"A moment." There was no way to deny the instructions of a king, though Charles had no reason to want to. They had just finished an intense briefing, and he had just learned of the mission that would begin by the time evening came around. This information made him excited to get started. No doubt King Richard was taking him aside to explain some secret aspect of the assignment, some particulars he was supposed to keep in mind during the task. Yet he had no need to do that, not when they had a secure radio link. He was making a show of it in front of the Equestrian rulers. Why?

Richard seemed to know where he was going, because nobody asked if he needed help getting around or suggested the use of any particular room. 'Your grace?' he asked, after a short distance down the hall. 'Where are we going, sir?'

His king was still a towering, gigantic figure. His robes were gone and the leather scabbard was gone, but this last the natives had apparently replaced already. The damage was quite extensive, as though he had taken several direct hits from plasma weapons. Charles's body couldn't take punishment like that, but apparently the synthetic skin of a king was sturdier than even soldiers could obtain.

The room they entered was not a meeting place as he expected, or some sort of storage closet where they could have a private word. If anything it seemed to Charles like an armory fused with a jeweler's shop. Glass cases on the walls and floor held intricate looking charms resting on red velvet. He thought of an armory because so far as he could tell each item was the same boring-looking bracelet, though at first glance the patterns carved into the metal links were quite intricate.

Then Charles saw the jeweler and stopped in his tracks. The person standing behind the counter was human.

He was a tall man, nearly as tall as Richard though with far more modest dimensions. He had gray hair with a matching goatee, and eyes that were unidentifiably peculiar. His suit was strange too, a seeming patchwork amalgamation of several colors. Brown and green and gold at least. Charles's sensors immediately registered the pulse and body temperature, but no sign of Nanophage. Not a single cybernetic implant, either. Impossibly, there seemed to be a vanilla human here in Equestria, member of neither side and yet still a survivor of the war. How had he gotten here?

For a moment Charles assumed Equestria must have its own humans, who had perhaps independently evolved here. That theory was shattered when the man laughed and began speaking in flawless English. "My little test subject has arrived!" he said with a wide grin, taking a few steps behind the counter so that he was only a foot or so in front of Charles. "Bet you didn't think you'd be signing up for this one, did you?" The man reached under the counter, seeming to hesitate a moment before finding a charm he liked. "Yes, I think this one looks perfect. Come here, boy."

"Sir?" He didn't bother using the radio. He wanted this impossible man to know he had his doubts, and that he had no intention of following his instructions. On the other hand, he would follow the orders of his king, no matter how strange they might seem.

"Do as he says," Richard said, eyeing the charms darkly and standing as close to the door as possible without actually preventing it from closing. "Celestia has made this device a condition for all our leaders in the field. Since you will be commanding tomorrow's mission, you will need one."

Charles stepped forward at once. After all, there was little to fear in a room full of bracelets and a strange man. Each looked to be made of a tarnished metal, though it was strange to see them so small. They would fit a human wrist, but they were too small for a pony to get around their hooves. Could they have been made for humans? Still, obedience did not preclude curiosity. Celestia and Luna had handled the botched invasion of Canterlot rather deftly in his eyes, and it seemed highly irregular they would insist on something as pointless as jewelry. Some sort of identifier, maybe? The strange symbols might be so Equestrian soldiers could tell who he was. "What does this do?" he asked the jeweler, reaching towards his right wrist with his left hand. A few bits of careful pressure and the armor came off in two chunks. He pulled back the sleeve of the tunic beneath to expose bare simulated skin.

At first there was no reply, and the bizarre man slid the chain around Charles's wrist. The bracelet had a single length of metal about two inches long covered in symbols, along with a delicate looking silver chain. It looked delicate enough that even a vanilla human could have the strength to pry the links apart. That was good, because Charles could see no way to remove it. Come to think of it, how had the jeweler got it around his wrist?

"Now that is the question, isn't it?" he said, flashing Charles a strange grin. Seeing no reason not to, Charles immediately replaced the armor, hiding the bracelet from sight. Despite having been sitting alone on a velvet cushion, it felt quite warm on his skin. That was strange. "Why do these primitive aliens insist that all the officers and nobody else wear them? What purpose could they possibly serve?" He leered across the counter at him. "It was some very complicated magic, even for me. The magic of the bracelets can be activated one of two ways. First, break the chain. Either that, or act naughty enough that Celestia triggers the spell remotely. Either way the bracelet will undo the damage you've done to yourselves." He shook his head. "No mutation, no diversity, no evolution. No fun."

The man folded his arms across his chest. "That was what all the extra work was for, and why we only have enough for your officers. Be on your best behavior, since I'm the only one in Equestria who can get that off without setting it off!"

Charles shivered, putting a little pressure on his armor so he could feel the shape of the bracelet beneath it. In spite of himself, there was a little fear in his voice as he asked. "If that's the extra work, what..."

"Ever wonder what it's like to be stuck with your hands in the mud and doing everything with your mouth?" He grinned. "Or maybe learning about the advantages of using five nails for horseshoes instead of seven. How about why fried hay somehow works as a replacement for beef? You can, any time you want! Of course, I'm fairly confident it won't be easy to reverse. Since that would make you an Equestrian citizen, our resident Sunbutt wouldn't let you leave. No ripping that brain back out and sticking it in another jar."

Of course, what this impossible man was telling Charles was impossible. There was no way to put a cybernetic brain back into a biological body! No way a little piece of metal could do anything the man suggested, the least of which was apparently make him into one of the natives. The amount of energy required for such a conversion was... beyond what his brain could estimate in a split second. On par with the Federation's antimatter reactor at the very least. "That's... absurd," he eventually said, only just stifling a laugh. He turned to his king. "Sir, is this man insane? I think we must have gotten ourselves lost on the way to wherever we were actually going."

It was the stranger who answered, and not Richard. He laughed, a sound so deep and subtly disturbing that Charles shivered involuntarily as he heard it. It was as though the lights above them suddenly failed to illuminate as they ought to. It was a dark, cold laugh entirely out of place with his appearance. "Go ahead, Charles. Break the chain and find out."

Sir Charles Gray had not introduced himself. He didn't break the chain.

"Alert!" came the warning, blaring over the ship's speakers as well as the tiny fragment of mesh network that existed aboard the ship. "Weapons fire detected in monitored vessel! No course corrections required."

Chance rushed to the bow as fast as her hooves would carry her, straining her eyes against the sunlight and her own exhaustion. Her ears provided more useful information, and she heard several distant BANGS! Nothing changed aboard the little speck that was their target, but had those explosions been on the ground below? The Fury wasn’t the target! At this distance there was no chance of hitting their target with anything but long-range rockets. The Prismatic Fury had such a weapon system, but they hadn't actually gotten around to building the rockets yet.

Scootaloo had apparently fallen asleep at the helm, though they hadn't swerved off course even a little. How she could steer the ship while apparently asleep was a mystery to Chance, but it was not one she would solve now. The voice of the onboard AI sounded in her mind as she rushed to wake Scootaloo. Her friend would know what they needed to do! She was the fighter!

"Sensors indicate the use of twenty-five pound black powder charges. Air to ground weapons only. Intervention at this range impossible. Query in progress with Central Operator."

That made Chance stop, if only for a moment. "How are you querying the Central Operator?" she asked out loud, momentarily forgetting herself. "Truth was damaged, and we haven't got the chance to assess how badly."

"Wha?" Scootaloo blinked, closing her mouth and wiping away the line of spittle that had begun to form there. Then she jumped abruptly, securing her hooves firmly about the wheel as though she had been alert the whole time. "Second Engineer Chance, what's our status?"

It was hard to reply, because the shipboard AI spoke at exactly the same time and Chance took a moment to sort one input from another. Her annoyance with Scootaloo's pretending they were on an Air Service ship during such a serious situation didn't help matters.

"Relay established with Central Operator through link with Cadence and Luna satelites, throughput 50 Gb/s. Connection stability nominal."

The AI could wait. "Captain Scootaloo." She couldn't help but sound a little sarcastic. Her "captain" had been asleep at the wheel, after all. Not that it was hard to imagine why. It was some time in the afternoon and there had been no time for sleep. "The enemy ship has begun firing on a ground target. Some sort of caravan..." The few pictures she had seen hadn't been very clear or matched anything she well understood in Equestria. It had just looked like a... crowd. Perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands, hard to say at this distance. What they were doing walking into the desert or why the ship would attack them was a mystery, but she hoped to resolve the situation even if the answers couldn't be discovered. "No defenses we can see."

There were some things Chance was grateful she couldn't see well, and that included the awful destruction those bombs might be doing to what was obviously a group of civilians. Maybe they could do something to end the slaughter, but they would have to do it immediately.

Scootaloo looked shocked, but she was not kept silent for long. "Then they're bad, just like we thought. How can we stop them?"

"They've stopped moving!" Apple Bloom called from somewhere near the bow. "We could close the distance pretty quick now with that new engine! We gotta help!"

Scootaloo nodded. "Can we do it? I thought the new engine wasn't finished."

"It's not." Chance frowned, but it was hard to argue with Apple Bloom when ponies were probably dying right now. Every distant pop could mean unprecedented devastation. Over the din of the propellers and the rush of air, she thought she could make out faint screaming. "But we might be able to get a brief burst of speed with what we have, if somepony watches the system to make sure it doesn't overheat and light us on fire!"

"I can do it." Chance hadn't seen Sweetie Belle walk up behind Scootaloo, yet there she was. The one who needed the rest most, but she didn't look as though rest was prominent on her mind just now. "I helped you put it in, I can keep it from blowing up." Her usual brevity was entirely missing, and her expression was flat and completely serious. So serious that it was impossible to argue with her, even if Chance wanted to insist that she was better qualified and the engine was too dangerous for anyone but her to operate.

"Apple Bloom, go help Spike with the forward cannon!” Scootaloo gestured, seeming suddenly as serious as Sweetie Belle had been. "Chance, the AI. They haven't put the armor in yet, so we will need its help in case they have anything to shoot at airships."

She nodded and ducked down the stairs. And she didn't mind if Scootaloo had chosen her for what some might interpret as the least important of all their assignments. After all, they would need defenses to survive this encounter, and they would need to survive in order to take the wounded to a hospital.

"Good luck." She gave Sweetie Belle an encouraging nudge as she passed on her way to the engine room, smiling as big as she could. They'd done so many exciting things on this ship, visited so many interesting places. But until now, only their lives had been at risk.

"You too." Sweetie Belle returned the smile after a moment, before hastening off to her own task. So there was hope for her eventual recovery.

As much as Chance hated to admit it, she was probably the only one who had any chance of configuring their defense-AI in a matter of minutes. Her friends were all skilled in their ways, but none had the advantage of another lifetime of AI programming experience.

As it turned out though, she wouldn't have minutes. 'Everypony hold onto something!' Sweetie Belle's voice echoed over the internal mesh network. There was no true emotion conveyed in those words since only words were transmitted, but somehow Chance could feel the nervousness. After all, this was the first time they had ever tried to use a full-sized ionization engine. The first model Chance had ever tried to build had failed quite spectacularly.

Chance trusted her engine not to explode this time and instead braced her rump against the panel that was the interface between the AI and the various point-to-point weapons that would protect their ship from attack. There was a fantastic roar, indicating the improperly regulated mixture within the ionization engine. It was enough that Chance swore she felt her soul rattling around in her body. The burst of acceleration was tremendous, enough that the closet they had filled with the tools and refuse of construction burst open and a box of nails exploded open against a wall. The pointy contents went everywhere, though none got close enough to hurt her.

As it turned out, their previous suspicious about the ability of the anti-gravity spell to also protect them from the effects of the rapid acceleration was confirmed. It would do nothing to the blast of air upstairs, but hopefully the simple shield spell they had made would handle that. It must have, because no new injuries popped up on the ship's mesh network. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom hadn't been filleted by friction or blasted off the ship, and she hoped it was safe to assume Spike hadn't either. No way to know for sure since he didn't have the Nanophage, but it wasn't as though there was time to climb to the deck and find out.

'Firing range in eighteen seconds.' It was too loud for normal conversation, but the familiar voice came over the mesh. 'Strategic analysis indicates you're acting like idiots. Should I alter course for you?'

'Truth!' Chance didn't want to risk moving too much, unsure of what was going to happen when the engine ceased applying forward thrust. Would Sweetie Belle realize they would need to accelerate in the opposite direction when they got close, or else pass their enemy without the chance to do any real damage? 'Guess you weren't hurt bad. Help Sweetie with the engines, make sure we don't crash. Can you take over the defense grid? We weren't finished installing the S.I.I., and pony reflexes aren't good enough to shoot cannonballs out of the air before they hit us.'

'Of course.' Unlike the organics with their limited-range implants, Truth could communicate his full spectrum of tones and feelings. His sarcasm and affection came through with equal clarity, as well as the genuine worry for their well-being. All of them, not just her. Actually, Chance was under the impression Truth cared for Apple Bloom more than anypony else he knew. 'Didn't even finish building this monster of yours and you're already fighting battles with it. I'll make sure you don't scratch the paint.'

'Good.' Chance braced herself, gritting her teeth against their imminent arrival. No doubt the deceleration would be as dramatic and unpleasant as the acceleration. 'How are you up and running again so quickly?'

'My personality was not damaged, only placed in diagnostic mode. Substantial damage to the transducer elements though, I don't think I'll ever open the rift again. Guess it's a good thing they left it open for us. When you're done fighting this ship, could you explain what happened? The sensor readings I'm looking at indicate an 87% probability Equestria is being invaded.'

Even at the speed of mind this conversation was ticking away at the time they had, and it would probably only be a few moments before they slowed. Not much time for this silly conversation, as happy as Chance was that Truth was okay. 'You mean it isn't just Canterlot they attacked?'

'Slowing down!' Sweetie Belle called over the mesh, and substantial force suddenly pushed on Chance from the other direction. It was a struggle not to be thrown around, but she wrapped her hooves around a rail and held on for dear life. She was sure by the end that she had pulled something, but the injury seemed trivial compared to what was going on outside.

'I'm going up!' There was no logical reason to climb onto the deck, and as a matter of fact there were plenty of reasons not to. They would be in range of the enemy vessel now, and their ship's true defenses weren't actually installed. These days Equestrian airships had custom thaumaturgic shields, but as it turned out the spells were finicky enough that they only functioned properly if that component was installed last. Twilight had tried to explain why to Chance, but all that mattered now was that they had to finish the upgrades before they could install a magic shield that did more than keep passengers from being blown off the deck by air pressure. 'Don't let anypony shoot us!'

Second Chance emerged from the stairs and onto the deck of the Prismatic Fury. To her it seemed as though their ship was sailing on the oceans of hell itself. Voices of agony and fear twisted by the wind ascended up to meet them along with the smoke from numerous fires. There was a little wood of some kind beneath them, perhaps the last shelter before the harsher desert resumed. Only the wood was afire. Ponies, thousands of them from the look of it, fled in panic from the bombardment of the enemy vessel.

The enemy's cannons pointed down, though the shots they fired seemed to fall more than they were propelled. It didn't matter. There were so many ponies beneath them that every shot was bound to hurt someone. How were there so many? It was like the population of a city was on the move! "Take them down!" Scootaloo shouted. "They're adjusting their cannons, fire!"

Chance was a child again, cowering behind the large sofa that separated her from the window. Yet as fearful as she was, morbid curiosity forced her to peek over the edge. Through the polarized skyscraper window she saw one of the Steel Tower's aerial combat drones. She was too young to understand what it was doing, though to her it seemed clear it was searching for her. It was going to get her, just like it got all those people on TV.

Only it didn't, because the Air Force had arrived. There was a brief moment of quiet and faint illumination, as though the pilot had only been shooting a pointing laser. Then the magnetic corridor was established and air roared as it boiled. A firestorm of blue impacted the drone, frying its circuitry even as it melted through thick armor. It slammed into the polycarbonate window, before sliding loudly down and out of sight.

That had been a small weapon, fired upon a target that was armored and insulated with the finest technology available. What was happening now could hardly be called a battle. The enemy's guns had been so devoted to slaughtering the innocent beneath them that they could not even fire in return. Instead of hardy nanomaterials and superdense alloys, the enemy vessel used thick plates of steel for armor and aluminum as a structural support. The ship itself was made largely of wood.

None offered much protection. Spike and Apple Bloom fired wide with their first shot, but even so the heat melted through a wooden propeller assembly and set that part of the ship ablaze. Chance felt the momentary ionization in the air as the second shot established a magnetic corridor with one of the most heavily armored sections of the ship's interior. A second sun came briefly into being in the air beside them, a sun that was blue instead of yellow. The temperature shot up, climbing from the low forties to the upper 120s Fahrenheit in the few seconds that Spike fired. It was like the roar of a dragon as air expanded and contracted rapidly under the effects of superheating, rushing forward at the vessel that was raining death down on those who could not defend themselves.

Only when the light faded and Spike had completely exhausted the gun's battery did Chance make her way to the railing to survey the damage. She could see though the ship, as though the hand of God had reached down and stuck His arm through the heavily armored griffon dreadnaught. The vessel had at least five levels, and all five were exposed. Huge globs of molten iron cascaded down through the air, and little of the ship did not seem to be burning. The semi-reptilian bipeds had been charred to ruin, and she saw none that hadn't been obliterated by their mere proximity to the heat and pressure of anti-capital plasma fire.

The screaming from below came suddenly mixed with cheers and shouts, though it was hard to make any of that out over the crackling fires and sound of splintering wood. The world seemed strangely still then, still enough Chance could make out Spike's voice over the din. "Sweet Celestia... humans have weapons like that on all their ships?"

Abruptly the ship's powder magazine went up. Though the effects of the explosion were largely contained by the broken armor, the force was enough to splinter the ship into ruin and send it tumbling to the ground in great chunks. It was fortunate that the ponies directly below had time to scatter before it came crashing down.

"I don't see why we need you idiots to help with this mission," said the prismatic pony, entirely diplomatically. "The Wonderbolts don't need any stupid metal boxes slowing them down."

Sir Charles Gray could not say what he was really thinking, no matter how much he wanted to. His king had made it very clear how he was supposed to act. This mission was the first joint cooperation between Equestrian natives and humans. If it went well, it would pave the way for many missions like it. Together they would quickly bring an end to this war of primitive nation-states and win the love and adoration of the natives along with a second chance for their species.

The field outside Ponyville had been transformed, its crates of cargo moved aside. A wall separating the field from Ponyville had been built with sturdy timbers, nearly ten feet tall and over a mile long. It ran from the Everfree on one end to one of the Sweet Apple Acres orchard fences on the other. There was only one gate, across from where the train had been, with pony guards on one end and humans on the other. As he understood, the purpose of the fence was entirely psychological, to give the ponies in the nearby village a sense of separation and independence. The message was that their lives would keep going as they always had, and that their leaders were dealing with the unusual happenings. It had been impressive to watch the ponies building it, nearly the whole village coming together to erect a feeble barrier between them and the unknown.

Gray could've leapt the barrier in a single bound, but he had no intention of attempting that particular feat. His king and the princess called Luna were here to watch the first of the human war machines come through. As he understood, the ponies expected this wave to be the only required to put an end to the war before it started. He was part of that plan, along with his good friend and fellow pilot Lindsy who waited behind him making disparaging remarks about the rude pegasus over radio.

She was trying to get him to laugh. He wouldn't. "The idea is a show of superior force, Captain Dash," he said as respectfully as he possibly could. "I don't doubt your pegasi are impressive, but your enemy already knows about the Wonderbolts."

Princess Luna spoke quietly to Richard not far away. The discussion seemed heated, but both were so emotionally mastered that their voices never grew loud enough to hear. Richard's royal vestments had been burned to cinders along with the greater part of his beard, and the burns all over his armor and body made him look far more fearsome than he had when they arrived. Sir Gray did not like the change. It was like watching a piece of fruit rotting.

"Yeah, whatever," Rainbow Dash replied. "Dragons don't need airships, and Gryphons have really good ones. I don't see why a few more would impress them. Now if we didn't have to wait for you slowpokes, we'd already be halfway there. We could have brought a whole battalion, showed them they can't mess with Equestria. But now we're sitting here, and the bad guys are digging trenches in Los Pegasus."

"Our target is across the ocean," he said, his discipline fading a little. "Over four thousand miles. You can't seriously be telling me that your biological wings will get you that far. What about food? What about sleeping? That's why we're taking you: drones don't need to stop and rest."

"Whatever," she said again. "It's a dumb idea. We never needed your help before and we don't need it now."

Gray just kept quiet, biting back a retort. He did not have to wait long, since the Ethereal Bridge was coming online. Whatever else the overgrown blue pigeon might be saying was drowned out by the low rumble in the ground. Light rivaling sunset came into being in the center of the machine, its mechanism beginning to spin as it sent a bass rumble into the soil. It was as though the universe was a bell, and the machine had just struck it. Gray had already seen this once, and still he was struck with awe. The cosmic Om sounded deep in his chest, and lightning soared up from the ground into the cloudless sky. The lightning tore the sky open, and all close enough to watch were struck by the brilliance of it.

Once the door was open, Charles was immediately connected to the Mesh on the other side. There were four dozen drones waiting in the hanger, and half of them were his to control. Richard had said to make this as impressive as possible. He intended to blast the smirk right off Captain Dash's face.

The first of the drones came rocketing through the gateway, traveling straight up into the sky with a thunderous roar. Each was the size of a large fighter jet from earlier times, though somewhat stumpier and with much shorter wingspans. Of course none used chemical fuel anymore, but the sound of air rushing through the ionization chamber and being blasted out the other side still sounded very much like old-fashioned jet engines. Charles purposefully twisted the mixture into suboptimal to make the drone louder, directing it straight up for a mile or so until it finally began to stall. As it fell, two more drones passed through the opening, splitting and spiraling around each other with the third falling through the center. They kept coming in groups of two, though he increased the speed with which they came through the gateway until standing beneath it became one constant roar instead of an occasional blast.

It was immensely satisfying to see the pony's ears pressed flat to her head, as well as the fear he had been sure he had seen when the first drone emerged. As the drones fell, they settled into a hover just above the Everfree and began fitting together into a sort of squished cylinder. Drones clicked together one by one, spraying the foam that would form an atmospheric seal in the temporary troop transport.

Lindsy, on the other hand, did nothing showy with the drones she had to control. They just came through one by one, zipping straight into position in the growing troop transport. Only the last two drones were an exception, which came through at a very low speed and flew down to land just in front of them. Cockpits opened with a rush of compressed gas, and the metal plates unhinged to allow them to climb inside. Any drone could carry a passenger, and like the others these had no windows or openings or any sign they were different from the others. That was what made drone pilots so dangerous, after all. You never knew which drones had a pilot and which were merely part of the swarm.

Only when it was fully formed did the massive drone carrier set down. A ship like this could carry dozens of soldiers and many tons of equipment. Tanks, bombs, it didn't matter. He didn't think they had ever been used to deliver mythical creatures before, though. Nobody back at the Tower was going to believe he had flown a carrier of armored pegasi into battle.

"Captain Dash, begin loading your troops," Luna ordered, sounding much calmer than any of the other ponies looked. "You are aware of your mission. Carry it out."

Rainbow Dash saluted, and barked commands to the assembled pegasi. They took to the air with impressive coordination and flew toward the carrier. It was loaded within three minutes, leaving Charles and Lindsy alone with the rulers of both worlds.

His fellow pilot climbed inside her drone and took off, but Charles felt a hand on his shoulder that stopped him from doing the same. "Remember, exactly twenty-six buildings were damaged during the attack last night. Quid pro quo. Dragons are apparently big on favors and debts, so make it exact. Not just damage, though. I want ash."