red briefly before the entire vehicle detonated. Chunks of burning wreckage and ceramic shards went flying from the explosion, and the squad unloading behind it was thrown onto the ground from the shock wave and shrapnel.

"Whee! I got one!" Pinkie yelled, pulling one lever back and sending her turret into a celebratory spin.

"Meh. Lucky shot," Dest grumbled, annoyed that he hadn't been able to land a killing blow first. He then turned to the side to cover against another pair of incoming Piranhas.

*On your feet, Shas'la! Move! Move!* the squad leader got up first, pulling the nearest Fire Warrior to his feet and shoving him forward.

*Into cover! Flank those guns and take down the-*

That was as far as he got before a bright blue pegasus dive-bombed him from behind, sending the Fire Warrior and his subordinate to the ground again.

*What the blazes?* another Fire Warrior watched as Rainbow Dash stomped the soldiers into the scorched dirt and then took off again. *Why are the native inhabitants fighting us too?*

"This is fer mah farm, ya cowards!" came a heavily accented voice from behind him, and the hapless soldier was nearly struck by one of his squadmates sent flailing through the air from a vicious back kick.

He'd seen enough. If the natives wished to stand in their way, then they would fall just like countless other foes. He raised his pulse rifle as the orange pony ran rampant through their unit, kicking wildly at everything within reach, and waited for a clear shot.

His first opportunity was missed when a slug from a stub pistol struck him in the leg, staggering him.

The Fire Warrior turned to meet the new threat just in time for a rifle bayonet to pierce his neck.

"Never met a grayskin that could take a hit," Daniels spat, kicking the Fire Warrior off his blade and rushing toward another that was standing up.

"No mercy for the alien!" Daniels shouted, the other human soldiers bearing down on the hapless aliens while Applejack and Rainbow jumped on any one of them that looked like they might be lining up a shot.

Daniels kicked the rifle out of the Tau's hand, and then put a pistol round into the Fire Warrior's helmet. "Don't stop until they're all dead!"

Dest grunted irritably as another Devilfish APC passed behind a group of buildings surrounding the square, slipping our of his line of fire before he could get a good shot.

He contemplated simply firing at the house, hoping that the shells would penetrate both sides of the building and score a lucky shot, but dismissed it as a waste of ammunition. Besides, he had other targets.

Swiveling around toward another piranha that was making an attack run on their emplacements, the driver lined up his best shot and pulled the hand trigger.

Instead of the heavy thunder of the quad gun firing, however, he only heard the shriek of metal tearing as the gun segment of his emplacement was shorn free of its turret mount and flung backward through the air.

Glancing behind him, Dest observed the four barrels tumbling along the ground along with several other shredded components of the turret. The damage didn't look energy-based; most of the heat scarring looked like it was caused by sheer friction.

"I believe we have a Hammerhead gunship incoming!" he announced, stepping down from the firing platform and taking up his bolter.

"Hee hee! That's a silly name for a tank!" Pinkie giggled as she swiveled her turret around and fired at an incoming Piranha. A few shells detonated across the side of the skimmer, and it veered off hastily to avoid further damage as smoke spilled from its cockpit.

Gaela calculated the trajectory of the shot that had destroyed Dest's gun, thankful that there were enough buildings surrounding the town square to render the Tau's superior range a moot point.

She spotted her new target strafing behind the town's buildings, a series of floating after-images trailing the nimble war machine. Similar in hull design to the Devilfish, it was nonetheless obvious where the attack tank differed from the transport; the gun mounted atop the Hammerhead was as long as the entire vehicle, and nearly a meter wide. Arcs of power buzzed along its length, and the conductor coils within the massive weapon hummed as they charged themselves for the next shot.

"The machine spirits guide my fire, xeno filth!" Gaela shouted, beginning one of the less formal prayers to the machine as she opened up on the bow of the craft, "in iron, I triumph! In flames, you perish!"

Its hull shuddering under the rain of autocannon shells, the Hammerhead fired its railgun again, and Gaela's firing platform shook as one of the gun barrels was ripped apart by a glancing hit. Quite lucky, for her.

The Dark Acolyte calmly disconnected the relevant feed hopper and adjusted the power relay, missing barely a full second of her firing window before the gunship slipped behind another home.

"Spirit within the machine, heed my call and carry destruction to my enemies! Let steel unmake flesh this day, and the xenos' machines be baptized in the blood of their own!"

The Hammerhead once again floated into view, its disruption pods generating a constant illusory haze around it.

"Break," Gaela commanded, firing her first salvo into the center of the machine.

Minus one barrel the quad gun still unleashed an impressive barrage, and the cockpit was quickly obscured by shell impacts as Gaela stitched a line of cracked armor from the head of the vehicle to the left engine block mounted to the side of the turret.

"BREAK," she repeated, empty shell casings spilling onto the ground beneath her as the Hammerhead's turret started humming once again.

"BREAK!"

As if at her chanted command, one of the heavy rounds punched through an exhaust vent and into the engine, detonating horrifically and sending the vehicle into a wild spin as smoke and flame spat from the ruined engine.

The Hammerhead gunship released its prepared shot at a wild angle, and a streak of shimmering blue flew into the air before the sub-munition detonated, casting a bright cyan haze over the battlefield.

The hover tank tried to regain control with only one engine, but Gaela was hardly done with the vehicle. It had regained some semblance of control while facing away from her turret, and she wasted no time in putting a trio of autocannon rounds into the gunship's flimsier rear armor. Fire and shattered metal spilled out of the machine's engines, and the armored skimmer dropped to the ground as its systems went dark.

Gaela drew a deep breath as the enemy war machine died, and the remaining gun barrels of her emplacement glowed red from the strain of the extended barrage.

The brief pause was all the opening the Tau needed, and as a Piranha zoomed through her line of fire, the Acolyte was too slow to take her only shot of opportunity as its fusion blaster lit up.

Her only consolation was that she hadn't been its target.

"PINKIE!"

Twilight was too far away to do much except shout as a bolt of energy like the surface of a star slammed into Pinkie's gun emplacement, dissolving the reinforced armor into so much vapor. All sight of the pony vanished as the ammunition supply exploded, and when the flames receded there was little left of the gun except for cooling slag and bits of scrap.

"By Celestia!" Rarity cried, turning away and covering her eyes with her leg. "I can't watch!"

"Pinkie Pie!" Twilight gasped, her voice trembling. "She's... She's..."

Then the alicorn frowned, an incredulous look spreading over her face. "She's fine. How is she fine?"

Rarity peeked over her hoof and saw that Pinkie was in the air above, waving at them happily as she slowly descended via parachute. Where the hardened durasteel of the quad gun had been dissolved like butter before the fusion blaster, the pink pony didn't have so much as a single burn on her.

"Don't worry! I hit the eject button!" Pinkie explained as she landed lightly, her balloon-patterned parachute falling down over her head.

Twilight gaped briefly before she shook her head and ran over to the pink pony, ignoring the whine of a Piranha zipping by overhead and the rattle of gunfire chasing after it.

"Pinkie, I have only a rudimentary understanding of the humans' technology, but I didn't see anything on that emplacement that looked like it could be an ejection system."

Pinkie poked her head out from under her parachute, a rather condescending smile on her face. "Well, do have a better explanation for how I got out?"

Twilight said nothing, her teeth clenched and her ears pinned.

"Eject button," Pinkie said with a note of finality.

"Hey, they landed more over there!" Rainbow Dash shouted, floating high over the battlefield and directing the soldiers. She then yelped and flew away as a pulse shot blasted by her.

"Twilight, dear, I think it's time you stopped being coy about aiding the humans," Rarity pointed out, a bemused expression on her face, "if we don't help, I think somepony is going to get hurt."

"And what are we going to do if the humans lose?" Twilight asked, a piece of broken armor plating bouncing across the ground between them before a Devilfish passing nearby lost anti-gravity and plowed into the dirt.

Rarity used her magic to ward off the wave of dust kicked up by the vehicle, a distasteful expression marring her features. "Oh, come now, do you think they'd lose with our help?"

"I don't know, but the Tau have already put a lot of resources into this attack already, and they show no signs of slowing down," Twilight pointed out, "these aliens are POWERFUL, Rarity, and so far we've only ended up on the humans' side due to circumstance. I don't want to see anypony hurt or killed over that!"

Rarity rolled her eyes. "I'm inclined to agree in principle, but as you said, circumstances seem to have led us to this point. Do you think things might turn out any better if we just wait things out on the sidelines?"

Twilight frowned. "Well... I..."

"BATTLESUIT!"

The shout brought Dest's attention immediately, and he dropped the Fire Warrior he had been throttling as his hand went to his boltgun.

It landed on a nearby roof, its jet pack flaring and its optics glaring a harsh red. Larger, faster, and even better armed than a terminator suit, the Tau Crisis Suits were a tactical asset as crucial to the Tau as Space Marines were to the Imperium. The battle had yet again taken a turn for the worse.

Gaela swung her turret around to intercept the new threat, but the battlesuit was already in firing position. A pair of plasma bolts from its rifle struck the main gun, frying the firing mechanism even as the suit's rocket pods launched a salvo of mini-warheads at the smoldering gun emplacement.

Gaela disconnected her neural tether, but didn't have time to jump from the platform before the warheads struck, enveloping her in flame and broken metal. Her autosenses shrieked in her ear from overload, and the Dark Acolyte found herself gently lifted from the exploding emplacement as fire swam all around her.

Gently lifted.

That was odd.

As was the lack of any kind of damage readout from her armor status display, which continued to work perfectly despite the point-blank detonation. It was possible for her armor to save her from such an explosion, but there should have been SOME damage...

Gaela belatedly noticed the haze of magic surrounding her as she was carefully placed on a section of ground that wasn't currently on fire. Twisting her head, she saw Twilight standing behind her, her horn aglow and her expression strained as she maintained the barrier.

"You realize that protecting me from harm is still a contribution to the human war effort in this conflict, right?" Gaela asked. "You can't really claim to be neutral any more, if you ever could."

"Do you ever just THANK anyone for helping you?" Twilight asked irritably.

"If it keeps me shielded from more missiles, then by all means: thank you," Gaela said, standing up.

The Crisis Suit surely would have interrupted their conversation with another round of fire, but the mechanized warrior was interrupted by a burst of mass-reactive shells slamming into its torso armor, blowing chunks of ablative plating off of the blocky suit cockpit.

The battlesuit immediately turned its full focus onto the only Astartes taking part in the battle, jumping into the air and hovering briefly before its plasma rifle fired screaming flares of hot energy down below.

Dest ducked back behind the wall of a house, moving behind the building as the plasma bolts splashed against the ground. He had gotten the first shot, but had failed to cause any critical damage. With its full attention on him, the Acolyte could probably get away, but he doubted he could best one of the Tau's heavy infantry on his own.

The Chaos Marine halted before he rounded the corner of the building. Since when was he on his own? True, their bigger guns had been silenced and besides him they had only a handful of cultists and ponies, but he was still surprised to hear very little in the way of noise aside from the steady hiss of the Crisis Suit's jetpack.

A noise that was coming from right above him.

Dest threw himself into a roll as plasma rained onto the ground behind him, cursing his foolishness for trying to outflank a unit that had flight capability and probably a better sensor suite. If he could get close he was sure he could turn the battlesuit's bulk against it in melee - always the Tau's most glaring weak point - but that wasn't going to happen while it had the high ground and a functioning jet pack.

Jumping to his feet and grumbling that he'd never had to worry about such tactical nuances behind the controls of a Rhino, the Chaos Space Marine accelerated to a sprint and rounded the corner of the building.

Just in time to take a pulse round to the abdomen.

Daniels winced as he watched the Iron Warrior collapse forward onto his face, a scrambled cry of pain coming from the warrior's vox grille before he hit the ground. His boltgun slipped from his hands and onto the dirt behind him, well out of arm's reach of Dest's prone position.

"Well, that turned against us rather quickly," the soldier mumbled, his hands on the back of his head. He had been stripped of his rifle, pistol, and knife, as well as his mask. More than two dozen Fire Warriors currently stood behind him, pulse rifles trained in case he or his two surviving men tried anything.

Aside from Dest and Gaela, the latter of whom he didn't see anywhere, half of his squad had been all but vaporized by pulse rifle salvos, and he felt quite lucky that they had fared THAT well. He and the other two men had been subdued in the veritable dogpile that had resulted the moment Dest had left to take on a worthier target.

Tau were a poor sight in a brawl, as everybody knew, but when they outnumbered you five to one...

"Well, that accounts for just about all of you," said the Fire Warrior that had just put down Dest, lowering his pulse rifle. This one had several white stripes on his shoulder pads and some other assorted decoration on his armor. Combined with his good grasp of Gothic, Daniels figured that probably made him a commander.

Three Devilfish floated nearby with their access doors open, ringing the cluster of troops while drone carbines and burst cannons covered the detachment's flank. Another Hammerhead gunship hovered high above a three-story house, its ion cannon scanning for any stragglers fleeing the area.

"Quite a fight you put up for this little piece of ground, gue'la," the commander turned toward the humans, "I'll be hard-pressed to explain these losses to my superior. UNLESS we get some decent intelligence from our prisoners. If you were to be cooperative, the next few days would go much easier for both of us."

Daniels laughed. His fellow gunmen didn't, although to be fair they were probably nursing some broken ribs.

"You think the Iron Warriors tell US anything? You'd better hope our driver there pulls through if you want to know much besides the best place to get tanked when shipside, mate!"

The Fire Warrior glanced at Daniels briefly, and then his eyes scanned the surrounding buildings. The natives had abandoned the battlefield quickly once his convoy had arrived in force, but he could see many of them watching from the windows of their homes.

"How odd," he finally said, turning back toward the only talkative soldier, "I was not aware that your Astartes contingents also commanded ordinary gue'la detachments. Already you have taught me something worthwhile."

"Well, how about that?" Daniels said with a smirk. "Looks like I have more to teach, too. You saps still think we're Imperial."

"You are gue'la. Human, in your language. You use Imperial firearms and your behavior matches that of properly drilled infantry. You are accompanied by the Astartes, the gue'la bio-engineered heavy infantry. And you expect me to believe that you are not Imperial military?"

"I guess not, huh? Bloody shame," the human soldier said with a shrug, "well, I doubt you'll live long enough for it to matter anyhow."

****

"See? What did I tell you? This is EXACTLY what I was afraid of!" Twilight hissed, pointing her hoof accusingly at Rarity.

She and her friends were hiding behind a storage shed, trying to keep out of sight while peeking out at the scene taking place in the middle of the square.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash had been quite enthusiastic about joining the humans in tromping all over the Fire Warriors in a wild melee, but had been forced to back off quickly once the men had been overwhelmed. Luckily the Tau showed no interest in chasing after them, although Applejack's hat now sported a scorch mark from a pulse rifle shot that had come way too close for comfort.

Gaela was huddled against the wall of the shed, restraining herself from speaking. She knew it was useless; her armor gave off enough of a power signature for any halfway decent scanner to pick up. But she was hoping to at least overhear something useful from the commander.

None of this made sense. This kind of detachment could have defeated a mission detachment of Space Marines. And while she and her unit (with some pony help, of course) had done extraordinarily well, this size of a convoy was definitely not just scouting out nice locations for new settlements. Nor were they making any real effort to stay concealed, which should be the priority of a force being pursued planetside from an unfavorable space battle.

The Tau were here in force, that much was obvious. But what were they doing?

"You know, maybe if you had helped out some more, we could've won!" Rainbow Dash complained, her hooves solidly grounded for once. She was pretty sure she had smacked around enough of the Tau that they would shoot at anything blue and flying by reflex, now.

Their hushed conversation was interrupted by the whine of antigravity engines and the rush of air, and Applejack's ears fell flat against her head as she watched four more Devilfish and an escort squad of Piranhas pass over Ponyville. The vehicles didn't even slow down as they flew straight over the houses and Fire Warriors below, apparently satisfied that the situation was under control.

"Ah dunno about that, sugarcube. Ah think we mighta bitten off more'n we can chew, here."

Pinkie sat back on her haunches, frowning. "So does this mean we're switching sides now? Because I don't think any of the other humans can make my Welcome to Equestria party anymore. Well, unless the Tau let them. Do you think they'd let them?"

"Pinkie, hush, the sane ponies are talking," Twilight grumbled, "okay, look, all we can do for now is escape with Gaela. As I've pointed out REPEATEDLY before now, the Tau aren't interested in bothering us; they're here for the humans."

"Wait, are you saying we're just going to leave the others? No way! We have to rescue them!" Rainbow said, her wings quivering.

"How're we gonna do that, sugarcube?" Applejack asked. "Don't get me wrong, Ah'd love ta beat down those alien varmints, but Ah don't like our chances with all their guns and big flyin'... other things with guns."

"Well, there's always the Elements of Harmony," Rarity pointed out.

"Oh, right," Twilight snapped, "we'll just pop into Canterlot, say hi to Princess Celestia, and explain that we need to go save the forces of Chaos! It would almost be worth the trip just to see the look on her face!"

"It's a friendship thing! She'd understand!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

Pinkie Pie frowned, and she walked over to Gaela and tapped her leg with her hoof.

"Hey! What do you think we should do?"

Gaela glanced down at the pink pony. Pinkie wasn't smiling. For the first time since she had met the obnoxious alien ponies, Pinkie actually looked WORRIED.

It left a bad taste in her mouth, somehow.

Gaela shifted uncomfortably. "I think you should go find a better hiding place. I intend to surrender along with the others."

Applejack turned toward her, scowling. "What, yer givin' up?"

"No, I fought and I lost," Gaela corrected, "fighting any further is no longer even a distant possibility, and evasion isn't possible for long. My choices now are to have them shoot me dead or give them the option to take me alive. Not a difficult choice."

"Maybe we could teleport you away from here," Rarity offered, "maybe we could-"

The words died in her throat as the whooshing noise of a Tau jet pack moved close enough to render her inaudible, and her hackles rose as something landed heavily on the shed above them.

"And so the game ends," Gaela mumbled, letting her power axe fall onto the ground and tossing her plasma pistol after it.

*Drop your weapons and surrender, gue'la,* came an amplified voice from above.

The ponies all lowered their heads and crept back as the battlesuit loomed over them, its plasma gun pointed directly at Gaela. It didn't even seem to notice the equines.

"As you say, grayskin," Gaela murmured, her servo arms folding back into rest mode as her arms rose into the air. She didn't understand Tau, but it wasn't hard to guess what it wanted.

The battlesuit activated its comms system. *Good. Shas'vre, we have another unit here. A Techpriest. It has surrendered.*

In her head, Gaela grumbled in annoyance about the Tau's communications apparently being unaffected by their extensive jamming methods. It made perfect sense, of course, but she couldn't help but wonder if she might have found some way to restore her own communications array if only she had been allowed to work on that damn drone last night.

It was a supreme irony that her musings were interrupted by a vox intercept.

"Ah ha, found you. Setting off such pretty fireworks so early in the morning, Acolyte? And you didn't think to invite us?" the voice was derisive, mocking, and entirely welcome.

Gaela's eye widened under her mask, and she deactivated her external vox emitter. "This little gathering is a bit crowded already, my lord. Almost thirty grayskins, a battlesuit, and an assortment of armor to boot."

The Crisis Suit barked something in its native language before swinging its rifle in the direction it wanted her to go. She followed its gesture even as her vox crackled in her helmet.

"Quite a mess you've fallen into! That kind of force will require... no, wait! Don't-"

Gaela flinched as a roaring noise erupted in her ear. At first she thought it was static, but after a moment she realized that her vox wasn't malfunctioning, but rather transmitting the sound of a jump pack activating.

She checked the vox log to determine who, exactly, she had been speaking to. Normally she would have checked that first, but in her current situation desperation had overcome prudence.

Carmine. Steel Reaver squad. A Raptor.

"Uh-oh," she said audibly.

She didn't stop moving, however, as she could still hear the sound of the Crisis Suit's heavy footsteps following along behind her, its plasma weapons still at the ready.

"Gaela, wait." The Acolyte heard Twilight's voice whispering behind her, but didn't turn to look. "Maybe, since they can't understand us, we can-"

"Quiet, Sparkle," Gaela said calmly, "you've done plenty. It seems our Tau friends have attracted a bit too much attention."

Twilight stopped, her hair rising on end as the enormous battlesuit jumped onto the ground next to Gaela. Its rifle was trained firmly on the human, but she was sure she saw one of the smaller optics lights glance her way.

"You might not want to watch what's about to occur," Gaela said hesitantly, "it's going to get very ugly soon."

****

"-and then the Warmaster killed the Emperor, except not really, so he died anyway. This really upset the rest of the rebel Astartes, so they packed up and left the planet, apparently. The rest of the Imperium was just as mad about the Emperor being sort-of-dead, so they chased the rebels all the way to-"

"Stop," requested the commanding Fire Warrior, holding up a hand in front of Daniels, "not that I don't appreciate you being so talkative, gue'la, but your tale makes no sense. And how long ago did you say this schism occurred?"

"About eleven thousand years ago," Daniels answered with a shrug, "give or take a millennium. Where DOES the time go?"

"And you say that the descendants of these so-called 'Chaos rebels' have been fighting the gue'la Imperium ever since?" the Tau commander asked, his skeptical tone evident despite his accent.

"Oh, no, it's mostly the same rebels, not their descendants. Space Marines in general have trouble with the whole 'reproduction' thing," Daniels explained, rolling his eyes.

"That's insane," the Tau stated dryly.

"Sure, but we don't tell them that to their faces."

*Shas'vre, here she is.*

The commander glanced to the side as an armored human approached in front of his detachment's battlesuit, her hands behind her head and her augmetic arms folded into a resting position. He'd need to have those disabled before they re-embarked; Techpriests could get into all sorts of trouble if you let them.

"I've heard enough. We'll continue this conversation back at base." The Fire Warrior nodded to his men and gave a hand signal, and they began moving toward the devilfish.

"Aw, story time's over already?" Daniels mocked. He was rewarded for his snark with the butt of a pulse rifle striking his back as the Fire Warriors drove him forward, although it didn't really hurt much.

*All right, get me a field engineer to disable this one's power armor. You four, drag the Astartes into-*

The commander's orders were interrupted as his comms system went active.

*Shas'vre! We have an incoming heat signature! Interception speed!*

With a mere gesture, the Fire Warriors were moving back into firing ranks.

*Do we have enemy air support? Identify!* A distant roar over the edge of Ponyville alerted his men to the threat, and several spotted a gleaming object zipping through the air above.

*Negative, Shas'vre. Too small. I think it's... evasive! Take evasive maneuvers!*

The Hammerhead moved, its port jets jinking the vehicle to the side as the hover-tank sought to avoid the incoming projectile.

Said "projectile" corrected its own course, curving through the air and trailing flames behind it before slamming into the skimmer's turret.

There was no explosion, although the impact sent the Hammerhead spinning over the rooftops while its pilots attempted to bring the tank under control.

The Tau commander thought he saw something silver attached to the side of the vehicle as it spun, but as soon as the Hammerhead brought itself to a stop, the roar of a jet engine met his ears again and he saw the curious projectile jump off behind a building, out of his line of sight.

*Shas'la, report!* the commander ordered, pointing the Crisis Suit forward while a unit of Fire Warriors moved to flank.

*We've regained control! We were hit by something, but there was no-*

The melta bomb wedged in the ion turret chose that moment to detonate, igniting the main reactor and nearly taking off the roof of the house that the Hammerhead had been hovering over. The Fire Warriors flinched back as chunks of smoldering armor bounced across the town square, and the Crisis Suit was staggered briefly as a piece of the cockpit broke against its leg.

The Tau barely had time to catch their breath before the sound of engines flaring once again dominated the square. Looking up, the Fire Warrior commander got his first good look at their mysterious "projectile" as it ascended to the sky, trails of flame roaring from its back.

It was an Astartes, that much was obvious from the outset; its armor bore the same brushed steel and beaten gold pattern of the Space Marine lying prone behind him. This one seemed... different, however. Its hands bore no separate weapons, but were gripped into fists as curved blades extended from the gauntlets, crackling with energy. Chains were wrapped tight around the Marine's neck and torso armor and were strung with trinkets and battle trophies. The helmet bore large, golden horns that curved forward, and it boasted a curiously oversized vox grille. Finally, on its back the Marine bore a jump pack, obviously, but of a sort the experienced Fire Warriors had never seen before. Rather than just a pair of large turbine engines to propel the massive armor suit and the giant wearing it, this one had numerous metal fins attached to the sides of the jump pack, each one boasting a small engine, such that they resembled a pair of metallic wings that spewed fire and smoke as the Chaos Space Marine rocketed into the sky.

The Raptor's ascent was met with volleys of pulse rifle fire, and streaks of blue chased the gleaming figure while it rose higher and higher. The fusillade began to taper off once the warriors below realized that the Iron Warrior was not making an assault jump toward them, their rifles lacking the accuracy and range necessary to hit something at that range that was moving that fast.

The noise of pulse fire around him slackened, and the Chaos Raptor rolled in the air, casting spirals of smoke behind him as the thrust of his jets finally began to slacken.

For a moment, he hovered in the sky and looked down at the detachment of aliens below, snickering at the insects huddled together on the distant ground.

Then he hit the amplifier on his vox unit, his growling voice transformed into a lunatic roar.

"Hear my name and tremble, xeno worms! Lord Tellis has arrived to end you!"

He spread his arms apart, crackling red arcs of electricity crawling over his lightning claws and arms.

"Iron within, become the iron without! BLOOD! FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"