Iron Hearts

Book 2

Ferrous Dominus

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

Legal disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro. Warhammer 40K is the property of Games Workshop. I am but a helpless pawn, dancing to the tune of these mighty corporate behemoths.

Punctuation key: "Speech in Gothic" *Speech in Tau language* +Speech in binary+ Non-aural communication, such as telepathy

Dramatis Personae

Iron Warriors 38th Company:

Solon - Warsmith (high commander) dedicated to Nurgle

Sliver - vice-commander dedicated to Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord dedicated to Khorne

Serith - Sorcerer

Dest - Rhino driver

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Cyrus Gnoss - human mercenary General

Norris Delgan - human Trademaster

The Great and Powerful Trixie - entertainer

Suuna - assistant(?) to the Great and Powerful Trixie

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos and Executor

Gaela - Dark Acolyte

Lenna - pilot

Geth - Scavurel Core

Tau Lamman Sept:

Commander Wraithstar - Shas'el

Jerriha - Shas'vre Fireblade

Field Report: Sector 7-3, after-action. File designation PV-311

The Tau field base has been searched, and the Techpriests have made their initial assessments.

Rather than being particularly bad or good, they're mostly ironic. Undetonated munitions found at the site of the field base indicate that the Tau were in the process of destroying their base to prevent the capture of any useful data and materials. Lord Tellis, acting without orders or reinforcement, stopped them. He then called in an artillery strike right onto the camp, accomplishing what the Tau wanted in the first place. Salvage of the enemy base will be sparse, although the Dark Mechanicus is settling in to study the remains of the jamming array. Apparently there is considerable interest in an emitter that can jam standard vox transmissions and deep scans so effectively over an entire continent with a single building-sized unit.

The ultimate purpose of the strike was to find a clue as to where the central array was; now that it's been destroyed - possibly by accident - Lord Kessler isn't particularly upset at losing the rest of the base. The mission has been declared a success, and the Company is deploying its reserves to clean up the area.

The cleanup itself is proving challenging, however; this region of the planet is absolutely infested with strange beasts that border on the daemonic. It is believed that many of the xeno mercenaries, the Kroot, regrouped into the forest rather than following the lines of retreat that were later intercepted. Hunting for them has been slow, and has required progressively larger recon deployments as our scouts and kill teams are ambushed and harassed by the local fauna. It would seem many of the beasts are quickly learning to avoid the Iron Warriors, though. Attacks on our mercenary squads are dropping slowly as more of the monsters are driven off and learn not to approach. Attacks on the Iron Warrior squads have dropped much faster as the local animals have come to associate them with bolter fire and heaped piles of their dead. I'm sure the highly visible armor style and chevron markings are helpful as well.

The prisoners and wounded have already been given transport back to Ferrous Dominus for treatment. Lord Kessler estimates that the main force will return to the fortress-factory within two days.

Additional notes: this is in no way relevant to our mission, but the animals that congregate around the small cottage near the muster point have an almost disturbing sense of friendly fearlessness. There is a bird sitting on my rifle right now singing at me, and several of the men have taught some wild pigs to hunt down truffles in the forest. Aside from the snakes that keep trying to make nests inside the drop-bunkers, this place is like some kind of fairy-tale land, and that's not even taking into account the colorful talking ponies.

Colonel Harlin, signing off.

Iron Hearts Book 2

Chapter 1

Uncomfortable Truths

****

Equestria - en route to Ferrous Dominus

"I still want an explanation for this. I know this is your fault, Donner."

"Uhm, excuse me, but isn't his name Daniels?"

Within the confines of the Rhino APC, Gaela turned her head sharply toward Fluttershy, and the yellow pegasus yelped in fright at the image of Gaela's emerald-green bionic eye glaring at her.

"And while we're at it, why is there ANOTHER pony with us now? We don't even know this one!" the Dark Acolyte snapped as Fluttershy whimpered.

"Good point, Acolyte," Daniels said. He leaned down and smiled at the cringing yellow pony. "So I didn't catch your name, love. Introduce yourself for the mean lady, would you?"

Fluttershy gulped, practically backed into the very furthest corner of the Rhino as she answered. "I'm F-F-Fluttershy. N-Nice to meet you?"

Daniels leaned back again. "There. Now we know her. Problem solved."

"Where the hell did you learn security protocol?!" Gaela complained, her grip on her power axe tightening hard enough that the passengers could hear the screeching grind of metal coming from her bionic hand.

"From the Rough Riders 61st, who've never considered horses a security threat," Daniels snapped, getting increasingly irritated, "what do you want me to do, frisk them for secret weapons?"

Hidden behind Rarity, Spike winced and hugged a backpack tightly to his chest.

"Miss Gaela, is it really a problem if we come along?" Twilight asked, looking increasingly worried.

The rest of the ponies kept their mouths shut, not wanting or willing to endanger their free, safe ride into the heart of enemy territory.

Besides, Gaela was absolutely right, and every one of them knew it.

The Dark Acolyte pursed her lips for several seconds.

"... No. No, it poses no problems, really," Gaela admitted, letting her temper cool down to return her mood to her usual icy apathy, "Warsmith Solon has already met with other ponies, evidently, and has decided not to initiate conflict. It is entirely reasonable to allow some of them access with a security escort if they have some business at the base."

Then she again turned the glaring green light of her bionic eye on the six ponies and baby dragon. "But that inevitably begs the question of why, exactly, you would want to go to the base in the first place."

Rainbow Dash promptly slapped a hoof over Applejack's mouth, much to the earth pony's annoyance.

"Are you being serious?" Rarity asked, taking up the reigns of the conversation. "Perhaps you think nothing of meeting completely new alien species and tromping around their villages, but for us planet-bound sorts the opportunity to meet extraterrestrials and see more of their lifestyle is the opportunity of ten lifetimes!"

Twilight nodded rapidly, eagerly picking up on Rarity's lead. "I really want to see what your main facilities look like! And if possible, I want to see one of your space craft, too! Oh, and is there any way I can have one of those 'dataslate' things? I heard that you can organize a great deal of information on them, and I brought a few things to trade for them if I need to!"

The other ponies looked slightly exasperated as Twilight rambled on, each of them getting the feeling that the alicorn's enthusiasm was a little too genuine.

Gaela, on the other hand, seemed completely soothed by the answer, and finally cut Twilight off with a wave of her hand.

"Enough. I understand. If you wish to come with us to view the wonders of the machine, very well." Her eyes narrowed. "I simply wish you had brought such an issue to me rather than bumming a ride off a rankless hired thug."

"Can't see why they'd do that when you make yourself so friendly and approachable," said Daniels, shrugging his shoulders.

Gaela ignored him, as always completely unashamed of her icy, hostile attitude. "So it's settled, then. Although I hope you don't think you're going to be treated like tourists. You're headed toward a military base on combat alert."

"Oh, I'm sure we'll make do, darling," Rarity said before tapping a hoof on the wall of the Rhino, "although... are all of your vehicles so... rough?"

The unicorn didn't want to complain, given that they had just finished convincing Gaela to let them into the base, but the Rhino interior, like everything else she had seen of the Iron Warriors, was an ugly beast of hard-edged gunmetal that stank of motor oil. It shook constantly from the power of its engine such that she didn't even bother laying down on the benches, themselves looking barely more comfortable than the floor.

"Comfort is a rare luxury in the 38th Company, and we're quick to sacrifice it in the name of efficiency and power," Gaela explained, "besides, these particular transports are primarily designed for the Space Marines. Trying to accommodate ten Astartes in full power armor doesn't call for seat cushions."

Daniels knocked on the access door to the APC's cab. "Lord Dest, about how long do you think it'll take until we get to base?"

The door to the cab hissed as it slid open, and the vox-distorted voice of the Chaos Space Marine came from the driver's compartment.

"We'll arrive within the hour. Entry clearance might take another hour, since we're behind the prisoner transports."

Dest didn't close the door again, figuring he might as well listen to his passengers converse. Visible to him but hidden from the others, a long train of silver and gold armor wound through the grassy fields and sparse woodlands ahead of them, dark plumes of oily smoke leaking into the sky.

"What're you going to do with all the captured Tau?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Whatever we want," Gaela said, "although most of them will be imprisoned and eventually used for barter. We are perpetually at war, and prisoners are a universal currency. Laborers, test subjects, sacrificial materials... they can even serve as food for those warbands that use daemonic beasts instead of war machines."

This elicited wincing expressions from the ponies. Even if none of them especially empathized with the Tau, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash actively despised them, none of them wanted to hear further details of the Iron Warriors' malevolence and cruelty.

Well, actually, there was one among them who did want to hear further details, but it was in the name of science, so it was okay.

"When you say that they're used for barter, you mean you actually trade them? To who? Other alien species?" Twilight was, as usual, trying to paint a picture in her mind of the galactic scene, imagining vast marketplaces teeming with creatures of every possible shape and size.

"Very rarely," Gaela answered, her expression twisting into one of distaste, "trade with xenos is done sparingly, and usually under extremely volatile circumstances. We normally trade to other armies of Chaos Space Marines and the Dark Mechanicus."

"I thought you WERE the Dark Mechanicus." To the ponies' surprise, this question came from Daniels rather than Twilight.

Gaela glanced at the mercenary, clearly irritated that she was having to explain this to him. "Our relationship with the Iron Warriors is... complex. I, Dark Magos Kaelith, and all the others here serve as part of the 38th Company. That is why we wear the Legion Iron Skull. Our loyalties lie here, with the fleet, but that loyalty is purchased from the Dark Mechanicus with oceans of metal and munitions. The 38th Company fuels numerous other Legions as well with our predations and piracy, in addition to the numerous Iron Warrior strongholds constantly thirsting for ammunition and material."

"It is no exaggeration to say that the campaigns waged by our brothers on the other side of the galaxy depend as much on our efforts as those of the soldiers fighting," Dest said from the cab, his voice amplified by the internal speakers, "in addition, the Dark Mechanicus is only able to continue production and support for the other Chaos Legions thanks to the 38th and similar warbands like us that act as raiders rather than conquerors."

"Is that a good thing?" Applejack mumbled under her breath.

Rainbow Dash quickly pushed forward her own question in case the others heard her. "So if you've got this super-important job of capturing stuff for your army, then you guys must be the best of the best, huh? That explains why you're all so strong!"

The reaction from Daniels was immediate as he clapped a hand over his mouth, threatening to break into giggles. A moment later a deep chuckle, heavy with vox distortion, came from the cab.

Gaela's non-reaction was just as telling; she fixed her eyes on an empty point on the ceiling of the rhino and waited for her companions to finish.

"I... I don't get it," Rainbow said, an eyebrow quirked, "did I say something funny?"

Daniels ran a hand through his hair. "Well, I wouldn't want to say anything in front of an Iron Warrior-"

Said Iron Warrior promptly cut him off. "So I'll say it instead: the 38th Company is not composed of the finest Chaos Space Marines of the Iron Warriors Legion. It is composed of the worst."

"Say what?" Applejack asked. "How's that work?"

"Working for the Company is a great honor," Gaela quickly offered, hesitating before she added, "for us humans. The Dark Mechanicus forces are well-supplied with new technologies and ample resources, and mercenaries and ship crews can look forward to relatively good treatment since their services are highly valued."

Then the Dark Acolyte sat down on one of the benches before she continued speaking. "The Astartes take a much dimmer view."

"Iron Warriors are siege masters by nature," Dest explained, his voice sounding surprisingly amused, "their specialty involves cracking open fortifications and taking down the most heavily defended installations. Our job involves boarding merchant vessels and robbing factories. It's inglorious, almost insulting work, and very, very few of them would be here if they had a choice."

"You don't have a choice?" Twilight asked.

"All of us have a choice," Gaela said, "and some of those choices are very easy. 'Fight for the 38th Company or die' is one of them."

"In any case, because the objectives of the Company are beneath any Iron Warrior of talent and prestige, assignment to this fleet is used as a punishment detail. We're assigned the failures and incompetents of the Legion; for every decent Master of Artillery, there is another that is barely proficient, and he likely ends up in our barracks," Dest went on, "at times the Company is lucky, however, and receives an Astartes reassigned for political reasons. Many brothers have ambition or talent that threaten their superiors, and we have our share of otherwise flawless warriors sent to this fleet to keep them out of the way."

Gaela couldn't help but notice that this was easily the most talkative Dest had ever been, and that he spoke about this subject with an improbable amusement rather than the wounded bitterness that she would expect.

"At times, our Legion takes on Chaos Space Marines from other Legions or warbands as well. The reasons for a Space Marine joining a new Legion vary widely from case to case, but the Iron Warriors are a suspicious breed. Most of the outsiders are sent to the Company, effectively treated as liabilities by default."

Gaela blinked uncertainly. She had not been aware of that.

"... I still don't get it," Rainbow Dash admitted, "you're telling me that the guys like Tellis are actually weaklings compared to the other, better Iron Warriors?"

Dest chuckled heavily as Gaela shook her head.

"No, Dash. Tellis is not a weakling by any standard. He's easily one of the Legion's most skilled and capable fighters. He's also one of the Legion's worst soldiers."

The other ponies seemed to pick up on her meaning right away, but the blue pegasus was still obviously confused.

"Being a soldier requires more than strength and skill at arms. You have to take orders, prioritize objectives, analyze your enemy, manage attrition, and protect your fellow soldiers. A good soldier must always be aware of their tactical situation so that they might be able to turn it to their advantage."

"In other words, know when to run away," Daniels explained.

Gaela shot him a look, but then shrugged. "Even that sort of outlook is useful on a battlefield. Tellis understands none of that. He flies headlong into the enemy, butchers them all, and then moves on to the next distraction. He has no tactical awareness beyond the next body to shove his claws into. He's ruined entire battle plans on his own by flying into artillery strike zones, destroying key objectives, or going after the wrong target because he thought it would be more fun. Tellis is a monster guided by whimsy and blood lust, and the Legion doesn't need such unruly idiots among its ranks. So we get him instead."

"So what about this 'Warsmith' I heard you mention earlier? Is he also some kind of cast-off?"

Gaela's expression soured instantly, and she glared hard at Twilight.

"I can't say for sure; I've never met him," Daniels offered, disregarding Gaela's hostile expression, "but you get very different opinions from different people. The Dark Mechanicus love the guy, I can tell you that. And the Space Marines don't."

Rainbow called out to the driver, apparently wanting a negative opinion. "Hey, Dest! What do you think of the Warsmith?"

"Warsmith Solon is a weakling whose skills at leadership extend to keeping his soldiers well-supplied," the driver answered, his voice a growl thick with distortion, "we tolerate his inane whims and asinine lectures out of duty. He is not worthy of command. Yet he is also best suited to managing a glorified supply convoy such as this. No one else would so happily take to the duties of organizing cargo manifests and negotiating with pirate tradesmen."

"I don't suppose he has any glaring, crippling weaknesses you'd like to divulge?" Rarity asked, trying her best to be casual. "You know, while we're on the topic?"

As the humans stared at the white unicorn in confusion, Twilight coughed loudly to regain their attention.

"Well, that's enough about Mister Solon! I'm sure we all have a lot of questions about where we're going!" the alicorn said awkwardly.

"Hey, I got another one," Rainbow Dash volunteered, "are there any girl Space Marines?"

"Yes, actually. There's an entire Legion of them," Dest answered immediately, surprising Daniels and Gaela, "we call them the Emperor's Children!"

Daniels immediately started chuckling as Dest's own rumbling laughter boomed over the speakers. Gaela even cracked an almost-smirk.

None of the ponies laughed, and most of them looked confused.

"I don't... what? Is that funny?" Twilight asked.

"It's an inside joke," Pinkie Pie explained. At some point the pink pony had crawled over onto Gaela's leg, stretched out over the Dark Acolyte's lap like a pet seeking attention. She didn't look depressed anymore, but she wasn't back to her bubbly, smiling self either, so it was still quite easy to tell that something was wrong.

Daniels chose that moment to pick up on her mood as his chuckling died down. "Hey Pinkie, you all right? You've been really quiet since we set out."

"And that's just the way I like it," Gaela said before Pinkie could even speak, "so whatever's muzzled her, don't ruin it."

Daniels snorted as he leaned back again. "See this? THIS is why I don't believe you when you say that you don't want to offend the ponies."

"She said what now?" Applejack asked, her ears perking up.

"It's nothing," Gaela snapped, "just the merc running his mouth."

The Dark Acolyte's glare was as fierce as ever, but Daniels showed no fear in pointing to the Tau disruptor drone bundled in the corner. "So did you take the dress because you just liked the style or what?"

Rarity almost jumped in surprise. In her rush to prepare for the trip, she hadn't realized that Gaela had taken her outfit with her rather than simply discarding the clothes in a corner or something. Hearing that the human woman had kept her gift honestly thrilled her.

And that feeling of pride and happiness quickly soured as she remembered what she and her friends were doing traveling to the Iron Warriors' home base. Really, she almost wished they had used Twilight's plan of finding and entering the fortress on their own rather than holding together this wretched deception that everything was still fine.

Almost.

"I don't have to explain anything to you," Gaela said finally to Daniels, "you can take what I said at face value or not. Do not bring it up again."

Daniels rolled his eyes, but let the matter drop. The Dark Acolyte's voice was getting pretty heated despite her protest of apathy, and he didn't want the ponies to feel any more awkward than they already did. For some reason.

"Oh! I know! Gaela, can you teach me to use those dataslate devices?" Twilight asked, still trying to distract everyone of the tension of their mission. "I saw some of the soldiers using them earlier, and they were just fascinating!"

As Gaela found a dataslate in the Rhino's supply closet and went about the curious task of figuring out how one could use it without fingers, Rainbow Dash turned to Fluttershy, who was still huddled into the furthest corner of the Rhino as if she were trying to disappear.

"So I know that the rest of us can ask for time off from our jobs to handle business given to us from the Princess, but did you ever find someone to take care of your animals while we're gone?" she asked quietly, keeping her voice low enough to be hidden under the rumble of the engine.

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, I did. Discord still comes over almost every day, so I can leave him a note and he'll help."

"Oh. Right. Discord," Rainbow mumbled, frowning, "I kind of forgot about him. Where has he been during all of this?"

"Oh, he has a day job," Fluttershy explained, "I'm not sure exactly what it is, though. He said it was office work, but it's hard to imagine him doing something like that, isn't it?"

****

The Warp - ????

Within an office floating at the edge of reality and humming a distinctly out-of-tune song to himself, a single serpentine figure stood behind a large wooden desk piled high with papers.

The office itself defied optical perception, with constantly shifting dimensions and angles that somehow didn't unsettle the arrangement of furniture and worker. Filing cabinets lined one almost-wall, each drawer boasting a label written in a runic text that existed before the concept of language itself had emerged from the protean minds of the galaxy's denizens. Paintings of influential thinkers and heroes from across the galaxy decorated each wall, and every time the eye left a painting and then returned to it, the image would feature a different individual, often of an entirely different species.

In the center of this extraordinarily managed chaos, Discord read over a lengthy memo paper, a pair of reading glasses perched on his snout.

The paper had come from a pile of them that dominated one side of the desk. At the base of the mountain was a small wooden tray labeled "Prayers to Tzeentch", and the papers that filled it had become so numerous that they had spilled over into a slope of documents that covered one half of the desk and still rose high enough to tower over the draconequus. The box on the other side, simply labeled "Done", was completely empty.

Discord finished reading the paper with an annoyed snort, and then reached for one of the three hand stamps sitting next to him in a line, seizing the nearest one in his lion-like paw.

He smacked the stamp down onto the middle of the paper, leaving a large, emphatic NO in thick, red print, and then dropped the document into the "Done" box. The paper vanished immediately in a puff of coruscating fire.

Then he placed the stamp back down on its ink pad, right next to the one marked MAYBE.

The last stamp featured the word YES, followed by a prominent asterisk.

Stretching out his mismatched limbs, Discord glanced behind him at the clock mounted above a picture of Commander Farsight. It had featured Leonardo da Vinci the last time he had looked.

The seconds hand of the clock swung back and forth along the bottom of the disk like a pendulum, while the hours hand stuck out at an odd angle while quivering back and forth constantly, like the point of a compass. The minute hand was the worst, speeding up at irregular intervals and then stopping suddenly at random.

"Ah ha! Break time!" Discord said cheerfully, darting over his desk and toward the hallway like an eel swimming through the water.

Discord slithered past a door made of bleached bone and strings of muscle tendon, and finally landed on his feet as he moved past another door that was a white steel bulkhead with a biohazard symbol stamped on the surface.

Soon Discord reached a wide open space with a large water cooler and several couches. Or at least, it resembled a water cooler; the fluid inside the tank was saturated with little twinkling spots of light, as if glitter had been dumped inside.

"Nothing so refreshing as a cold cup of souls," the draconequus said to himself as he took a tiny paper cup in his taloned, avian hand and started filling it from the spigot. A faint screaming noise could be heard from the small stream of Warp-fluid, but he paid it no mind as he tilted his head back and swallowed the cup's contents in a single gulp.

"Discord? Seriously? Ha! It is you, isn't it?"

He twisted his lengthy neck about to see who had walked in on him, and witnessed a claw-handed Daemonette stepping into the room, smiling behind eyes of the darkest pitch. She had barbed spines all over her back and legs, a long tongue that writhed like a snake independent of her speaking, and was of course completely naked aside from a dark spotted tie that clashed horribly with her pink skin color.

"It's me, Balleen! Damn, man! It's been... well, you know, time doesn't really work here, but I haven't seen you in a while! What happened to you?"

"Oh, don't get me started," Discord said, rolling his eyes as he stepped back, allowing the daemon of Slaanesh access to the soul dispenser, "I've kind of been on a sabbatical for a few millennia."

"Oh? Doing what?" Balleen asked as she got herself a cup of the distilled damned.

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Got involved with a magic princess, took over a kingdom, got turned to stone, learned the meaning of friendship, all sorts of stuff."

The Daemonette slurped down her drink, her tongue lashing about in wild ecstasy. "Well, that seems like a nice little break from the routine, eh?"

Discord snorted. "Sure. But lemme tell you: standard perception of time or no, the paperwork piles up all the same. How's your gig?"

"Oh, the usual: violent orgies, drug-fueled raves, and constant BSDM," Balleen grumbled, her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, "it kind of starts to wear thin after a while. But you know; work is work."

"Mm, true. How's Eliphas the Inheritor?"

"Dead."

"Still?"

"No. Again."

"Ugh!"

****

Centaur III - 0.6 kilometers outside of Ferrous Dominus

"Okay, how are those settings? I've decreased the tactile sensitivity and increased the panel size. Does it respond to your hoof?" Gaela held out the dataslate, and it was swiftly encompassed in magical energy.

Twilight licked her lips briefly as she tapped the point of her hoof on one of the tiles, calling up a window that started displaying Rhino engine maintenance procedures.

"Okay, I think I have it," Twilight said as her friends crowded in behind her to stare over her shoulders, "although it would be much easier if the display could be activated by magic."

"And what about the rest of us?" Applejack asked dryly as Twilight scrolled down with her hoof.

The purple alicorn flushed. "Oh! Right! Of course! I, uh, meant to change the settings to make it easier for hooves!"

The Rhino's shaking suddenly decreased as it came to a stop, although Dest gave no indication that they had arrived at their destination.

Daniels stood up and hit a prominent black button on the side of the transport bay. "I think we should be close enough now."

Magnetic locks above the transport bay disengaged, and the double-doors that covered the bay started to open. A platform in the center of the transport interior, marked out with a square of yellow and black warning stripes, started to rise up to give the Rhino's passengers a vantage point for their weapons.

Daniels stepped up onto the platform, resting his arms over the lip of the opening as the topside doors fell flat against the roof of the vehicle.

"Now that's a sight to still the heart, one way or the other," the mercenary breathed, "no matter how many times I see them."

He soon felt a weight on his back as Pinkie clambered up onto his shoulders, her head falling flat on top of his. Rainbow Dash followed seconds later, darting out of the Rhino and into the air above it.

"By Celestia..." Rainbow mumbled, hovering in place as she stared.

"Oi! Lemme see!" Applejack demanded, bumping her hoof against the mercenary's leg. The platform meant for Space Marines was barely high enough for a tall human like Daniels, but the ponies couldn't even reach the hatch on their hind legs.

"All right, all right, everybody who wants to see the view climb on up. Pink, step up onto the roof, would ya?"

With Daniels' help, soon Applejack, Twilight, Spike, and Rarity had all been lifted up onto the roof of the Rhino to take in the sight of the fortress ahead of them. Fluttershy didn't ask to join them, and it was generally agreed by her friends that she wouldn't have appreciated the view.

A line of gleaming armor was lined up in a long avenue of razor wire, engines idling as they waited for inspection and clearance. In the fields between the razor wire barriers, ball-bodied automata stepped among the minefields on stilt-like legs, burying new explosive traps like an insect digging a burrow for its eggs.

Beyond the minefields came the security cordon. Considerably diminished from assembling the assault force, there was nonetheless more than a hundred Chaos Space Marines assembled at the gates to see to the safe transfer of prisoners back into the base and search for any signs of infiltrators. Numerous heavy weapons tracked the movements of the convoy, and several Leman Russ battle tanks were dug into earthworks in front of reinforced barricades buzzing with activity. Bunkers stood sentinel at the foot of the fortress walls, quad guns and lascannons constantly sweeping the skies.

And then came the walls themselves. The shell of Ferrous Dominus had been carved from the armored bulkheads of an alien cruiser and then reinforced with battlements between enormous towers rooted into the ground like trees of hard-edged black iron. Heavy bolter gun mounts and firing points dotted the towers, and macrocannon turrets sat atop each one next to clusters of anti-air interceptor guns. Massive spikes extended from the towers and the sheer walls as if they had been pushed through the armored façade from behind like a nail, and from these thorns hung long loops of chains and hooks. Braziers and torches were hung all over the edifice, and crows had already taken to roosting on the macabre decorations.

From behind the towering walls, the true "fortress" of Ferrous Dominus stretched above the mighty barrier that thought to encircle and contain it. Black towers of iron and squat blocks of riveted metal, all glowing with numberless lumens and boasting huge arrays of smokestacks, were visible from over the barrier. A huge skull had been engraved in the central manufactorum tower, half of its grinning face given over to a cybernetic mirror image of the other half. The Star of Chaos had been cut all around the symbol to deface the emblem, informing all those who looked upon it of the darker persuasion of its new owners.

All over the complex, great steam pistons and pumps rose and fell as smoke and fire puffed from a hundred dark pipes. Lasers seemed to sweep the sky at random, guiding a thousand different instruments.

Huge landers and cargo ships could be seen on one side of the fortress-city, swooping down on cushions of flame to unload supplies from orbit and take on supplies from the ground.

On the other side rose half a dozen anti-ship cannons, their barrels angled toward the sky in an uneven row and each one the size of a building. Mechanicus workers swarmed over the massive guns like ants, crawling across great nets of power cabling or scaffolding welded to the sides of the weapons that had once menaced the Iron Warriors' ships. The guns were large to the point of absurdity, such that they were completely useless against anything smaller than a starship, and simply the least subtle of the many reminders that the fortification was a place of death as well as creation.

The fortress was dark industry stripped bare of all its pretenses of commerce and prosperity. Even as far from the fortress gates as they were, the heavy tang of poisonous metals tainted the air and the nearby foliage that had been too far away from the manufactorum to warrant demolishing was either dead or dying. A quite perceptible blight stretched from that bastion of metal seething with energy, as if the very dirt was sickened by its existence.

It was at once the most beautiful and the most revolting thing Twilight had ever seen. Technology driven to absolute dominance over nature, for the ultimate purpose of pure destruction.

"Yer tellin' me..." Applejack began, her throat going dry for reasons that had nothing to do with the polluted air, "that y'all put that up in... in a couple DAYS?"

"The Warsmith does good work," Gaela said simply, finally joining Daniels at the firing hatch, "and he has some of the finest Dark Techpriests at his beck and call. Were we operating under more hostile conditions, I'm sure we could have even completed the palisade by now."

"It's not even FINISHED?" Rainbow Dash asked, slack-jawed. It was already so big, she didn't know where else they would build, much less why they would need to.

"The southern facing is not yet complete, no," Gaela explained, "and there are several non-critical structures within that are only beginning construction. As the Company is not operating under very threatening conditions, we need not strain ourselves."

Rarity tracked a lander floating down through the haze of smoke, the vessel's form silhouetted against the setting sun. "I suppose I didn't give your kind enough credit. You humans don't do anything half-way, do you? If you want the Tau, you send up an army. If you want a base, you lay down a city." She coughed lightly before adding under her breath, "I wonder what you'd do if you wanted a kingdom."

Gaela glanced over at Twilight, wondering if the brainy alicorn had anything to add.

Twilight didn't seem to be paying attention, however. She was writing furiously with a quill over a sheet of parchment, her face a mask of intense concentration. Spike stood behind her, holding an ink well and staring nervously at the imposing sight of their destination.

Gaela nodded in satisfaction.

Up ahead of the Rhino, several of the other transports started shifting their engines into gear.

The main gate, an enormous double-door with the Iron Skull engraved on the front and an even bigger array of cannons mounting its two adjoining towers, started to open to admit the transports. Chains with links the size of men were slowly drawn onto motorized spools, pulling the doors back along heavy rails.

Once the gate was barely open wide enough for a Rhino to fit through, the first of the transports rolled in through the crack, allowing the whole line to started rolling through the security cordon.

"We'd better get our heads down, girls," Daniels said as their Rhino's engine started to rumble more loudly, "you're going to attract plenty of attention as it is, so it would be best if we didn't have you all piled on top of the transport like a big, colorful sign that we've got unusual cargo. The Iron Warriors take their security very seriously."

Gaela nodded reluctantly as the ponies started dropping back into the firing hatch one by one. "Excellent point. You have some good sense on occasion, Dennis."

"His name is Daniels," Spike pointed out as he squatted near the edge of the hatch, trying to judge if it was too high for him to jump down.

"Be silent, lizard," Gaela said as her servo arm reached forward.

Spike yelped as the vise clamped none-too-gently around his arm and then lowered him down into the transport bay.

Twilight was the last to descend back into the bay, rolling up the first of what she could only imagine were going to be many, many notes she would be writing about the Iron Warriors' home base.

"I think I might need more parchment..."

As the firing hatch started to close over them and the Rhino trundled forward, a brief burst of static came from the vox caster.

"We've been cleared for entry, but we're being re-directed to a security station. It doesn't matter much to me to spend a few extra minutes behind the wheel, but the Dark Acolyte may wish to give our xeno passengers a brief lesson on Legion etiquette before we have my brothers aiming boltguns down their muzzles."

The door to the cab slid shut as Dest's voice cut out, and the ponies became considerably more nervous.

Gaela glanced over at Daniels. "I deal with the Astartes on much more formal terms, and they have a vested interest in not shooting me on a whim. I'm sure your advice on not offending our Legion masters is more useful and extensive than mine."

Daniels nodded solemnly as Applejack gulped. "Are they really that bad?"

"Nah, the Acolyte exaggerates," the mercenary assured her, sitting down next to the farmer, "the thing is, they COULD be that bad, and nobody's going to stop them or punish them for it. So there are a few things to remember to stay under the radar. The Space Marines, generally speaking, are never really on your side; rather, you're either in their way or beneath their notice."

"Tellis isn't like that," Rainbow scoffed.

"None of this applies to Lord Tellis," Daniels admitted, "you probably know him better already than the poor sods from his unit if you can actually stand him, so feel free to treat him however you want. For the rest of them there are some ground rules."

Daniels reached over and flicked Twilight's horn, causing the alicorn to yelp and jump slightly in surprise. "First of all, keep all magic or psychic powers or whatever in the OFF position while around the Astartes. I know you use your magic just to manipulate objects in basic ways, Miss Sparkle, but the Iron Warriors don't know that's what you're doing or if that's ALL you're doing, and nobody is going to blame them for blowing your head off just to be safe."

Twilight looked quite discouraged to hear this, but offered no argument as she took out another sheet of parchment and started writing down these new rules.

"Second, if you have to talk to an Astartes, you refer to them as 'Lord' and end with 'my lord'. That's just an etiquette thing, and I honestly have no idea how much they'd care if you dropped it. But I don't think any of you want to be the one to find out."

The mercenary leaned back against the wall as the rhino made a turn. "Other than that, the rule of thumb is to speak to them as little as possible. They'll answer questions, but don't usually care for conversation. Just remember that speaking to you is a complete waste of their time, and that they don't care whether you live or die."

"That's awful," Rarity pointed out.

"Exactly! You've got this!" Daniels said cheerfully.

A loud clanking noise came from the rear of the Rhino as its forward motion stopped, and Twilight quickly cut the levitation of her quill as the rear ramp slowly yawned open. Fluttershy "eeped" and bolted away from the rear corner, and Daniels was honestly surprised and a little proud when she chose to hide behind his legs. Granted he was the furthest one from the rear ramp, but still.

Two Iron Warriors waited at the bottom of the ramp, spaced to block any possible flight from the transport. One held a short-range auspex scanner, while the other one had a flamer at the ready.

Daniels held his breath as the ramp lowered and didn't breathe again until the Chaos Marine with the auspex stepped up first.

The Iron Warriors didn't speak right away, and the one with the auspex scanned the ponies one by one, the red lights all around the device eventually blinking green for explosives and contaminants over each pony.

The girls remained admirably silent throughout the procedure, although Twilight sucked in a breath when the Astartes moved the auspex over Spike. A few seconds later the scanner registered nothing but a few unusual sulfuric compounds within the creature's saliva glands, and the Iron Warrior moved up to Daniels.

"Move. All xenos are to be subjected to deep scans prior to base entry," the Marine barked through his vox grille, obviously irritated that he had to explain such a thing.

Daniels slowly moved to the side, speaking down to the quivering pegasus. "Just stay still, Miss Fluttershy. It won't take a second."

The Chaos Space Marine snorted in annoyance as he moved the hand auspex over the yellow pony, distantly curious as to why this one was shaking like a leaf while the others had endured him without a problem. In a few seconds the scanner beeped, and the readout indicated that all was well.

"All clear. You two," the Iron Warrior indicated Gaela and Daniels, "are free to go whenever you wish. The xenos will be attended to."

"That's unusual," Gaela noted, standing up, "I was under the impression that they'd be the responsibility of whoever brought them along. May I inquire as to who will be attending to them, my lord?"

The Marine with the flamer decided to answer as his partner walked down the ramp. "The Warsmith has designated an officer to see to the accommodations of all the equines that find their way into Ferrous Dominus: Lord Serith."

Without further explanation, the two Chaos Marines turned and walked away.

"Lord Serith... Lord Serith..." Daniels scratched the back of his head. "That's a new one on me. I don't remember a Space Marine by that name. Acolyte, you know him?"

Gaela's expression twisted into one of distaste, and she nodded reluctantly. "Yes. I've met him. He works with Warsmith Solon on his daemon engines sometimes."

"Oh. So he's a Warpsmith?" Daniels asked.

Gaela shook her head. "No. A sorcerer."

Applejack recoiled in surprise as Daniels vaulted from the seat next to her, bolting for the ramp and then sprinting away out of sight. He didn't shout any warning or wish the ponies goodbye, leaving the equines staring in shock at the abrupt exit.

"Yes, that's about right," Gaela mumbled, "anyway, I should be leaving as well."

"Wh-What? Why? Why do you have to go?" Rarity asked, her voice just on the edge of hysterical. They'd been carried into a military facility, were surrounded by heavily armed and generally disagreeable super-soldiers, and had even been warned not to use magic, and their human friends were just going to abandon them to this "Serith" person?

"I have been gone longer than projected and must attend a debriefing to inform my superiors as to what I've uncovered." Gaela explained.

"What? You sent them that letter, right? You shouldn't have to leave right away!" Twilight insisted, sweat beading on her coat.

Gaela hesitated. "Good point. In that case, I should see to getting the agri-facility deployed for the Apple family, as per our agreement."

"Well then, hurry up and git to it!" Applejack said, standing up on her bench. "Go on! Don't wait up fer us!"

"As you say. I'm sure I'll see you all later," the Dark Acolyte said as she began descending the exit ramp with her "souvenirs" from the field, "I don't seem to be able to avoid you."

The heavy steps of the Dark Acolyte were soon lost in the numerous sounds and noises from outside the transport, leaving the six ponies and baby dragon alone in the transport bay.

"Well, I'm... I'm sure this 'Lord Serith' isn't that bad," Rarity insisted, her voice only wavering a bit, "I mean, magic makes these humans nervous, right? And apparently this fellow is a Sorcerer! That's probably why they seem so skittish!"

Twilight hummed to herself as she nodded. "Right, good point... of course, it's a real possibility that the reason magic makes them nervous is because their magic-users are generally twisted and destructive individuals. I mean, they were never that scared of US." Rarity winced at Twilight's logic, finding her theory quite plausible.

"Can't we just, you know, head on out of here?" Rainbow Dash asked, glancing at the open expanse of road behind the Rhino. She could see several other transports heading down the main avenue and a few squadrons of Iron Warriors patrolling the area around them.

"The big scary men with the flamethrower said to stay here," Rarity pointed out, "and I don't like our chances of sneaking off with this many human soldiers around."

Applejack trotted over to the door that accessed the cab and banged a hoof against it. "Hey, Dest? Er, Lord Dest? Ya there? How long do we hafta wait fer this Serith guy?"

The apple farmer fell silent, waiting for a response. She didn't get one.

"Wh-What's going to happen to us?" Fluttershy squeaked.

"Calm down, Fluttershy. The big guys said we were clear, right? So, you know..." Rainbow Dash's voice tapered off considerably and her expression wilted as she continued, "they're not on to us. Yet."

"So we have to wait. I suggest you all take in the sights as much as possible," Twilight said, parking herself down at the top of the exit ramp and then taking more notes, "look at those gate rails! That drilling platform! Those humans with even more augmetics than Gaela! I could spend all day studying what little I can see from the Rhino alone!"

"Are you SURE you're okay with getting rid of the humans?" Pinkie asked suspiciously, leaning in on the alicorn.

"Are YOU okay with just ignoring Celestia's orders?" Twilight countered.

Neither of the ponies had a good answer to the question posed to them, so they each snorted and broke eye contact as the group descended into silence.

It would be almost twenty more minutes of tense waiting before a voice came from next to the Rhino, close enough that it was not muffled into incoherence by the vehicle's hull and the general background noise.

"Explain it again, please. What is this?"

Twilight's ears perked up immediately, and her eyes widened.

"This is a Rhino armored personnel carrier. The passengers are all xenos, it would seem. Or ponies, rather," mumbled a voice in response. The second voice had the unmistakable background-static noise of a vox grille, so Twilight assumed correctly that it was coming from an Iron Warrior.

"Wasn't Serith supposed to deal with this?"

Rarity and Applejack glanced at each other. "Is that-"

"No," Twilight cut them off, "there is no way. There must be thousands of humans here; one of them just happens to sound like her, I'm sure of it!"

The response from the Astartes had been missed due to Twilight's protest, but the first voice, unmistakably female and irritated, was loud and clear.

"So if you can't contact Serith, why would you contact Trixie instead? Dealing with pony visitors isn't among Trixie's duties!"

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie couldn't help but giggle as Twilight made a strangling noise from the back of her throat and stood up.

"It isn't among any of our duties. So it falls to you because you have the misfortune to be the same species. Is that a problem, oh Great and Powerful One?"

Twilight stepped down the ramp, turning around the rear of the Rhino to confirm what her ears were telling her.

Sure enough, standing next to their transport was a very familiar blue unicorn in a star-patterned cape and wizard's hat.

"Trixie? What in Celestia's name are YOU doing here?!" Twilight demanded.

Trixie and the Iron Warrior looming over her turned to stare at the alicorn for several seconds. Then Trixie looked back up at the Chaos Space Marine.

"So, Trixie is thinking that we should just weld this transport shut and then toss it over the wall. Maybe into one of the minefields? Can we do that?"

"Yes, we can," the Iron Warrior said with complete seriousness, "you may have to answer for the loss of a Rhino, though."

"TRIXIE!!"

The blue unicorn rolled her eyes. "Trixie was just joking. Relax," she grumbled.

The other ponies and Spike joined Twilight outside, each one fairly surprised and a little worried to see Twilight's sort-of-rival standing next to one of the Iron Warriors.

Trixie sighed. "All right, fine. Trixie will handle this."

"You know these creatures?" the Astartes asked.

"Oh, yes. Trixie could do an entire show talking about our history. But Trixie would probably rather go back to dueling death robots."

"Trixie. Explanation, please," Twilight said through clenched teeth.

"Just follow Trixie," the unicorn sighed as she stepped forward, her voice carrying an air of patient authority that made Twilight want to grind her teeth, "and do be careful not to get stepped on or run over by anything. We're a bit smaller than the natives, as you've surely noticed."

As the Chaos Marine walked off, apparently content that the matter was in hand (or hoof, as it were), Rarity cleared her throat and pointed a dainty hoof toward the Rhino. "I have a few bags with me, and a friend of ours warned against using magic around here."

Trixie halted and grimaced at the numerous suitcases piled atop the armored vehicle, secured with heavy chains and hooks. "Are you planning to move here or something? A lesser vehicle probably would have collapsed under that much luggage!"

"Yes, well, is there any chance we could get a driver to follow us out? Or he could just drive us to our destination, if possible!" Rarity was undaunted by the other unicorn's criticism, and utterly unwilling to leave her things behind in the midst of the constant trains of soldiers and workers.

Trixie started to look around, and her gaze settled on a single figure standing sentinel by the security station. "You there! Servitor! Come here!"

The figure's head rose to attention, and it stepped forward before turning to walk toward the ponies, its gait lumbering and deliberate.

"So what's this guy? One o' those 'Dark Mechanicus' fellas?" Applejack asked, looking up at the new arrival.

The servitor was a human male base, with half its skull replaced by a metal cap that blinked with diagnostic lights and data ports. Its forearms were replaced with huge lifting claws, and numerous tubes and cables fed from the bicep and shoulders to the machine parts.

"This is a servitor. It's like a robot or something," Trixie half-explained, "servitor, take the containers from this transport and follow us."

"Order registered," the servitor mumbled in halting, unstable Gothic, "total container volume exceeds unit carrying capacity. Enlisting additional units."

"Yes, fine, you take care of that," Trixie said flippantly, trotting away through the lot surrounding the Rhino, "you all follow Trixie."

The other ponies did so, if reluctantly.

"Wait, that was a robot? It looked like a human, just with a bunch of metal parts. Like those Mechanicus people," Rainbow Dash asked as she hovered above the blue unicorn.

"Trixie will be honest: it's hard to tell the difference at first, since they're both humans covered over in metal parts and replacement limbs," Trixie dipped her head briefly in a shrug, "but as Trixie understands it, the main difference is that the servitors are humans made into cold, emotionless machines, while the Dark Mechanicus are the humans made into cold, emotionless machines who wear black robes."

"Oh, okay. That's pretty simple, then," Rainbow Dash said.

"Trixie. You still haven't explained why you're here," Twilight growled.

"Calm down, Sparkle. Trixie will get to that," the unicorn said, holding her head high as she approached a building on the edge of the security station.

When she got within a meter of the door, a light on a nearby console flashed and the door to the security station slid open on its own.

"Did you see that?" Trixie asked, looking back as she led the other ponies into the building.

"Yeah, fine, ya can do magic. We know," Applejack sighed.

"That's not it," the unicorn said condescendingly, pointing her hoof at the gunmetal card pinned to her hat. It had "The Great and Powerful Trixie" etched into it, courtesy of the first Mechanicus Acolyte she could track down that didn't ignore her completely. "This card represents Trixie's 'security clearance', and opens the doors around Ferrous Dominus. Without one, the machines around here pretend you don't exist."

It was about at that point that Trixie stepped too far away from the doors, and Fluttershy yelped as the heavy iron barriers slammed shut on the end of her tail.

Trixie sighed and backed up a few steps, and the doors slid open again to free the lengthy pink wisp of hair. "As you can see, having to rely on somepony else's card is a pain in the flank. Trixie is going to get you your own cards, since Trixie is too busy to lead you around the fortress-factory any time you want to go anywhere."

"Too busy doing WHAT? What do you do here?" Twilight asked again.

Trixie ignored her and stepped up to the counter inside the security office. It was built like a barricade, but loaded with cogitators and manned by a hooded figure in carapace armor.

"And what is this, now?" the security officer asked, looking over the array of brightly colored aliens.

"Just a few guests checking in," Trixie said, as if the matter was of no consequence, "they need security badges so that Trixie doesn't have to lead them about like a bunch of fillies on a field trip."

The other ponies glanced over the interior of the security office. It was built up more like a half-bunker, with high walls for cover and several gun servitors standing at the far end with the officer. The rest of the room was open space with metal benches too short to provide good protection to anything forcing its way into the office.

"We just got here, but I'm definitely starting to detect a trend in the architecture," Rarity mumbled.

"I'm not sure why I should give security clearance of any level to these things," the human officer said finally. He had been checking Trixie's personnel profile to figure out why a small blue horse was allowed to roam free inside the fortress and bark orders at him in the first place.

"Why not?" Trixie countered.

"That's not how this works," the man snorted, "I'm supposed to let in any xeno couriers, and that's as far as my orders go. I'm not even sure why they were let into the gates."

"We came here with Dark Acolyte Gaela," Twilight mentioned.

"I don't care," the officer snapped through his mask, "the Acolyte has not submitted a security request to have you cleared, so as far as I'm concerned you should all just stick to your little blue friend as long as you're here."

"Look, Trixie isn't asking for much, here," the unicorn continued stubbornly, "all Trixie wants is a few temporary cards so they can open the doors."

"While we're talking about what you want, I find myself wondering why an entertainer is trying to clear xeno visitors in the first place. Are these other ponies part of your show?"

"What? Never!" Rarity barked, clearly offended. Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked similarly annoyed by the suggestion.

Trixie's brow furrowed, her annoyance building as she suffered bureaucratic stonewalling in front of her and indignant insults behind her.

"Trixie is only here doing this because the Iron Warrior assigned to this job was unavailable!" the unicorn insisted, placing a hoof to her chest. "So either you can work with Trixie, or you can wait for Trixie to leave and find Serith to deal with this instead."

The security officer hesitated, and then tried inputting that name into the cogitator databank.

"Oh. Well... shit," the man said simply, staring down at the screen only he could see.

Then he beckoned the ponies forward. "All right xenos, step right up. One at a time. There you go." His voice was far more agreeable now, the ponies noticed. "Just place your arm... ah, your... forelimb up on this scanner, and then tell me your name."

One by one the ponies and dragon did so, although it took both Applejack and Rainbow Dash together to hold Fluttershy in place over the scanner to have her gene-stamp registered under the crimson electronic glare of the gun servitors and the rather imposing security officer.

Within minutes the group was leaving the security building, Trixie in the lead with her head held high.

"I th-think it's the masks," Fluttershy said, shivering as she stepped out of the doorway, "all the humans have those awful masks that cover their eyes and mouth, you know? You can't even see their faces most of the time!" She now had a blank gunmetal card pinned to her saddlebag, as did all the others save Applejack. She pinned hers to the front of her hat.

"Trixie thinks it's just a habit of theirs to wear those things all the time. The pollution isn't THAT bad," Trixie reasoned as she approached the numerous lifter servitors dealing with Rarity's luggage, "all right everypony, now we head over to the train, which will take us to wherever Trixie decides to dump you all off."

"Are you ready to explain what you're doing here?" Twilight asked irritably.

"Let's save it for the train ride, Sparkle," Trixie said as she led the way, the servitors stomping after her, "for now just take in the sights of Ferrous Dominus, the only human city on the entire planet!"

She beckoned to the left side with a foreleg. "To your left you'll see the drilling blocks. Each one the size of a castle tower, these machines burrow deep into the ground to suck up ground water, gas, oil, and anything else it can find. You can see that only two of them are actually deployed here, while the others are waiting to be relocated to more fertile sites. They can each move on their own to find a deployment point and have been known to cause deadly earthquakes when deployed near fault lines!"

As Rarity withdrew a camera from her bags to snap a few shots, Trixie beckoned to the right side. "To the right, just past the construction lots, you'll see the ground batteries! Trixie doesn't have all the details on these machines, but was informed that these ridiculously huge guns are for shooting down space ships. Most of them were stripped from the Tau cruiser being taken apart at the rear of the fortress, and as such they apparently required the personal attention and unique specifications of the Company Warsmith to set them up."

As Rarity took a few more pictures, Twilight reluctantly decided to drop the most obvious question of the hour to ask more interesting and important questions.

"Why is that? The Warsmith is the leader of the Iron Warriors, right?"

Trixie continued leading them down the street, and a convoy of Rhinos rumbled past them. "Well, yes, but as Trixie understands it Warsmith Solon spends most of his time tinkering with alien machines, so he's the only one who really knows how they work. Which makes sense to Trixie; he seemed like kind of an egghead."

Trixie made a turn around a building as Twilight's jaw unhinged. "Now, to the left up ahead-"

"Wait, wait, WAIT! You mean you've MET him? The Warsmith?" Twilight demanded, galloping up in front of the blue unicorn.

Trixie raised an eyebrow. "Yes. So?"

"So, we need to speak with him right away!" Twilight said, blocking the path as her friends all shared pensive glances.

"Uh huh. And why would that be?" Trixie asked, smirking behind a hoof. "Trixie knows that you're quite used to getting chummy with the mare in charge, but this isn't Canterlot, you know. You need a good reason to draw the Astartes away from their jobs."

"So what was yours?" Applejack asked.

Trixie's smug expression melted away. "Never mind that. The point is that if you want an audience with Warsmith Solon, it has to be worth his time. Much like how any random pony off the sidewalk can't just request an audience with Princess Celestia."

Trixie stepped around Twilight and beckoned ahead of them. "And here we are! Just ahead is the train station. You may have noticed that several blocks down are lots of buildings that seem to link into other buildings and all more or less feed into that central complex that takes up the entire middle of the city. That's the manufactorum, which is human speak for 'stupidly oversized factory'. There's some kind of system inside for getting around, but the rest of the fortress makes do with the train, which runs a wide circuit around the complex."

Trixie stepped up onto the main raised platform, which was of course shielded from the avenue with thick, reinforced barricades. Several Iron Warriors were on top of the platform ahead of them - either waiting for the train or serving as security - and every one of the Chaos Space Marines turned to stare at the group of brightly colored ponies stepping up to join them.

Strange as the sight was, every scan showed perfectly valid security clearance, and none of the Marines could really fathom the ponies being a threat worth stopping. The super-soldiers said nothing, eventually returning to their individual duties or distractions.

"Hey, is this really a train track?" Pinkie Pie asked, leaning over the edge of the platform and staring critically at the ground below. There was only one rail, for one thing, and it flared a bright blue as electric arcs crackled along its length and hummed with energy.

The pink pony yelped as something hard grabbed her by the mane and hauled her up, and then Pinkie blinked as she stared into the glowering crimson visor of one of the Space Marine guards.

"Keep your head and legs on the platform at all times," the Iron Warrior growled from behind a horned mask, "if you end up splattered all over the transport, it could lead to transit delays."

He placed a perplexed Pinkie back down onto the platform, and it was hardly two seconds later that the train arrived.

Like everything else in the base, the train was bare gunmetal, prominently decorated with emblems, festooned with armor and guns, and much bigger than it really needed to be. What impressed the ponies the most, however, was probably the way it had swung out past a building at high speed and with so little noise that they didn't notice it until it was slowing down right in front of them. A pony with her limbs or head unwisely sticking out in front of it would have barely half a second to move before having said extremity sheared off.

Pinkie turned toward the Iron Warrior again. "Thank you!"

As the Chaos Marine grunted a reply, Trixie cleared her throat. "While Trixie realizes that the Iron Warriors make way too much use of the yellow and black warning stripe motif, many of the areas are so marked because they're actually dangerous," she pointed a hoof at the strip of yellow and black that lined the edge of the platform.

As the train slowed to a complete stop, Rainbow Dash moved to get a better vantage point on the vehicle. "Is that thing floating over the ground? How does it do that?"

"A wizard didn't do it. So Trixie wouldn't know," the unicorn shrugged.

The train's doors slid open as screens above the train platform lit up with route information. A pair of Dark Techpriests stepped out in front of the ponies. They halted for a moment to glower at the equines briefly with their glimmering optics before turning away and moving on.

+I don't care if the Warsmith thinks they're harmless,+ buzzed one of the robed cyborgs, +allowing xeno psykers base access is inexcusable. He could at least see to it that they're leashed or have a kill-switch installed.+

+Are you going to be the one to make such a proposition? I would think that the Astartes are simply loathe to consider those things a threat in any context.+

The ponies entered the train as they left, letting the servitors pile in first with their armloads of baggage.

"Those two... people... were Dark Techpriests, since they were wearing those black robes. Trixie personally dislikes the way those Dark Mechanicus types keep rambling on in their own language," the unicorn grumbled, stepping inside, "Trixie always feels like they're talking about her."

"You would," Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. The interior of the train was painfully similar to the interior of the Rhino, except much larger and with armorglass windows. Nonetheless, the ponies all settled on the hard iron benches and waited until the doors slid shut.

The train's acceleration was smooth and almost noiseless, and they honestly wouldn't have been totally sure whether they were moving or not if it weren't for the sight of the fortress buildings flying by through the windows.

"So now that we're on the train, do you want to explain what you're doing here, or keep playing tour guide?" Twilight grumbled. The others seemed rather ambivalent about the decision, their eyes locked on the windows and the numberless technological wonders blurring past.

Trixie sighed, acting as if Twilight's question were a meaningless distraction. "Fine, since you insist: do you remember what Trixie does for a living?"

"Lying to ponies and then humiliating them?" Twilight deadpanned.

Trixie's expression fell, and then she sighed again, turning her head away. "Fine. Trixie deserved that. But the real answer is that Trixie runs a magic show. To put it simply, Trixie has been hired as an entertainer."

"An entertainer. For a fortress city full of alien soldiers," Twilight clarified, disbelief clear in her voice.

"Is there a problem with that?" the unicorn demanded. "Trixie has talents that the humans happen to appreciate. The humans have many things that Trixie can make use of. It's a fine little arrangement."

Then she lowered her voice and her eyes narrowed. "Also, the humans can give AMAZING tummy rubs with those hands of theirs. Trixie's just putting that out there."

"Ah'm just surprised they letcha in here at all," Applejack admitted, "ya saw all the trouble we had, and we came in with a couple human friends and everything."

"Yes, well, Trixie was lucky in some respects," the blue unicorn admitted, "Serith is a troublesome person, but Trixie rather likes him. And Trixie also appreciates how all the other humans and Astartes practically flee at hearing his name."

She smiled again as the train slid to a stop, staring out at an enormous pump next to the station. "Trixie hasn't been here for very long, but this place is quite agreeable. The Iron Warriors are mostly dry and humorless, and those Mechanicus cyborgs even more so, but Trixie kind of likes their all-business-all-the-time attitude. And the 'normal' humans are usually quite nice once you get to know them." Of course there was the whole slavery thing, but Trixie decided to save the Company's most blatant atrocities for a later leg of the tour.

Twilight let that thought settle before she responded in a perfect deadpan, "So you find this dark, waste-spewing death factory 'agreeable', you put on a show for the hardened killers whose attitudes you 'like', and your best friend is a Sorcerer who's so terrible that the humans are afraid of you just for associating with him."

Silence dominated the train interior as the doors shut and the train started moving again.

"Is there a reason why you're here?" Trixie asked bitterly, her ears flattening against her head.

"Well, the thing about that is-" Applejack started to speak, but Twilight cut her off.

"Wait a minute. Trixie, you actually work for the 38th Company, right?"

"Yes. Trixie has a contract and everything," the unicorn confirmed, "so?"

"So if, hypothetically, somepony was to get rid of all the humans suddenly, that would be bad for you, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight would have slapped her hoof into her face, but didn't want to make it even more obvious that the blue pegasus had just completely given their objective away.

"... And how would somepony 'get rid' of the humans?" Trixie asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hypothetically, we're still working that out," Rainbow admitted, "but it's still very hypothetical."

The train car was silent for a few seconds as Trixie held a bemused expression and everybody but Rainbow fought to avoid eye contact.

"What? I used that word correctly, didn't I?" the pegasus asked, wondering why everypony was looking around nervously.

"Yes, darling. You did," Rarity mumbled. Then after a few seconds, she added, "Good job."

"You know what? It's not really any of Trixie's business why you're here," the unicorn said with a wave of her hoof, "Trixie is sure you have your reasons."

Twilight was surprised that Trixie would let the matter go so easily after she had ridiculed the unicorn so much, and she was pretty sure it showed on her face.

"All right, our stop is next," Trixie said as she stood up, "follow Trixie just a bit further, and then Trixie can drop you off and be rid of you."

The train slowed to a stop within a few seconds of the end of her sentence, and Twilight glanced outside as she stepped down from her seat. "Where in the fortress is this?"

"The secondary data center is on the other side of Ferrous from the gate," Trixie explained, "that's the structure that has Trixie's room. Trixie hopes they have enough space for you all too, but just so you know, Trixie isn't sharing."

"We crossed the entire fortress already?" Twilight asked, surprised. "It felt like just a few minutes!"

"It was just a few minutes," Trixie confirmed as the doors slid open, "since the humans keep building everything five times bigger than necessary, they've developed very clever ways of getting around in a hurry, it would seem."

Trixie stepped out onto the train platform, and then turned toward the structure that housed her.

She hesitated for a moment, however, sensing that something was wrong. Glancing back and scanning the platform briefly, she figured out what it was as the other ponies and their servitors exited one by one.

The platform was abandoned. This stop was the nearest one to a data center, the dormitories, a main cafeteria and all sorts of structures that tended to attract humans right after their shift was over, and yet the platform didn't even have any guards around. Nobody got off the train except them, and the throngs of menials, adepts, and human soldiers walking along the avenues below were giving the transit center a wide berth.

The others apparently noticed something seemed wrong as well, as they all slowed to a halt while looking around nervously some more.

"You know Serith, Trixie is convinced that you make yourself seem creepy and mysterious on purpose," Trixie said, speaking into the air, "you give all us 'psykers' a bad name."

The other ponies and Spike looked alarmed now, understandably concerned about meeting this "Serith" who seemed to terrify men who had faced deadly alien tanks without hesitation.

"Oh, so you're using our word for you now, are you? I must be a terrible influence."

When Trixie finally found Serith, she was quite annoyed to realize that he was standing out in the open, almost right in front of them. She could only assume that the Sorcerer had somehow cloaked himself with his magic, although she supposed the man could have used some sort of human technology and she wouldn't have known any better.

"WHOA NELLY!" Applejack barked, rearing up backward when her brain had finally come to terms with the nine-foot giant suddenly appearing right in front of her. The others didn't take it much better, although they weren't as loud about it.

"Girls, Trixie would like to introduce Serith... but before Trixie does that, could someone pull Fluttershy back out of the train before it leaves with her?"

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie bolted into the train to comply, and Trixie continued after a tired sigh.

"Serith, these are some... ponies Trixie knows from Ponyville," Trixie mumbled, trying and failing to keep a neutral expression, "the white one is Rarity, orange is Applejack, the two dragging Fluttershy out of the train are Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, and the one currently challenging your knowledge of ponykind with her wing/horn deal is Twilight Sparkle. The lizard is her assistant, Spike."

"N-Nice ta meetcha," Applejack said with a strained smile to the armored psyker.

Serith ignored her completely, stepping toward Trixie with his eyes on Twilight and Rarity. "Such an expression, Lady Trixie! Are these not friends of yours?"

Trixie's eyebrow twitched. "Trixie's history with these ones is... rather unfortunate. But that aside, Trixie isn't even supposed to be leading them through Ferrous Dominus and talking down the security officers! That's supposed to be your job!"

Serith nodded, circling around the new unicorn and alicorn as they stared back at him cautiously. "Ah, yes. Lady Sparkle, Lady Rarity, I must apologize for my tardiness. Immediately prior to your arrival I was informed of a new batch of prisoners arriving. I simply had to arrange for a share of them before I could attend to lesser duties," then he shook his helmeted head, "although none had told me that we had new unicorn arrivals! It was a grievous miscalculation on my part, and I am deeply sorry."

Serith fell to one knee, placing one arm over his chest and bowing his head.

Rarity seemed impressed by the gesture, gasping slightly at seeing a Chaos Space Marine actually practicing some form of social conduct. Twilight was more focused on what was wrong with his apology: particularly the fact that he had made it to her and Rarity specifically.

"You arranged for a 'share' of prisoners? Why would you do that? What do you do with them?" Twilight asked.

"Such matters are not fit for polite conversation, I'm afraid," Serith admitted, rising up again, "and impolite conversation will have to wait, as there are more formal matters to see to. I will have you roomed immediately; how do you wish to house your thralls?"

"Our what?" Rarity asked. "You mean the servitors?"

Serith tilted his helmet slightly. "Not at all. We are well aware of how to care for them. I meant your... how do you put it... ah! Your assistants!"

Twilight jerked back, and then her eyes narrowed. "What? Spike isn't a thrall!" The young dragon nodded vigorously, although he continued keeping silent. He was more than keen on keeping to Daniels' advice, even if this Astartes was quite talkative.

"I see," Serith said simply, nodding, "so the rest of them are?"

"Hey!" Rainbow Dash and Applejack looked quite offended by the assumption. Which Trixie could completely understand, even if she was very much enjoying this encounter.

"We're not thralls!"

"We ain't even assistants!"

Serith stared down at the angry ponies silently for a few seconds. "Then why are you even here?"

"We all came with Dark Acolyte Gaela," Twilight explained patiently, although she was already plenty annoyed and creeped out by this Sorcerer, "she left after she was told you would be dealing with us. I think I'm starting to see why."

"Ah. And Lady Trixie acquired security clearance for you all, is that it?" Serith asked, scratching at the chin of his helmet. "She's too kind. I would have left this rabble at the gate," he said, gesturing dismissively to the pegasi and earth ponies behind him.

"They are NOT 'rabble'!" Rarity said firmly, her expression sharpening. "Though we may possess different skills, their lack of magic makes them no less important or capable than us unicorns!"

Rarity glared defiantly at the Chaos Space Marine as Applejack, Rainbow, and Pinkie all nodded emphatically (Fluttershy was still huddled behind them, peeking out at the Sorcerer from over Rainbow Dash).

Serith paused, and then pointed toward Twilight. "What about Lady Sparkle, then?" he asked, causing the alicorn to cringe.

"We try not to bring that up," Pinkie Pie said dryly.

"Ya know, I'm really startin' ta miss all yer goofy antics," Applejack groused.

"Hey, Twilight wanted to be serious about this, so you get serious Pinkie," she groused back.

Serith sighed, his exasperation curiously amplified by his unusual vox unit. "Enough. Very well. If you insist that these... others accompany you here, I will allow it. They will be housed in the menial dormitories nearby. Lady Sparkle, Lady Rarity, you two will be housed together in the psyker dormitories, in the room next to Lady Trixie."

"Wait, why do we have to be in separate buildings?" Rainbow Dash demanded, hovering up to the Sorcerer and glaring into his visor.

"Yes, she's right. We should stay together," Twilight agreed.

"No," Serith replied curtly, gently pushing Rainbow out of his field of vision so that he was again speaking to Twilight and Rarity alone. "The psyker dormitories are specially protected from the rest of the base. It's a basic security measure. Your powers can be a danger to others, and certain... energies in the base can be uniquely harmful to you, particularly while sleeping."

Twilight frowned. "Certain energies? Like what?"

"Oh, I think you have an inkling," Serith replied with a deep chuckle, "so I may not budge on this matter. The psykers and non-psykers will room separately. If this is not acceptable, I'm afraid you will have to make do with a nearby pasture somewhere outside our walls."

Twilight turned to her friends silently, and Applejack shrugged. Rainbow Dash nodded reluctantly along with Rarity, while Fluttershy nodded more rapidly, no doubt considering that she'd probably be further away from the Sorcerer in the non-psyker lodging.

"Okay, fine. We'll manage," Twilight grumbled up at the Iron Warrior.

"Question!" Spike said suddenly, speaking for the first time since Serith appeared. "Can thralls room with their owners? And any non-owner psykers that happen to be roomed with them?"

Serith tilted his helmet to the side. "I thought you were an 'assistant'."

"I'm whatever means I get to stay with Ra-er, Twilight," Spike said eagerly as Twilight's expression fell.

Serith shrugged his heavy shoulders. "So long as you are considered more property than individual, then your safety is of less concern. In that case your mistress may do with you what she wishes."

"YES!" Spike pumped his elbow, and then cheerfully moved behind an increasingly bemused Twilight. "Ready to go!"

"Yes, quite. Lady Rarity, may I assume by the gem motif that the bags are yours?"

The white unicorn nodded hesitantly.

Serith raised a hand, palm up, while facing one of the servitors. "I'll take those, servitor."

The pieces of luggage carried by the cyborg slave slowly floated upward out of its hands, and the servitor lowered its hydraulic-clamp arms as it detected no more weight to carry.

The baggage swam slowly through the air to float around Serith in a lazy orbit, and then he continued speaking to the cybernetic slave. "Lead these four to the menial dormitories in sector 21. They may be given full access to cells 384-387."

"Order acknowledged," the servitor droned, stomping toward the edge of the train platform, "complying."

Serith nodded, his finger twirling slowly in front of him as the luggage continued to float all around him. "Well then, ponies, if that will be all..."

"Why're they called 'cells' rather than 'rooms'?" Applejack asked humorlessly, glaring up at the Sorcerer.

Serith's gaze tilted to meet hers. "I'm sorry, what was that, orange one?"

"Ah said," Applejack puffed her chest up, "thank you fer yer patience and generosity Lord Serith! That will be all, mi'lord!"

Applejack's eyes snapped open in shock as she realized what had just come out of her mouth, and the other ponies - save Trixie - recoiled.

"That's what I thought. You may depart when ready."

The Sorcerer turned away and walked off, a portion of Rarity's luggage still twirling about behind him. The servitors with baggage loads soon moved to follow, and Trixie joined them while giggling under her breath.

Twilight and Rarity hesitated, neither of them eager to follow after the Chaos psyker.

"What was... Ah didn't... how...?" Applejack was still struggling to figure out what had just happened, while Fluttershy looked even more terrified than before, somehow.

"All right, well, I don't think we're going to make much more progress finding the Warsmith tonight," Twilight allowed, "I'm not sure about following this 'Serith' character, but it looks like we'll have to meet up again tomorrow."

"All right. You guys be careful," Rainbow Dash said as Pinkie nodded firmly.

"Let's get outta here before anything else happens," Applejack grumbled.

Rarity, Twilight, and Spike soon rushed to catch up to Serith and Trixie, who had been waiting on the street below.

The sun had fallen completely behind the distant mountains now, and lumen globes decorated the freshly paved streets in orderly rows while strip lighting flickered on one by one within the numerous structures.

This sector was much less impressive than the gates, both in terms of technological prowess and military strength on display. Gangs of soldiers roamed the exterior with their masks stripped and their rifles missing and mixed with menials trying to stretch their rest hours to accomplish something more than sleeping and eating. Many of the men were still working to haul more furniture and personal items to their rooms or looking to contact friends that had been deployed, while others were playing card games or cooking meals out in the open while surrounded by their colleagues. It was by far the most natural and grounded image of humanity that Twilight had seen so far, and probably the closest that anyone in the Company ever came to matching the simple, peaceful atmosphere of Ponyville. For just this moment, at least, none of these humans were soldiers, cultists, or laborers in service to the first two sorts. They were simply people.

Those people were very quick to abandon their activities as Serith walked down the path toward them, clearing the way and sometimes outright bolting into the nearest building. It was rather disconcerting to see such a reaction from the people who were, theoretically, part of the same military group as the Chaos Sorcerer; certainly Twilight had never inspired such fear in other ponies despite her own formidable magic or her reputation as Celestia's student and go-to heroine. She felt her ire toward the Iron Warrior grow even further as she glared at his power backpack.

"Whatever you did to Applejack back there, don't do it again," Twilight warned, her wings ruffling as she sped up to walk alongside him and Trixie.

"Oh, calm down Sparkle. It was just a harmless little trick," Trixie insisted.

"Mind control is 'harmless' to you?" Rarity asked with narrowed eyes.

Serith chuckled. "It was hardly mind control, my lady. To possess a rational, sentient mind and suppress its will is a difficult thing. My preferred method is more subtle. A few words that a target didn't mean to say, a twitch of the finger or push of a button before they realize what they're doing... it can make all the difference in a few heated seconds."

The Sorcerer clasped his hands behind his back as luggage continued flowing behind him in a slow, bobbing stream. "That said, your friends are too brave... excepting the yellow one, of course. Ferrous Dominus may lie within the borders of your country, but it is still alien territory, and its 'citizens' hardened killers. They would do well to remember that."

"But not us?" Rarity asked with a glare.

"You are of a different class, and may be indulged more easily. I see no issue with recognizing your superiority over those less gifted," Serith turned to look briefly at Twilight, who bristled under his gaze, "however, if this... displeases you, I shall restrain myself in the future."

"Doesn't that attitude make it hard to make non-psyker friends?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. I have no non-psyker friends," Serith confirmed.

Twilight blinked at that. "I was under the impression that very, very few humans had magic powers."

"You are again correct. There are but eight other psykers besides me in all the 38th Company fleets." Serith returned his gaze to the path ahead. "They're not very fond of me either."

"Aw, why not?" Trixie asked, sounding genuinely sorry for the armored giant.

"Iron Warrior Sorcerers are a cold, unfriendly lot to begin with, and that attitude trickles down to the human psykers as well. Overdisciplined and rigid, they limit themselves to the proven rituals and rarely experiment with their gifts. They are ever the tools of the Legion rather than their own man."

"It seems to me that all of you Iron Warriors are either grim and competent, or else reckless and whimsical," Rarity pointed out.

Serith laughed at that, and Rarity and Twilight shivered at the strange, chilling sound. Neither of them thought they would ever miss the grating, static-laced feedback of the Space Marine's normal vox emitter, but Serith's smooth, serpentine voice had proven them wrong.

"Oh, you two are quite a catch! I'm enormously pleased to have three of your kind find your way to Ferrous Dominus!" Serith said as he entered the secondary data center. "Come. Let me show you to your room."

Twilight didn't know what he meant by the word "catch", but she was fairly certain he wasn't referring to their romantic prospects.

As she followed the Sorcerer into the building, however, her gait slowed considerably while she took in the interior.

The architecture was purely functional, since this structure hadn't been laid down with the manufactorum and had been fabricated quickly after planetfall to serve the workers and soldiers, as well as members of the Dark Mechanicus of lower rank.

Adepts, soldiers, and Acolytes were scattered sparsely throughout the room, all of them either browsing consoles built into the cogitator columns or reading dataslates. Some of them looked up as they entered, and then quickly went back to minding their own business once they caught a glimpse of the Sorcerer.

"Twilight, what's wrong? You're falling behind," Rarity noted. It was all the more obvious since the servitors were following behind the group, and had almost ground to a halt right in the entrance.

"What did you say this place was, again?" Twilight asked, her eyes roaming over the piles of dataslates stacked in corners and on shelves. She had already come to recognize dataslates as the human equivalent of books, even though she knew the comparison wasn't perfect. Seeing so many of them in one place had caused her to think back on what kind of place she was being led into.

"This is the secondary data center," Serith repeated, walking back up to the alicorn and closely observing her slightly dazed expression, "in this place, base personnel can upload information onto dataslates for perusal or search our archives for topics of interest."

"Oh, no," Spike sighed, slapping his claws over his face.

Twilight had to swallow a mouthful of saliva before she could speak again. She was in a library. A futuristic human library. "What kind of information is available?"

"Twilight, darling, can't this wait?" Rarity asked, but to no avail.

Serith chuckled. "These building columns are Amexus-pattern standard Mechanicus cogitator cores. They're front-loaded with data gathered from hundreds of infiltrated noosphere networks and re-compiled annually with updated formulas and communications intercepts. It would take less time to specify what information is NOT available."

"You guys go on without me," Twilight said, her eyes looking distant and haunted, "Spike, after Rarity unpacks, can you bring me one of her suitcases? Or maybe, like, four of them?"

"Oh, for pity's sake," Rarity groaned, "If I immobilize her, could someone carry her to our room?"

"Oh, let's leave her be," Serith said with a wave of his hand, "I'm sure she'll be along. Servitors, follow."

Rarity was reluctant to do anything the Chaos Sorcerer said, but as Twilight stood up with her front legs on a cogitator terminal and a feverish look in her eyes, the white unicorn had to consider that it might not be worth the struggle.

Shaking her head, Rarity followed Serith into the hallway that separated the data center from the dormitories with Spike following dutifully behind her.

Nobody seemed to notice that Trixie hadn't joined them.

"So, Mister Serith, I can't help but wonder why you seem so hard up for space when this structure is built so large like all the others," Rarity asked, her eyes scanning the surroundings, "could you really not manage to find separate rooms for me and Twilight?"

Spike furtively shook his head at the Sorcerer, but Serith ignored him completely as expected.

"That's my fault, I'm afraid. There were other rooms available up until this evening, but I've prepared them all for those prisoners I mentioned earlier."

Serith approached a door and placed a hand against a flat red screen next to it. The screen beeped and read his armor's ID tag, and then the doors slid open.

Then Serith stepped backward, beckoning the unicorn to enter. "Here you are, my lady. It's nothing special, but I do hope it meets your needs."

Rarity stepped into the room, and then started slowly scanning the interior from wall to wall.

"'Nothing special' is right," Spike mumbled. The room was almost bare, with nothing but a metal table, a locker, and a pair of cots with thin pillows. It was spacious, though. Almost cavernously so. There were no windows, and a few dim lumen strips along the ceiling filled the room with light.

Rarity seemed unperturbed, however. "It will do. Spikey, could you direct the servitors to put my things down in the corner? We can start unpacking immediately."

The young dragon saluted, and then he started beckoning the cyborgs inside.

Rarity turned back toward Serith, who had been fiddling with the console on the wall.

"Your access card has been registered to this room," the Sorcerer said, deactivating the console, "aside from a few other... key personnel, only you and Lady Sparkle will have access to this dwelling. Simply place the card against the red scanner to get in. Getting out requires no key except in cases of lockdown."

"What about Spike?" Rarity asked.

Serith dismissed her question with a negligent wave of his hand. "I know little of what your people eat, but if you're hungry you may acquire rations at the cafeteria. They may be... reluctant to give you anything more. I don't really know how that place works. I don't actually eat food."

That was quite possibly the weirdest thing Rarity had heard since she set hoof on the base, but she didn't really want to learn much more about the Iron Warrior Sorcerer at this point.

"Fine. Then I only have one more question for you."

"I am at your disposal, my lady," Serith said with a deep and generous bow.

"You said you were keeping prisoners in this place?" Rarity asked uncomfortably. "I would have thought you'd have a proper prison for such things. Is that safe?"

"No," Serith said simply, "nothing about it is safe. As such, I advise you ignore any screaming you may or may not hear throughout the night, and if you hear banging, yelling, or desperate begging at your door, do not open it under any circumstances."

Rarity couldn't really go pale, given her fur color, but her expression spoke volumes.

"Pleasant dreams, my dear," Serith said, waving to the disturbed unicorn as he stepped backward out of the room.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Secondary data center

Twilight growled as she swept her blank access card over the cogitator input board, only to have the screen once again flash red while buzzing irritably at her.

"I don't understand! Why won't this work? Is there something wrong with the card? There must be something wrong with the card!"

Twilight looked left and right angrily, only to find that the humans in the data center were all quite aggressively avoiding eye contact or leaving altogether, their dataslates tucked under their arms.

"If Trixie had to guess, Trixie would say that the machine probably doesn't find your security clearance good enough to let you start gleaning information from the archives."

Twilight frowned and turned to look behind her. "Trixie, what are you still doing here? I told everypony to go on ahead of me."

"Trixie needs to talk with you," the blue unicorn mumbled quietly, "in private."

Twilight snorted and once again levitated her card over the scanner. The result was, unsurprisingly, the same as before. "I'm not going anywhere until I fill up at LEAST one dataslate here. This is too important!"

Trixie rolled her eyes and then stepped forward next to the alicorn. "Move aside before you break a blood vessel," she said as she swiped her hat and the attached card over the scanner.

The screen blinked out for a second, and then a search menu appeared.

"Here. Plug the dataslate into that big slot on the front. You can do ONE topic. Then Trixie wants to talk to you."

Twilight made an angry strangling noise in the back of her throat. Not just because Trixie had been granted access to innumerable secrets to the galaxy that she didn't seem to even care about, but mostly because she couldn't seriously pare down her list of immediate questions and topics of interest to only one item.

"And hurry it up. Trixie's had a long day, and wishes to sleep," the unicorn added, unmoved by Twilight's conundrum.

Taking a deep breath, and reassuring herself that there must be someone else willing to let her use their card for the data center later, Twilight took up a stylus next to the input board with her magic.

But where to go first? Levitating trains? Space craft? Automated, artificial life forms? History of psykers? Equine contact with humans across the galaxy?

Trixie watched with feigned detachment as the alicorn steeled herself and inserted a dataslate from her saddlebag into the output slot, setting it inside with a satisfying click.

Then, with great reluctance and unease, Twilight entered "Chaos" into the cogitator.

The results were expansive and impressive, and Twilight's eyes gleamed as search results slid into place one by one in a long list. Chaos cults. Chaos daemons. Chaos gods. Chaos heresy. Chaos power. Chaos Space Marines. Chaos and the Warp.

The list went on, and small glyphs started appearing on the side of the screen.

Twilight saw a "download all" command appear and poked it with the stylus. An empty bar appeared and began to fill up rapidly.

"Good. Now follow Trixie," Trixie said, turning away.

"One more?" Twilight asked, raising a hoof slightly and making puppy-dog eyes.

"Follow Trixie before she breaks the dataslate over your egg head," the unicorn snapped, "this is serious."

Twilight grunted irritably before she seized the dataslate and slipped it back into her saddlebag for later perusal. Then she followed Trixie into the psyker dorms.

"This is Trixie's room," the blue unicorn explained, tilting her head so that the card attached to her hat was held over the scanner.

Trixie entered after the doors slid open. "Ah, Suuna! You look much better already after a shower and good meal!"

Twilight followed hesitantly, and then glanced around at the room interior. It was sparsely decorated and very roomy, with a pair of small beds at the end in front of a restroom stall.

What interested her most, however, was that there was a young female human seated next to the wall.

Suuna stood up as Trixie approached, bowing awkwardly to the unicorn. "Yes, Mistress Trixie. Thank you for your generosity," she said. Her hair was lighter and her skin was clean, and she was dressed in a long tunic that matched Trixie's coat.

"Not at all! The Great and Powerful Trixie cares for her friends!" the unicorn turned toward Twilight. "Twilight, this is Suuna, Trixie's assistant. Suuna, this is Twilight Sparkle, some busybody from Ponyville."

Twilight glared at Trixie, but Suuna promptly bowed to the new pony.

"It is an honor, Miss Sparkle. I am at your service."

"Whoa, hey, don't go putting yourself at the service of every weirdo who walks into town! You're a free woman now!" Trixie said, walking up to the human woman.

Twilight wanted very much to learn why Suuna wasn't a free woman before, and why a human would be assistant to a pony, but decided not to pursue the matter. There were important things to discuss, evidently, and after that she had a lot of juicy knowledge to absorb.

"So what is this all about, Trixie?"

Suuna sat down on a pile of pillow cushions, and Trixie stepped up onto her to lay across her assistant's lap.

"Trixie wished to speak about your little plan to 'get rid of' the humans," the unicorn said bluntly, "or did you really think Trixie just let that detail slip by her?"

Twilight recoiled, and her eyes snapped to Suuna, who looked slightly alarmed.

"Trixie! Not in front of-"

"We can trust Suuna, of course," Trixie declared with a curt nod, "she owes much to the Great and Powerful Trixie. She's different from the other humans that serve the 38th Company."

Suuna raised an eyebrow as she glanced down at the unicorn on her lap, apparently as unconvinced as Twilight.

"Anyway, would you like to tell Trixie about your little plan, seeing how Trixie helped get you this far?"

Twilight grimaced. "Okay, Trixie, I know that you like it here, and apparently the blatantly horrible people around the base don't bother you very much, but-"

"Don't misunderstand," Trixie interrupted, "Trixie has no intention of stopping you, warning the humans, or talking you out of it."

Twilight looked shocked to hear that. "You... don't? But aren't the humans key to your livelihood right now?"

"Yes, and believe Trixie when she says Trixie is most discouraged to have you, of all ponies, randomly show up and ruin it," the unicorn muttered, looking away, "but Trixie has put aside her past grudges and come to terms with her mistakes. Trixie knows that you wouldn't be here without a good reason. If you're here to deal with the humans, then Trixie must assume that the humans pose a grave threat to Equestria. Is Trixie correct?"

Twilight nodded dumbly.

Trixie sighed. "Very well. The Great and Powerful Trixie will not put her own wishes and well-being above the safety of Equestria."

"Again, you mean," Twilight responded before she could stop herself.

"Yes, again. Also, shut up," Trixie levitated her sack of oats up off the table to rest next to her, "but Trixie would at least like to know what to expect, and whether Trixie's new caravan wagon might be finished first."

Twilight took a deep breath, feeling a bit ashamed of herself. Seeing Trixie in the employ of the Iron Warriors, she had been quick to think of the unicorn as another enemy. Even if Trixie's past actions were mostly to blame for that assumption, it now seemed very obvious that she really had reflected upon her actions and reformed herself.

"Okay, well, it's not so much a plan at the moment, just..." Twilight trailed off, staring up at the ceiling. "Trixie, you're good with magic. Surely you've felt the energy that surrounds this fortress. It's like a poison, or a sickness or something."

Trixie frowned around a mouthful of oats, and then swallowed before she replied. "Yes. Trixie has. Trixie doesn't understand it, since so few humans are magical themselves, though; how would they generate such a large magical effect?" She shook her head. "Serith knows a lot about it, Trixie thinks; he said that our horns protect us from it, somehow. Trixie didn't inquire further."

"That makes some sense," Twilight admitted, casting a glance at her saddlebag and the dataslate within. "When I would look at those Chaos Star symbols, I would start to feel something in my horn. That was outside the base. Ever since I arrived, though, my horn feels... hot. And there's something else. Like something is following or watching me. Every time I use magic just to pick something up, I can almost hear it speaking..."

The alicorn frowned as she stared up again. "That feeling pretty much vanished when I came in here, though. I thought I had just gotten used to ignoring it, but I guess these rooms really are protected somehow." Then she shook her head. "I'm not sure about this... I'm not sure about anything where the Iron Warriors are concerned, but I think that energy is what the Princess wants me to stop. And to do that, she believes the humans need to go."

Trixie grimaced. "That sounds really vague and reactionary to Trixie, but great and powerful as she is, Trixie isn't in the business of second-guessing the Princess." Trixie craned her neck around to look at Suuna, who had remained respectfully silent throughout the conversation. "Do you know anything about this, Suuna?"

The human woman looked away uncomfortably. "It's hard to say... laborers like me are told nothing, and pulled along with the Company while given scraps and expended like bullets or fuel. Rumors are everywhere, but you're the first one I've ever spoken to who's ever really known an Astartes personally, Mistress. And I can barely fathom matters that concern psykers in particular." She pursed her lips, looking about the room as if it might hold someone other than the two equines. "What I do know about the Space Marines and the humans that serve Chaos - not all of them, but the ones who have joined the cults themselves - is that they're just... DIFFERENT. They speak to voices that aren't there and heed the whims of insane spirits. Some of them start to mutate or gain strange powers without being a psyker. Many of the Space Marines become bloated and filthy in ways that no competent warrior should, and others are kept far away from the humans out of fear that they'll simply start killing soldiers or laborers for fun. That's not something the Iron Warriors are known for."

The woman shuddered, rubbing her arms. "I don't know what Chaos is; whether it's a disease, a religion, or just an awful curse spread by sorcerers and witches... but it's real, and the Iron Warriors carry it with them wherever they go."

"Well, that was dark," Trixie mumbled around another mouthful of oats.

Twilight nodded grimly. "So you understand why you humans have to leave."

"Not really," Suuna said, frowning, "what about those of us that have hardly anything to do with the Company? Will I have to leave Mistress Trixie and go back to the fleet?" Serving an alien psyker was hardly the sort of life Suuna had imagined taking up if she ever escaped enslavement, but as far as she was concerned it was still a big step up.

"We... Well, we haven't really figured that part out yet," Twilight said awkwardly.

"It doesn't really sound like you've thought this whole thing through," Trixie remarked.

"Everything's just been happening so FAST!" the alicorn complained. "I was literally just given this quest several hours ago, and here I am in the middle of the fortress-city already! There's been no time to plan, and I've been separated from the others, too! I'll think of something!"

Then Twilight sighed. "I just need a chance to confront this Warsmith Solon. Trixie, with your help, I can-"

"Whoa whoa whoa WHOA. Let's back the hay up," Trixie interrupted, "Trixie isn't going to turn you in or anything, but that doesn't mean Trixie is throwing her hat into this suicide mission of yours."

Twilight looked surprised for reasons that Trixie really couldn't fathom. "But... Equestria is in danger, remember?" the alicorn stressed.

"Yes. And taking care of that is Princess Celestia's job, which she handed down to YOU, Miss New Princess. Oh, and since Trixie's on the topic: congratulations on the coronation and stuff, by the way." Trixie cleared her throat. "Trixie's MET the Warsmith, all right? And you're out of your magic-addled mind if you think you can challenge that guy."

Twilight frowned. "Is he strong? Does he know magic or something?"

"He's HUGE. And apparently his mastery of technology is such that he might as well have magic. AND he's kind of surrounded by an army," Trixie pointed out blithely, "Trixie respects you, Twilight Sparkle, and knows that you've faced several powerful villains to save Equestria, but there's a line between brave and stupid, and you're on the wrong side of it."

Twilight's cheeks puffed up. "We have the Elements of Harmony."

"Can the Elements of Harmony stop a human tank?" Trixie asked flatly.

"Sure!"

"Nifty. Can they stop a dozen human tanks? At once?"

Twilight pursed her lips. "... Maybe."

"Yes, well, if you find out and survive the experiment, tell Trixie all about it. She'll tell your amazing tale far and wide as a preamble to her magic show," the blue unicorn mumbled sarcastically, looking away, "however, Trixie fully expects you all to die or run away before you get the chance. Trixie only hopes that the Iron Warriors don't decide to punish Trixie for not warning them about you."

Twilight looked annoyed. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Thanks for letting Trixie know that she needs a plan to get out of the fortress in a hurry," Trixie said, suddenly rolling over on Suuna's lap so that she was on her back, "Trixie believes we're done here."

Twilight nodded curtly, but she hesitated as she turned to leave. "Trixie?"

"Hm?" Suuna was now rubbing her hands along Trixie's chest and belly, and the unicorn was clearly fighting to keep a goofy smile off of her face until Twilight left.

"Thank you," Twilight said sincerely, her head tilted downward, "you've seen what these humans are capable of. You never had to help us get around in the first place, and you know what you're risking by keeping quiet about us. So whether this works out or not... thank you. Really."

Trixie snorted, arcing her back as Suuna started scratching below her neck. "It's quite literally the least Trixie can do. Good night, Sparkle. Suuna, go lower. Lower. Yeeessss..."

Twilight didn't leave, staring with a mix of fascination and discomfort as Trixie started panting and kicking her leg.

"Trixie can feel you judging her with your eyes!" the blue unicorn declared. "And Trixie doesn't care!"

"It's just... isn't that kind of... undignified?" Twilight asked awkwardly.

"Dignity can go soak itself; this feels AMAZING," Trixie insisted, "now go away. Trixie might start moaning any second, and she doesn't want you around to make things all weird."

Twilight winced and made her exit quickly, the door sliding shut behind her and locking as per the security settings.

"Well, Trixie may be underestimating us, but she has a point," Twilight mumbled to herself as she walked down the hall, "I'm going to need more than confidence and magic trinkets if we're going to succeed here."

Halting next to another door, she then realized that she didn't know which room she shared with Rarity.

A banging noise from further down the hall startled her, and Twilight saw that the next room over had some sort of arrangement of sigils drawn on it in green paint that glowed faintly in the dim light of the hallway. The Star of Chaos featured prominently in the markings, and Twilight decided then and there that she wasn't going to be staying in that room, regardless of whether her friends were inside.

"Rarity? Spike? Are you in here?" Twilight asked, knocking a hoof on the unmarked door next to her.

"Come in!" Rarity sang, sounding curiously pleased with herself.

Twilight levitated her card over the security scanner, and the door promptly slid open. She stepped inside, and then halted immediately.

"You like?" Rarity asked, smiling as she placed a lacy pillow on one of the two beds.

She wasn't referring to just the pillow, of course, but rather to the room in general. What had been a stagnant arrangement of hardened metal that was more suited to prison arrangements than anything called a "dormitory" was now fully furnished and lavishly decorated. The table had a cloth and doilies, the beds were overflowing with down comforters and lacy pillows, and even the walls were mostly concealed by hanging banners and art pieces.

The only part of the room that was askew, in fact, was the corner next to the room terminal, where Spike was breathing heavily next to a small mountain of empty bags and open luggage cases.

"This may be the first time I've actually unpacked EVERYTHING I brought," Rarity admitted as she stepped back from the beds, "it really does pay to be prepared."

"That's, ah... it's... nice," Twilight said, a little overwhelmed.

"Do you still want a suitcase for all those dataslate things?" Spike asked.

Twilight shook her head, levitating her saddlebag onto the floor. "No, it didn't work out that way. But I should have more than enough reading material for the night." The dataslate that Gaela had modified for pony use slipped out of her saddlebag.

"Okay, then!" Spike said cheerfully, planting his hands on his hips. "Then the only thing left is to discuss sleeping arrangements! Now, I was thinking-"

"Spike," Twilight deadpanned.

The young dragon wilted instantly. "Yeah, yeah, fine. I'll be on the floor," Spike grumbled, picking up a blanket.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Serith's quarters

A rasping noise filled the cavernous interior of Serith's room as a Kroot mercenary fell to its knees, clawing at its throat painfully.

Surrounding the dying alien was a ring of glyphs drawn in its own blood on the metal floor, and these symbols flared with sickening non-light as the Kroot felt its lungs stop working.

Several more of the aliens sat in the room, each one sitting within its own circle of arcane symbols. These Kroot looked almost comatose, their tongues lolling out of their beaks and their eyes staring blankly forward. They were, however, sitting up, and their eyebrows twitched every once in a while as their blood dried on their skin.

Serith wasn't paying any attention to the sorcerous atrocities he had set into motion, however. The Sorcerer stood silently in the middle of the room, unflinching.

With the way he was staring directly forward at nothing, an observer might have concluded that the Iron Warrior had fallen prey to the same effect that had befallen the alien test subjects around him.

However, they would not be able to see or hear within Serith's helmet. It was currently playing a vid-capture feed coming from Trixie's room.

The Sorcerer had many devious means to spy on individuals and delve into their secrets, but in this case he had decided that simple would be best. A scrying or a spy might have been detected, and who knows when he might get the chance to corner Suuna alone and strip her thoughts for information.

On the other hand, the ponies' awareness of technology was nascent at best, and the human slave's wasn't much better. He hadn't even bothered to hide the recorder, which was just a big red lens set in one wall. They probably thought it was a decorative gem or something.

In the meantime it had fed pict and audio directly to Serith's personal encrypted channel, and he had been skimming it for interesting tidbits.

Seeing Twilight Sparkle enter Trixie's quarters had definitely qualified, and the conversation that he had just seen and heard was more than just "interesting".

Serith shut off the feed after Twilight left, not particularly interested in watching Trixie squirm about in pleasure while being fondled by her servant.

"Fascinating. What a brave little pony you are, Lady Sparkle," he said to himself with a deep chuckle, "oh, I'm VERY interested in seeing how this plays out."

He scratched his armored fingers against his equally armored chin. "Methinks the pieces in play could use a little... rearranging, however. Mm hm hm hm mmm!"

Author's Notes:

I've had to make occasional adjustments to the character listing since I started this; over the course of several chapters I created characters I didn't expect to and didn't end up introducing some of the Tau characters that I was planning on using originally.