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//CHECKSUM GOOD

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Desert Storm

I was bedridden. Or rather, I was glued to what passed for a bed out in these trackless wastes. Shortly after my fight with Mardissa, the four of us took entrenching tools and dug graves, burying the bodies of the Vulture’s ill-fated passengers. Mar and Ket had looked over their shoulder resentfully at me and Bell the entire time. We were the reason they had to bury their friends. We helped them erect grave markers made from scrap and hang their buddies’ dog tags on them. When we were all done, they were thankful for the help, at the very least. They’d knelt and offered a short prayer to whatever strange beings they venerated, bidding that they ferry the souls of their comrades to one of the better afterlives.

Day two, we started stripping everything we could out of the wreckage. Seat cushions and blankets to use as bedding, first aid kits, rations from the lockers, and all the weapons and ammo we could get out of the cargo spaces. We put everything in a neat pile, within easy reach. We used the broken-off nose section of the Vulture for shelter. We even managed to find a propane heater. Altogether, we had at least enough to stay out here for a week, were it not for my condition and Sierra’s. She was still comatose and unresponsive, but her pulse and blood pressure remained normal. After the beating I’d sustained, face was swollen like I’d stuck my head in a beehive. I could barely see or speak coherently.

It was day three, post-nuke. I shivered under my blankets, cold and achy all over. I reached a shaky hoof into my saddlebag, retrieving the medal I’d been awarded. I briefly considered using the beacon to call for help. This was, after all, an emergency. However, I did not wish to call in such a favor frivolously, only to need it later on when—and if—those brain-roundel creeps showed up. For that matter, I didn’t know what the Dragoons would do when they saw Mar or Ket. They’d probably kill them without a moment’s hesitation. There was also the matter of Sierra’s condition to consider, however.

We could’ve practically walked back to Pur Sang, if Sierra and I were in any shape to go. We’d been approximately eight klicks away when the bomb had gone off. I was worried that the prompt radiation might’ve fried us, but as it turned out, the mountains shielded us from most of it. Blast, thermal pulse, radiation. All blocked by the mountain range. It had been a ground detonation, not aerial. That had confined most of the three hundred kiloton blast to the valley. I hoped the guys at the base were alright. They were at a much higher elevation, so they might have survived. I hoped Captain Garrida was still alive, even though I knew she was going to wring all of our necks.

Last night, I heard the fighting resume. There were the occasional, far-off sounds of artillery and gunfire. We weren’t sure which side it was coming from or what they were targeting. I’d packed a pillow full of snow and used the cold to try and bring the swelling down, but I was getting sicker and sicker. My auto-dialysis implant was barely functional. The toxins in my bloodstream were building up. I was running a fever. At least most of the swelling from where Mar had beaten me had gone down.

“Bell!” I cried. “Bell, c’mere.”

He got out of the pilot’s seat, toting a bottle of whiskey. I had no idea where he’d gotten it. Having liquor materialize out of thin air was like a superpower of his. It had to be some kind of earth pony thing. I wished I could do that.

“Yeah, what is it, Storm?”

I groaned. My back and my shoulder hurt like hell. “Morphine. Please. Anything. Please! My shoulder feels like someone’s stabbing me to fucking death!”

“Ain’t got any of that. They had those little fentanyl dispensers in the aid kits, though. Want a snail?”

“Sure.”

Bell hoofed over a small stainless-steel device that was, indeed, vaguely snail-shaped. The Confederacy liked using these electronic, tamper-proof dispensers to allow patients to dispense their own fentanyl without ODing or abusing it. They had an onboard clock and would only dole out one tablet every four hours. They were also durable enough to be struck with a sledgehammer or run over by an armored vehicle without relinquishing the rest.

“You gotta place it under your tongue,” Bellwether said. “Or between your back teeth and your gums. Don’t swallow it. Let it dissolve. Slow-release.”

I nodded, placing the tablet under my tongue and sighing as I felt it fizz softly. Over the next half-hour, the pain slowly melted away and was replaced with a pleasant numbness. After some minutes spent in total silence, aside from Bell taking noisy gulps from the liquor bottle, the amber liquid sloshing around in the bottom, I spoke up.

“Bell, I’m dying,” I said. “My heart keeps jumping around in my chest and it won’t stop. I feel like I want to throw up. It’s pure willpower that I haven’t already.”

“Hold on, Storm.” He put a hoof on my shoulder, his brows knitted. “You’ll get through this.”

“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” I let out a low, mad chuckle.

“Who?”

“My Barley. He’s dead. Does this mean I’m going to meet him?”

“Relax.” Bell checked me over, feeling for a pulse and examining my breathing. “Your vitals look fine. You’re good for now, Sergeant.”

“I’m scared.”

Bellwether laughed. “You can’t always be scared every time it feels like you’re gonna die. Celestia knows I’ve been at death’s door more than once. I had pneumonia when I was a kid. That shit will fuck you right up.”

I raised a trembling hoof to Bellwether’s face, feeling the old stallion’s weathered cheek. “I’m scared all the time, Bell. I try and put on a brave front, but you can’t imagine how afraid I am. Of everything.”

“This is about those two, isn’t it? This doesn’t even have to do with how ill you are.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I feel like—I don’t know. Like I’m gonna be p—punished. In death. For what I’ve done in life. Celestia’s going to punish me.”

“What for?”

I felt nothing but guilt. Guilt and shame. I’d murdered those cleomanni civilians in Dodge without a moment’s hesitation. Now, I was getting friendly with one of their elite. Did the rest of them not deserve the same consideration, just because they made the mistake of being poor and unimportant? The question gnawed at my sanity.

I slowly shook my head. “I’ve killed so many. So many people, Bell. I can hear ‘em. In my head. Sometimes. Especially when I let my—” I coughed hard. “When I let my guard down. When I’m weak. When I’m running a high fever and I’m popping meds, like now.”

“What—what do these voices say?”

“They’re angry with me. They’re mad that I cut their lives short. They had so much more to live for. More than this. They died when their lives weren’t even half-over. Or one-twentieth. Young men and women, Bell. People who still had centuries of life to look forward to. The ones the older pricks sent to die and form a breakwater with their bodies as our Chargers crashed on them like a wave. They’re waiting on the other side. All of ‘em. To jump me. Or maybe it’s just my fucking—” I broke down in a fit of coughs. “My imagination.”

“Yeah, it probably is. I wouldn’t worry about any of that. We’re here, now. Let’s make the most of it while we can.”

“I thought you knew better. That’s some greeting card crap, Bell. You don’t have to form-letter me. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

Bellwether sighed. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Why do you think I’m drinking so hard?” He raised the bottle for emphasis. “Hasn’t quite hit me, yet, but I’m almost there.”

“Can I have a little?”

“Not in your condition, no.”

“If I’m dying, I think I ought to have a little before I go, don’t you think? My legs are all swollen up, my chest feels like someone sat on it all night. I’m fucked, Bell. If we don’t get back to Crazy Horse in the next couple days, I’m gone.”

“Well, alright. But just a taste. I don’t want you getting sicker. This is from Mar’s stash, by the way. One of the perks of being Champion. She was nice enough to share.”

Bell lowered the bottle to my lips and I took a swig of the whiskey, sighing at the sweet, oaken burn that worked its way down my throat. I looked over at where Mardissa was tossing and turning under a blanket, her face contorted into a mask of misery.

“You know, I’ve never really done this before,” I said. “This whole being diplomatic thing. I was a real asshole to her, wasn’t I?”

“Well, you were, but she had it coming.”

“What do you think she’s dreaming about, Bell?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.”

// … // … // … // … // … //

Mardissa Granthis

The Granthis Estate on Maroch III was one of the most luxurious properties in the whole sector. A hundred thousand hectares of pristine forests and pastures, including a cattle ranch and horse stables. The servants’ quarters alone were as large as a college dormitory. There were three homes on the land. The mansion, the ranch house, and the villa by the western coast, which had its own private marina and doubled as a hunting and fishing lodge. All the buildings were painted a resplendent white and were practically visible from orbit. It was a sunny afternoon. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Everything was perfect.

I depressed the ornate lever of a door handle and swung the heavy hardwood door inward, entering my father’s study. He was seated at his desk, reading a book and smoking a pipe. When he saw me, he beamed, spreading his arms wide.

“Oh, my darling daughter! My sweetie pie!”

There was a man seated across from him, corpulent and pockmarked, with skin like a catcher’s mitt. A hunch-backed demon of my subconscious. He turned and regarded me with a sneer for interrupting his business.

“Sal, who’s this young thing?”

“My daughter, Mardissa. Her eighth birthday’s coming up next month. Say hi to Mr. Bertag, Mardi.”

I offered a quick wave and a smile. “Hi!”

“Aww, what a cutie wootie,” Bertag said. He smiled one of those not-smiles. A creepy and off-putting exercise in baring his stained teeth.

Father snaked an arm around me and lifted me onto his knee, closing his book and snuffing out his smoking materials. I was a living prop, as always. An extension of my father’s will, illustrative of his deeds. The fruits of a long and successful life.

Bertag crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. “If this deal goes through, Sal, you know, you could be running the whole country in a few years. Think about it. Concord artifacts. Relics thought to be lost forever. I already have some interested buyers lined up. The kind of people who make for good political donors.”

Dad didn’t say anything, he merely smiled, chewing on his cheek. He did that a lot. He always smiled. He always stood around, hands on his hips, chewing on a wad of nothing, and smiling. When one is a mere ten years of age, every smile looks genuine, no matter who it comes from, and so did my father’s.

“I have some favors to call in,” dad said. “Rest assured, you’ll have your money. And cargo transports. I know people who can retrofit them with survey gear, but as for a science team, I’m going to have to make a few calls. I can put you in touch with someone who knows the right people for the job.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Sal. You just made us billionaires.”

The two of them scanned their surroundings briefly before bursting out in laughter.

Father set me down and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, ol’ friend, you and I both know it’s merely counting coup at this point.”

“There could be other benefits, here. The boys were sayin’ there’s some serious tech opportunities in this. If there is, you’ll get a cut. It’s all right there in the contract.”

“Are you sure this is even going to turn up anything? This little jaunt of yours?”

“Positive.” Bertag nodded. “My man’s tips are always good. How hard could it be to dig up some antiques?”

Bertag vanished. Puffed out of existence. I had some vague awareness of the passage of time. When I looked down at my legs, I’d grown a few inches. I looked up at father, and he seemed to have a few more creases in his face. Not from age. A few years is a mere blip in the average cleomanni lifespan. No, this was from stress. When he set down his data-slate, I quickly read the headline of the article he’d been poring over. I was skilled at reading things upside down. One of my many useless talents.

Carpentaria Expedition Ambushed! Is the Empire to Blame?

“What happened to Mr. Bertag, daddy?” I said.

My father leaned back in his chair and gave me an appraising look like he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell. “First off, I don’t just tell my personal business to everyone who asks, but for you, sweetie, I’ll make an exception. Sonnem Bertag was an artifact hunter and personal friend of mine. I sponsored him to the tune of millions of credits to find some old Concord things and make some important people very, very happy. Those gods-accursed Equestrians have murdered him, and my investment is ruined.”

“Are we sure it’s them?”

“Who else could it be?” He waved a dismissive hand. “Of course it’s them.”

Dissatisfied with this explanation, I pulled up my own slate and read the article myself. Even though the attackers were assumed to be the Empire, there was no positive ID on who was responsible for shooting up half a dozen cargo transporters, two fully outfitted survey ships with ground-penetrating scanners, and their mercenary escort. It could’ve been anyone.

The Empire was blamed because it was politically convenient to do so. A perfect excuse for renewed hostilities. We had them on the ropes, last time. We would be fools to let them nurse their wounds and regain strength. When he ran for president, my father campaigned on the murder of his friend, rabble-rousing about Equestrian aggression. Another prop. Another stepping-stone. Everything was for his own benefit. Even failure could be spun into victory.

The world flashed to daytime, in the garden of our mansion. Like a movie on fast-forward. I giggled as I ran into the underbrush, holding up the hem of my white dress. I was playing hide and seek with my older sister.

“Mar? Come on out, Mar!” Silassa yelled. “I know you’re in here somewhere.”

I crawled through the dirt, rocks scraping my knees, not worried about ruining my clothes. Dad could afford more. I crawled into a hollow hidden in the brush abutting our hedge maze, where daylight could just barely reach, filtering through the leaves above. I smirked; Sil would never find me here.

That was when I noticed a snail, crawling across the dirt patch at my feet, leaving a slimy trail. For some reason, I detested snails. Well, dream-me hated them. In the real world, I couldn’t care less about snails. This particular snail, however, had killed Mr. Bertag. I was sure of it.

With a grunt of exertion, I brought my boot heel down upon it, enjoying the satisfying squish and splatter of mucus it made. However, my victory would be short-lived. The halves of the crushed snail each became their own living individual. I stomped both of them, incensed that they’d have the nerve to persist. Those two became four. Four became eight. Eight, sixteen. I frantically crushed them all, one after another, but they kept doubling each time.

Then, I heard the voices.

“Help, she’s killing us!”

“I don’t wanna die, please! Someone, help me!”

Upon closer inspection, the small creatures squirming on the ground at my feet were tiny, shelled, gastropod ponies, their bug-eyes mounted on stalks, their muzzles unmistakable. When I looked up, the shrubbery surrounding me had vanished and a dark and vast nothingness had taken its place. I was so shocked at what I saw, I stumbled back and fell flat on my ass. I was face-to-face with a giant snail-version of Desert Storm, her terrifying stalked eyes tracking my movements and blinking.

She bared her teeth. “Are you people so paranoid and deranged, you can exterminate an entire species with a clean conscience, just because they might become a threat in the future?”

“I—I—it wasn’t—I didn’t—” I stammered out, rising to my hooves.

“Fuck off!”

Snail Storm yanked on a steel release cable with her teeth. I looked to my right, my vision tracing the squeal of metal-on-metal. There was a giant crane with a wrecking ball that was swinging straight at me. There was no time to dodge. It struck me in a place that I really wished it hadn’t.

Even dream-me’s groin wasn’t safe from Desert Storm’s wrath.

// … // … // … // … // … //

I awoke with a start, my head jerking over to the snoring little creature I shared a wrecked Vulture with. We’d run out of propane for the heater and I was freezing my ass off. Storm was fast asleep. She was sick. Her wounds weren’t healing up very well. Her legs had started to swell like a diabetic with edema. Apparently, her bionics had been damaged in the fighting, and she was experiencing all of the symptoms of kidney failure. Ket and that BASKAF spy were nowhere in sight. I assumed they were out patrolling or looking for a way to contact any survivors from the battle.

The proud, headstrong, and determined warrior—the fascinating creature who’d laid me low a mere three days before—was a feverish, shaking little ball of fur, inches away from death. It didn’t seem right for one such as her to perish in their sick bed. Her doom should’ve been more dramatic. More heroic.

I didn’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe I was going crazy. I inched closer to her, looking down at her face. She wasn’t wearing her armor. She was as naked as the day she was born, in fact. Her eyes were closed, her nostrils flaring, her chest rising and falling as she breathed. Occasionally, she would shudder from the cold, grimacing in her sleep.

I raised a hand, curling my wrist back tentatively, unsure if I should disturb her. I resolved to do it as stealthily as I could. I curled my arm around Storm’s chest, snuggling against her back. I sighed softly. She was so warm. Like a pillowcase fresh from the dryer. Soon, both her shivering and mine had stopped. I nodded back off to a pleasant, dreamless sleep almost immediately, only to be roused hours later by Storm’s squirming and struggling.

“What the fuck? Who the—” Storm angled her head back to look straight at me, and there was an awkward moment where our gazes locked together and we couldn’t work up the nerve to say anything. I’d frozen in place, my guilty appendage still wrapped around her chest. The Sergeant broke the silence first. “Mar, what in the fucking fuck?”

“I was cold.”

“Do you wanna fuck me? Is that what this is? Do you hit on all your prospective girlfriends with your fists, or just me?”

My arm yanked back on reflex, like a spring-loaded seatbelt retractor. “No, I—that’s—don’t be ridiculous. I would never be—romantically interested in a pony.”

“Lies. You totally would. You know, I never knew the great Demon-Breaker could be such a softie.”

“That’s not what Taffalstriak means!”

“Oh? What does it mean, then?”

“Mardissa is a variation of Mardiza, and it means vineyard. A Mav is a quay or wharf. Mavali means quayside. Taffalstriak could be transliterated as demon-breaker, because that’s the literal meaning of each word in the compound, but together, those words mean something entirely different. Fey-warded. It’s a little spell to keep children from being replaced by changelings or hounded by malicious house spirits.”

“You have Changelings, too?”

I mulled it over for a few moments before shaking my head. “I bet that term means something completely different in your language, so I’m going to say that ours are different from yours, mainly in that they don’t actually exist. It’s a silly old superstition. Putting something like Taffalstriak in your kid’s name is meant to confuse the Fey and make them pick someone else’s kid to mess with. It breaks the name apart, hence demon-breaker.”

“Weird. Well, what the hell does Granthis mean, then?”

“It means blessing, or benediction.”

“So your name is actually Vineyard Quayside Fey-warded the Blessed? That sounds pretty, actually.”

“Well, I—” I blushed. “Thank you.”

“Still doesn’t explain why you decided it would be a good idea to literally cuddle one of your species’ mortal enemies.”

I played with my fingers, trying to hide my embarrassment. “I—I used to snuggle up to the horses back home. You reminded me of them.”

Storm eyed me with a scowl. “So, because I bear some superficial resemblance to one of your other pets, you thought you’d domesticate me, too, huh?”

“No! You looked cold, too.” Oh great, now she’s blinking at me with those huge eyes. “I mean—fuck—I don’t know what I mean. I keep saying awkward shit. Work with me, here, Storm. What can I say that won’t push your buttons?”

“Vanishingly little. Why should you care, anyway? You’re fucking Con-fed, and you outrank me. You’re awful chummy for an officer, you know that?”

“I don’t care about rank.”

“Spoken like a true civilian. That whole Guild Champion thing is a big fucking joke, isn’t it? What sort of training do you actually have?”

I bristled at the insult. “We have private dojos and firing ranges, and—”

“Wait.” Storm leaned up. “Are you saying you’ve never been to officer school, or basic?”

“Well, no. It’s not the same pipeline. We—”

“—never go into battle without your tea sets,” Storm interrupted. “Okay, I think I see the problem, here. They basically want you poor fuckers to die. Can you think of any reason why your father might want you dead?”

“I’m—” At first, I was incensed by the accusation. “I’m an embarrassment to my family. I wanted to be a painter. I loved doing landscapes and architectural stuff. Dad said he’d write me out of the will unless I did something with my life, and this was what he proposed. I don’t think he expected me to come to any real harm, and I’d rather you not cast any aspersions on him.”

The pony stared at me with haunted eyes, before she grinned and cackled darkly. I wondered what I’d said to prompt that sort of reaction. It was almost like she’d masked her dread with laughter.

“First of all, Mar, your father is the man principally responsible for reducing all of Equestria to rubble, so I think ‘casting aspersions’ on him is the least I could do. If I saw him in front of me right now, no amount of pleading on your part would be able to keep my legs from going ‘round his fucking neck. Secondly, how old is Salzaon, anyway?”

I fixed a resentful glare on the little orange creature before me. Her impertinence was galling. I did a quick calculation in my head. “Three hundred and forty-four of your years.”

Storm broke down in a fit of coughing, taking a few moments to gather herself. “Wow, so another couple hundred to go, at least? That’s a long damn time to wait before you inherit all his shit. If I were you, I’d get in touch with my broker and look at some alternative ways of making money. You think your dad would be amenable to the idea of giving you a small loan of a million credits or so?”

I touched a finger to Storm’s muzzle. “How is it that beings as cutesy as your kind could be so unrelentingly foul?”

She gently pushed my hand aside. “I’ll tell you how. Try being born as a member of a species that no one takes seriously, in a nation in a perpetual state of emergency, where everyone around you is stressed half to death or abusing narcotics to escape their despair, and most of the galaxy thinks you’re sub-sapient despite all evidence to the contrary. Now, approximately how bitter do you think you’d be?”

“Uhh, extremely bitter?”

“There you go. You just answered your own question, Mar.”

I let out a sigh. “You have no idea how much of a culture shock this has been. Do you know the sorts of things they teach us about your species? Just from a few minutes of conversing with one of you, any fool could determine that all of it is lies and slander of the basest sort, calculated to instill an overwhelming fear of your kind. We’re basically told that you’re like robots. That you have no internal experience and are puppeteered, perhaps, by forces unknown.”

Storm blinked a few times, clearly shocked by my words. “Are you fucking kidding me? Is that what you gaping assholes really think?”

“I’m no idiot.” I shrugged. “There’s no way that organisms with such complex social behaviors could be acting solely on instinct. You experience the full range of emotions, from anger, to joviality, to a sadness so profound that it breaks my heart. You’ve engaged me with both insults and sardonic humor. You’re clearly, transparently a person. Oh gods, what have we been doing to you people? You’re unfortunate as it is without being hounded into an early grave. No fingers? If you took any of the major species in the galaxy and lopped their hands off, they’d be begging for them back within that very same minute. How do you care for yourself? How do you bathe, eat, and wipe?”

“Wipe?”

“Toilet tissue.”

Storm nodded. “Ahh. We use bidets. Much easier. What, you mean you actually use tissue paper on your ass?” Storm broke into riotous laughter, bookended by fits of coughing. “You’re fuckin’ killing me over here! You absolute savages!”

“Well, now I feel quite stupid.”

“Don’t feel too bad.” Storm rested a hoof on my shoulder. “It’s not like your entire species hasn’t been perpetuating a myth that a whole ‘nother species consists of non-sapient meat robots for generations. I mean, that’s way, way dumber.”

We both stared at each other, horrified comprehension dawning on our faces.

“How in the fucking hell—” I began.

“—has this deception gone on this long, unchallenged?” Storm finished.

I scratched my head for a few seconds. This was something worth brainstorming about, and I had a rare opportunity to bounce ideas off of one of them.

“The lack of access,” I ventured. “No visas granted, no travel or above-board commerce of any kind between the two nations. One side could basically say anything they wanted about the other, and their citizens would accept it uncritically.”

“Relentless propaganda,” Storm said. “Both sides. We’re as scared of you as you are of us, by and large. However, our concerns are more practical rather than abstract. We don’t think your species are a bunch of soulless automatons. Well, most of us don’t. Can’t speak for everypony. Instead, we see you as a conquering horde that is trying to destroy us. Of that, there can be neither doubt, nor any dispute.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like you didn’t get your licks in. I used to read about Imperial gas attacks all the time, growing up.”

Storm had a despondent, faraway look on her face. “Yeah. I know. I personally conducted a few of them.”

I felt my anger rise to the fore, my jaw working up and down in silence. “You?”

“I’m a stealth expert,” she said. “Cloaking magic is all I know how to do really well. They used ponies with my sort of talent for the worst jobs imaginable, and yes, that included infiltration work and raids deep inside enemy territory.”

I slowly shook my head. I knew she was a pilot. I didn’t know for certain that she was that sort of pilot. I’d suspected she was, but I’d been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. After that little admission, it was difficult for me to see her in the same light as I had before. The creature lying next to me was a cold-blooded killer. A murderer with few equals. When she looked up at me, her eyes were filled with shame, like she expected me to judge her harshly for it.

“Why?” I hissed.

“They told us—” Her words were interrupted by a spate of coughing, and she was courteous enough to turn and cover it, even though her condition wasn’t contagious. “They told us it was to delay you. To slow you down by any means necessary. We went after scientists, engineers, and tradesmen. We were trying to deliberately decrease the Confederacy’s industrial output so you couldn’t overrun our colonies so quickly. It seemed to work for a while, but it wasn’t effective forever. You guys changed your policies. Started distributing gas masks and other protective gear, even incorporating chemical-resistant panic rooms into the architecture of the buildings where these people worked. By the time I enlisted, nerve gas was hardly as effective as it used to be. They kept making us use it anyway. Most of the time, it just killed random people out on the street, not the targeted personnel. It was always a PR disaster and destroyed what little goodwill a lot of sympathizers had for us. They didn’t care. The brass didn’t give a damn. They ordered us to keep carrying out the attacks. Pure desperation.”

“I didn’t ask why they told you to do it,” I said. “I asked why you didn’t object to it.”

Storm rolled over and grabbed her Orbit. “Lucky, boot up. Playback mode, meadowgleam-dot-vid.”

She gave me the ovoid drone, and a video started playing on its holoprojector. I watched, my jaw slackening with horror, as the grainy vid of a passel of pony soldiers standing around the rim of a long trench cut to a camera angle that aimed down the trench’s length. There were thousands of Equestrian corpses. Soldiers with shovels were exhuming more.

“What—what is this?” I whispered, aghast.

“You didn’t know?” Storm muttered. “When the Confederate Army rolled up to our settlements, they exterminated them. Every mare, every stallion, every foal. Herded into pre-dug trenches and then cut down with machine gun fire. They didn’t even have to move the bodies. They just started covering them with dirt when they were done. This was just one of the sites we’d found. There were dozens of others. It wasn’t supposed to get out. Somepony leaked that vid to the datasphere. The very same day, we had thousands of ponies lining up at the recruiting stations. Every mall had a line that ran outside and down the damn block.”

“Oh gods,” I said. “Was that—was that why you joined?”

“I’d already been deployed for quite some time when that vid was taken. You know, I talked to a homeless vet on a street corner, same day I enlisted. He was strung out on heroin, because it was the only thing that kept him going. I told him what my plans for the day were, and he reached up and he grabbed my shoulder and begged me, with tears in his eyes, not to go. I’ll never forget the look on his face. There aren’t any words for the pain that I saw there. We don’t have superlatives that go that high.”

“I had no idea things were this bad out here,” I said. “This is absolutely appalling.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Storm clapped her hooves together. “You ever hear about the Karkadann? I mean, why would you? It’s not like they’ve told you much that’s of any real use, it seems.”

“The what?” I was genuinely confused by her words. “Karkadann? What are you talking about?”

“A top-secret Confederate weapons program. Gene-modded, bionically-augmented, pony-based organisms. They fit them with combat augs and implanted armor and stuff and use them as mindless, perfectly obedient shocktroopers. One of ‘em broke my fuckin’ leg, and you know how hard our bones are to break. You know, it’s kind of ironic, but sub-sapient pony meat robots are actually real. You people made them. And before you ask, no. You can’t take an actual pony and turn them into a Kark. They start off as a fetus that way.”

“How? We don’t have artificial wo—” My eyes widened. “No. Oh gods, no.”

The Sergeant laughed. “I had the same exact reaction you did, with almost the same exact timing.”

My heart was beating madly in my chest. “They didn’t. That’s not right. It’s not fucking right!”

“They did.” What Storm would tell me next would take it well beyond the pale. “Your side took pony embryos, modified them, and then implanted ‘em in captive mares with IVF. Then, after they were born, you chromed ‘em up and sent ‘em to kill us.” She leaned in closer, her eyes narrowing. “The perfect weapon. The ultimate organism. The pinnacle of genetic supremacy. Our one and only real advantage over you; the information that makes us grow into the sturdy and powerful beings that we are. All you bastards had to do was steal it.”

I immediately got up and ran outside, nearly tripping over debris in my rush to get away from those judging eyes of hers. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I was sweating. Panicking. My entire world had been turned upside-down, my conscience and my rationality engaged in a violent tug-of-war for my mind. Everything I’d believed in, for decades, was a cruel lie. The adrenaline and nausea made me whimper and dry-heave. I leaned up against the severed nose of the dropship, trying not to throw up.

Monsters.

I shrieked and sobbed, pounding my fists on the destroyed Vulture’s fuselage hard enough to leave impressions. Ket was nearby, standing guard. He gave me a disdainful look, huffing with exasperation. For the first time in my life, I saw a member of my own species with the same gut-wrenching fear that ponies felt. The familiar became uncanny. The mundane, extraordinary. The Lieutenant seemed to transform into a horned devil before my very eyes. It felt like I was going insane.

We’re monsters.

Storm had caught up to me, limping visibly in her terrible condition. “Mar! Come back inside. It’s freezing out here.”

“I’m going to resign my commission,” I said. “I can’t do this any longer. If everything you’ve told me is true, then we’re in the wrong, and have been so for a very, very long time. I have made a terrible mistake, coming here. I aim to put things right. I just—oh gods, ten years is too long. You’ll all be dead. Oh gods!”

The Sergeant ran up and hugged my legs. She was so soft. Literally, physically soft. Their adorableness was a weapon, irresistibly potent. They were fools not to exploit it at every opportunity. When they were armed to the teeth and bundled up in that heavy body armor of theirs, it was so much easier to slaughter them without remorse.

“Don’t go,” Storm said. “Please don’t go, Mar. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill you now that you know the truth!”

“Is she bothering you again, ma’am?” Ket approached us with apprehension on his face.

“No, Lieutenant,” I said, running my hand through Storm’s hair. “Far from it.”

Ketros looked down at Storm, and his anger seemed to soften. I could tell by the look on his face. If I was good with her, then so was he.

“Don’t go back,” Storm said. “Don’t go back to them. You don’t have a place among your own people anymore. Come with us.”

“You mean become a turncoat?”

“If that’s what it takes, then yes. I’ll protect you, Mardissa. I promise. Even if Captain Garrida rides my ass for it, I’ll be your shield. In return, I want you to promise me that you’ll never kill another pony ever again. Can you do that?”

“But you’ll keep killing my people?” I said.

“If they’re coming to kill us, then I don’t have a choice. But if they’re not fighting back, then I won’t. I can’t do it. Not anymore. I’m done.”

“I—” I averted my eyes from her intense stare. “I’m loyal to the Confederacy. If we’ve made a mistake, then I want to fix it. I want to change our policies to be more welcoming to your kind. To provide reparations to Equestrians and—and the opportunity for you to obtain legal recognition and citizenship. To rebuild public services and restore normalcy here. It’s the least we could do.”

Storm shook her head sadly. “You’ll never fix the Confederacy, Mar. Better people than either of us have tried. And they’re dead. And we’re still at war. Don’t throw your life away.”

“Why do you care if I live or die?” I said. “You’re a pony.”

“We need something. A lifeline. Anything. We need to end this war, or my people are all going to die. I don’t want us to be erased. I need you.”

I pondered Storm’s words from a few days before. The treatment of Equestrians was not only abominable, it was largely unknown to the public. Even some parts of the military weren’t privileged with such information, if my ignorance was any indication. A coverup on an unimaginable scale was the only sensible explanation. Were it not for the concerted effort of clandestine forces in our respective societies, we would have found peace long before this. Without interference, it was an inevitability. It didn’t take centuries to befriend one of them. It took days.

The Charger pilot and war criminal by the name of Desert Storm was a disgusting and wretched little creature, bitter as wormwood and filled with barbs and cynicism and relentless insults, but she’d grown on me, like a wart. She was the pestersome little sister that I always wished I’d had, instead of the bossy elder sister I actually had.

My experience could not have been unique. This had happened before, over the past millennium. Many, many times. Every time, the truth-seekers were hunted, quarantined, and killed like dogs, to keep the virus called peace from spreading. To keep the war going. To keep lining the pockets of the guilds, like the one I represented. It all clicked into place, and the picture it painted was one of misery and suffering so deep that it defied comprehension.

It was unspeakably strange. Just days before, I would’ve thought nothing of cleaving a pony in two with my sword. Now, every one of their lives seemed precious, their future prospects tenuous and fragile. I was gripped with remorse. The war—including the reasons for it, and the forces behind it—became, in my mind, a giant and eldritch thing, something beyond understanding or control. I doubted that my father would allow me to be killed, as Storm suspected, but I would undoubtedly be placed on house arrest for the foreseeable future if I spoke openly against the persecution of Equestrians.

“It’s too vast,” I said, my eyes welling with tears. “If what you’ve told me is true, the corruption has spread too far. I can’t—I can’t fix it. Not alone.”

“I know.” Storm reached out with her hoof. “I want to help you.”

I smiled, slowly shaking my head. I returned the gesture by clasping my hands around her proffered appendage. “The strength of your convictions is unbelievable. I never once considered the possibility that ponies were like this. Your will to survive is inspiring. I am humbled beyond words. Humbled and ashamed.” I sniffled, trying to hold back tears. “Very well, I’ll go with you. But not as a defector. As your guest, or a prisoner, yes. I want to know more about your kind. No more lies. I want the truth.”

Storm grinned wide, and then, she promptly broke down into one of her coughing fits, practically collapsing face-first in the snow.

“Sergeant! Are you alright?” I helped her to her hooves.

She wiped her muzzle with a foreleg. “I’m not long for this world, Mar. My bloodstream’s backing up. I haven’t had the equivalent of functioning kidneys in nearly a week. I’ve been taking opioids for the pain, but they’re not clearing out well. Nothing is. I’m dying.”

I was angry that she hadn’t impressed upon me the severity of her condition. “You idiot! We have to fix this. I’m not letting you die. Not after all this.”

Storm laughed, flopping over on one side, leaving an impression in the snow. “I’m tired. So tired.”

I fiddled with a digital radio I’d recovered from the crash, but it was deader than dead. There wasn’t even static. No lights. Nothing. “Dammit!” I threw it in the dirt, stomping on it a few times for good measure. “Someone’s got to know we’re still out here!”

There was a roar of engines that filled the sky. I looked up, and through the fog, I saw lights arrayed on the underbelly of a craft passing overhead. “Hey!” I yelled. “Down here! We need help! Hey!” I sifted through the pockets of my overalls and grabbed a flare. I was just about to set it off when Storm reached up and wrapped her hoof around my wrist.

“No!” she said. “Wait.”

I watched as the hundred-meter-long ship pierced the fog, accompanied by a smaller dropship of some kind. They were of no class that I was familiar with. The larger of the two was a brilliant white in color, blue lines glowing along its edges. It was propelled by no discernible engines of any kind, the air crackling and smelling of ozone as it rumbled overhead. Its searchlights were scanning the terrain, piercing the twilit gloom. The smaller one had wings that were practically feathered, like some great seabird. A creeping sense of dread came over me.

“Who the fuck?” I said.

When I looked down at Storm, she was frozen in fear, her eyes wide, her jaw shaking. “No. Not them. Not now.”

// … // … // … // … // … //

Desert Storm

SILVER SCALPEL. They’d returned. Either to investigate the nuke crater, or to finish us off. This was it. This was the appropriate time to use the beacon that Star Cross Wraithwood had given me. We were all in terrible danger. I clambered to my hooves and ran to get my saddlebags, stowed in the severed nose of the dropship. Mar was chasing me, demanding an explanation. There was no time. Her words were just noise. As I rifled through my things in a frantic daze, Bellwether appeared at the opening to the Vulture’s nose section, panting, out of breath from a run.

“They’re here,” he said. “We need to hide. Now.”

“I know. I know!” The medal had worked its way under everything else. When I finally found it, I quickly rotated the dial on the back and flicked it open. I showed it to Bellwether, and his jaw practically fell through the floor.

“That’s a fuckin’ responder in there! Does it work? The one in my armor’s fried.”

“One way to find out.” I depressed the button. After a delay of about ten seconds, a light on the back began to flicker. A coded message.

“Stay—put—cavalry—on—the—way.” I smiled. “Yes! These fuckers are in for a little surprise if they stick around.”

Mar practically shoved Bellwether aside in her haste. “They’re touching down. About three hundred meters to the northeast, in the clearing!”

“Fuck, that’s practically right on fucking top of us!” I pulled my binos from my saddlebags and rushed outside, moving as quick as I could in my addled state. My limbs felt like lead. Everything hurt. Adrenaline kept me going.

The four of us scrambled to the nearest rise and took cover behind a large boulder. I peered through my binoculars and watched as the larger of the two ships extended landing gear and touched down. The massive spacecraft sunk into the terrain by a considerable amount, even though its skids had a surface area like a city block. Tiamat had mentioned that these craft had the ability to neutralize their own mass somehow, which would have reduced the amount of thrust required to propel them. With its inertialess drives powered off, it must have weighed tens of thousands of tons at normal gravity. It was dense. Dense and heavy for an atmospheric craft.

A boarding ramp extended, a strange fog rolling out from within the craft. I zoomed in, trying to get a better look. This, I had to see. Half a dozen bipeds rushed down the ramp, leveling rifles of some kind. They were roughly cleomanni-sized, but bigger. Broader-shouldered. I couldn’t make out their faces. They wore ballistic masks and heavy load-bearing vests with pouches holding cylindrical metal objects. Their shoulders were draped with white ponchos that blended in with their surroundings. I panned down and took note of their legs. No hooves. No tail. Plantigrade feet, like a bear, wrapped in black leather combat boots. Were it not for that, they could easily have been mistaken for the satyrs. They moved like professionals, securing the LZ, gesturing and signaling the rest of the squad to move up as they established a perimeter. A pair of vehicles rolled down the ramp. Hover-tanks of some kind. They were large, white, and bulbous, as sleek and sterile as their dropships, bristling with gun turrets that left no doubt as to their purpose.

Everything about them filled me with a sense of unease. These people, whoever they were, were death incarnate. There was no fighting them. No resisting them. Only terror and death lay that way. The only answer was to hide. To flee. I lowered my binoculars and turned to the other three.

“Guys,” I said. “We’ve gotta—”

“Look!” Bellwether whispered, pointing at the interlopers.

I hunkered down against the smooth surface of the boulder and lifted the binos to my eyes, zeroing in on the boarding ramp. Something was descending the ramp. Something that made every hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

It was tall. Easily three meters in height, at the very least, although I couldn’t tell precisely how tall it was from this distance. The thing was a writhing, bluish-black mass of tentacles, perambulating with great swiftness for its size. It crawled along the shining metal gangway, its tentacles whipping every which way. It was shaped like a stemmed glass, narrow at the bottom and widening at the top. Looming above the great mass of tentacles that draped from its head was what might have been a face, but from this distance, I couldn’t tell. The biped soldiers set the butts of their rifles on the ground and knelt before the creature as it passed, showing the utmost deference.

My companions were confused at my distress, looking between me and the scene that unfolded in the distance. None of them were unicorns. None of them knew. I could feel its spectral emanations. I was a dark magic practitioner. I was attuned to the same wavelength. Whatever the hell it was, that creature was composed of sheer, absolute malice. The blackest of spectra rolled off of it like a tsunami radiating from the epicenter of an oceanic quake. Even a ceremonial hall packed with necromancers wouldn’t have given off this much pure, concentrated darkness.

That thing was not supposed to exist. No individual soul, not even that of an alicorn, could contain so much power. I could feel it, even from such a great distance, as though it were right next to me. It could feel its movements, pressing on my mind, as if its tendrils were wrapped around me. A thaummeter would’ve simply overloaded and broken in its presence.

My eyes welled with tears that quickly overflowed and froze on my cheeks. I was shaking from head to hoof, rendered speechless from fear. I took deep, shuddering breaths.

We had to leave. We had to leave Equestria. This whole planet was a lost cause with that thing on it. I would have screamed were it not for my fear of us being discovered.

“Storm?” Mar put a hand on my withers. “Sergeant, what’s wrong? What are you seeing?”

I gave her the binoculars with a shaky hoof as I quietly sobbed in terror. She took a few moments to adjust the binos to her own interocular distance and bring it into focus.

Captain Granthis was shocked. “What the fuck?”

I grabbed her shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. “Run!”

We sprinted back down the hill, to the broken-off nose of the Vulture. I tripped a couple times, owing to my worsening condition. Sierra was still comatose. No improvement, but she still had a pulse. She was certainly in no condition to move herself. Then, there was the matter of all the salvage we’d accumulated. Leaving that behind would’ve been a disaster in any other circumstance, but if the Dragoons got here in time, we’d be rescued. All that mattered was our continued survival up to that point, and I feared our lives would be cut short if we did not act quickly and decisively.

“They’re going to search the crash site,” I said. “It’s the only real point of interest here. Ain’t nothing else out here but fucking snow. Why else would they land so close?”

“What do we do?” Mar panicked. “What the fuck was that thing? Who are these people?”

“The Vargr,” Bellwether said. “A certain someone higher up the food chain told me that’s what they call themselves.”

I shot him a glare. “And you didn’t tell me this, because, why?”

“Need-to-know basis,” Bell said. “You didn’t need to know. You just need to do your damn job and do as you’re told, Storm.”

I sneered at Bellwether. Ungrateful son of a bitch. I saved his ass twice a few days ago. He should’ve been licking the soles of my fucking hooves.

“Mar, I saw those assholes and their pets turn hundreds of ponies into cat food,” I said. “Their dropships have antimatter guns and extremely strong shielding. It took a Destrier and several fucking Omni-turrets just for me to drop their shields. Even if you had all your Ifrits against whatever the hell those tanks and that big white sucker are, I don’t think they’d stand much of a chance. I don’t even wanna know what they’re selling this time. I almost wish we had another nuke, at this point. Not even fucking kidding.”

“Well, what are we gonna do, genius?” Ket said. “Ain’t enough meat on my bones to make more than a couple tins of cat food, anyway.”

“I’ve called in the Dragoons with a beacon.”

Mar’s eyes went wide. “You fucking what?”

“No choice. There’s nopony else around who can stop ‘em. If we go out there and the Vargr spot us, we’re beyond fucked. If we stay here and they find us, we’re also fucked. I’m gonna cloak us when they arrive. We’ll let them search the site, and then, hopefully, they’ll leave or the Drags will arrive before my magic burns out. How does that sound?”

“How long can you sustain your cloak?” Mar said.

“Normally? Like thirteen to fifteen minutes or so. In my present condition? Five, maybe six.”

“What if they hang around and search the site for like forty-five minutes to an hour?” Ket said.

“Then we’re fucked.” I nodded sagely.

Ketros huffed with derision. “Great. Just great. So what you’re saying is that our survival hinges on all of us being hidden by fucking pony magic for a small window of time, and if that fails, then we’re caught and gruesomely killed?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. That’s exactly that I’m saying.”

Ket’s eyes rolled back into his head. “Why oh why didn’t I put in for a fucking transfer?”

“Too late, fucker,” I said. “You’re stuck with us, now. In the trenches. In the shit. Face-down in a big, warm, smelly cowpie with your pony pals. Picking hay out of your tee—”

“Enough!” Ketros shouted. “I get the picture.”

I peered out of the Dropship’s severed nose section at the advancing tanks and infantry. “Guys, they’re coming. Press yourselves up into the corners and keep quiet.”

Bellwether propped the makeshift sled holding Sierra against the back of the pilot’s seat, and we squeezed into the corners of the cockpit. I cloaked all five of us with my magic. If they bumped into us, it was game over. Even a cloak couldn’t keep the enemy from recognizing that they touched something solid that they couldn’t see.

I heard the tromping of heavy boots and the clacking of weapons being operated.

“Wei ken ye beath! Wei ken ye kamo! Kom oot, ye!”

Their language was strange and guttural. Barking and aggression-laden. They were addressing us directly, and they were angry. That meant they knew, or suspected, that we were here.

“Ans! Dres! Treu! Fenif! Viar!”

Some sort of countdown? No, counting up, I realized.

They swarmed into the dropship’s broken-off nose section seconds later, marching straight towards our hiding place without hesitation. A hand snapped out like a cobra and gripped me by the mane. I shrieked and dropped my cloak as I was dragged from the wreckage, my body scraping first against the rough deck and then the freezing snow. There was no hesitation. No delay. They could see right through my cloak like it wasn’t even there. I caught glimpses of the rest of them leveling their weapons at the others.

“No!” I shouted. “Bellwether!”

“Storm!” He tried coming to my aid but was viciously rifle-butted in the head.

The Vargr bastard dragged me up by my mane and hammer-tossed me a few meters. After landing face-first in the freezing cold powder, I rolled face-up and steadied myself, gazing at him in shock as he approached. I assumed it was a he. He was sure built like one. The alien removed and stowed his ballistic face mask, revealing a pug-like countenance not unlike the satyrs, but softer, rounder, like a lump of clay given life. Everything that was pointy on a cleomanni was round on these people, I realized. Round ears, round nose, round chin. They were frightening and bizarre in ways that even the satyrs weren’t. I evaluated my options. I had no armor, no weapons. I was completely bare. I was too sick and exhausted to even consider melee combat as an option. That only left one thing. A tongue-lashing.

“Wow,” I said. “It’s like a chimp fucked a pig!”

“Broetheri!” he growled as he planted a savage kick in my midsection.

I coughed up blood, wiping my spit on my hoof as I gathered myself. “What—what the hell does that even mean?”

“Arre-sooker! It mene ye sook arre an’ ye kom in no euse elsewayes!”

“I’m just going to assume that was an insult.”

“Dumbe blutey skurrer! Ye feck weiar Conidore, kille weiar VURVALFN, an’ ye maide me caspa broeth downe me feckin’ naicke. Namen ye ken ye ar?” The Vargr brought his jack-boot down on my neck with a vicious stomp. “I wille brokk ye!”

I laughed. I laughed and I laughed. I plumbed the depths of misery and madness.

“Ye ken is larghuatarishe?” he said.

“Riiatas enefhe sparras ut gruirnen. Mauvas ast asrii neim nockhnett?” I looked up at him. “Lar, eir bidu aspare ut hoxelen, ia arreteceire aspare ut higlamenbar, ia eir ast neim nek repenat, aspare sereinstobor lokul!”

Just another bunch of thugs. Why am I not surprised? Yeah, we killed your freaks, and blew up your transport, and we’re not fucking sorry, you alien prick!

He reached down, lifted me by the neck with both hands, and squeezed, making me gag. “Ye wille be.”

I hocked and spat a glob of blood and mucus in his face. After casually wiping it off, his face warped into a hateful scowl. He backhanded me hard enough to make me see stars, hurling me into the snow. He knelt in the small of my back, putting his considerable weight into keeping me pinned. He drew a primitive sidearm and pulled the percussion hammer back, placing the freezing cold muzzle of the weapon against the back of my head.

My heart leapt into my throat, blood from my nostrils dripping off my upper lip. After everything, is this how I die? Done face-down in the fucking snow by a weird, greasy ape?

What happened next made me wish that he’d shot me. I felt its presence long before I saw it. A slimy tentacle wrapped around my neck, constricting fiercely, cutting off my air. When I looked up, that thing was there, towering over me, its very form an icon of phallic aggression. The pressure of the miasma exuded by the creature at point-blank range was nightmarish. The air felt thick and heavy. Gravity itself seemed to lose all meaning. I was floating in a soup of pure evil.

The Vargr bowed his head, offering me to the Beast. “Voivode, sup o’ des aan. Draahn ‘er.”

I screamed as I was engulfed by the creature’s tentacles, drawn up out of the snow and towards its body. I squirmed and struggled and tried desperately to escape, but its limbs held fast. Every single part of my bare body was gripped in its oozing flesh. The smell it gave off was like rotting fish and seaweed mixed with moldy onions. I felt my gorge rise. I whimpered as its tentacles crawled and slithered across every millimeter of me, leaving thick trails of its slime in my fur. Nothing was left untouched. It was degrading in the extreme.

The creature brought me before its face, stretching me out spread-eagle high off the ground. I screamed. My previously dislocated leg was a nexus of agony as the tentacles twisted it into an unnatural position. What I saw was too terrible to describe, and for that matter, it defied explanation. Its countenance was a beaked, writhing mass of eyes and mouths, spewing dark and blasphemous whispers. Above its central beak sat a cyclopean orb that blinked sideways, its pupil slitted like those of a venomous reptile. I feared that it had designs on my body, in the worst way imaginable. Its true intent was far more vile than I could have possibly imagined.

Without hesitation, it latched its largest beak around my muzzle and thrust its leathery tongue past my lips and inside my mouth. I screamed around the violating appendage as it pushed deep into the back of my throat. I felt it crawl down my esophagus. The taste was like a fragrant bouquet of shit from the bottom of a latrine. I gagged and I gagged, my throat spasming and constricting around the wretched thing that invaded it. I felt it twitch and pump something into my stomach. After a few seconds, I felt woozy and dazed.

Arais Vingt Sanctu kommbe. Arraneas balsphor.

I froze. What?

The emissary of the Holy King has come. I am Arka-Povis, Seneschal of the Second Legion, whose Seal is the Ten Towers of Terror. Open the gateway to your mind. Give in.

The voice had come from within my own head, rattling like the tines of a fork against a bed of nails. A stinging wind of gravel and hot tar that carried words with it.

Never! I thought.

Submit and open yourself to me, child. You have neither the right nor the power to withhold anything from me. It is a trespass unimaginable, that you would insult me by daring to refuse any of my commands. You will open of your own will, or I will tear you open.

Never! I forced myself to think of the word, and nothing else. Never, never, never! Never will I give in!

You struggle in vain, not knowing the reason. You have been misled with false hope. There is no future for your kind. Your lives are forfeit. Your fate was decided long ago.

Why?

Your species bears a small seed. The mark of the Great Enemy. This is something that we will not tolerate. Every single tonnanen is condemned to death.

Why would you let the cleomanni enslave us if you wanted us all to die?

The cleomanni were useful pawns, for a time. The yoke of slavery would have broken you enough to slowly pick off what remained. In a few thousand of your years, you would have been no more, and that would have been enough. However, some of you have attempted to weave a new destiny and circumvent your sentence. This is forbidden. Because the cleomanni have failed to contain the threat that you pose, we have been forced to take a more active hand in matters.

And what does that mean?

Every tonnanen will be scourged. You will be tormented and broken. There will be no respite, no mercy, and no salvation. Your bodies will be riddled with disease and shriveled with starvation, your sores biting into your bones. Your screams of agony, a symphony of pain. When we come to reap what remains of your pathetic lives, you will beg for the scythe to fall on your neck. You will tell me where the rest of you hide. You will not refuse. You will not resist.

Or what? You’ll rape me with your tentacles? I was so tired of being threatened by scum like this. I almost felt like daring one of them to do it. Just get it the fuck over with, already.

The thing laughed. Both inside my mind and in the physical world. A bellows of rasping irons. Its eyes seemed to close as it shuddered with mirth. Child, the rape of the body is a small word for a small concept that only concerns mortal, baryonic beings.

A chill ran down my spine. What are you going to do?

The monstrosity’s stern and hateful gaze fell upon me. I am going to pour myself into you in such a way that your soul will be tainted beyond death. You will always feel me within you, even in your most private moments. A twitch in your belly, or in the base of your skull. A tumor, festering. In the next world, your spirit will be bonded to me and serve me for all eternity. You will scream and beg and scrape your hooves against the door to paradise as you are dragged away, down, down, down into the darkness where I reside. Once there, you will remember pain, and nothing else. Every second of every joyous moment in your mortal existence will be torn from you like a precious morsel and will provide me with nourishment. You will spend the rest of your days in dread, fearing the end, because you know that in the moment your heart stops beating, you will belong to me. And your children. And your children’s children. Forever.

Is that all you have to threaten me with? It was my turn to laugh, albeit nervously. You’re a fucking joke. I never had any happy moments. Certainly not enough for you to chow on, you dumb octopus fuck. It was all shit. After everything I’ve done, after all the people I killed, I expected to go to Tartarus anyway. You’re trading one hell for another. You have nothing to scare me with. You have no bargaining power. Why don’t you pack up your pet chimps and fuck the fuck off to whatever hole you crawled from, before I saddle up in my Charger and make you?

A million years.

What?

It has been over a million of your years since I was last rebuked with such intensity. Such youthful vigor. Such naïveté and foolishness. Its myriad eyes flashed a hellish white glow. OPEN WIDE.

My very soul was cleaved in two. My inward scream, and the realization of what had happened to me, was delayed by a matter of seconds. When I heard its echo in my own mind, I wasn’t sure if it had even come from me. My psyche was fractured. Smashed into pieces, and the pieces strewn everywhere like shards of broken glass. I could see reflections of my memories twinkling in each one.

Dad! My bike’s having some engine trouble. I don’t know if these mods are working out. There’s something wrong with the carb. I think it needs adjusting. Can you help me out?

There’s nothing wrong with the carb, it’s your imagination. Listen, I work for a living. Maybe if you had some money, you little bum, you’d actually be worth my time.

Typhoon! That’s no way to speak to our daughter! You’ll apologize to her at once!

Mom. Somehow, I knew she was dead. I missed her terribly.

Duty calls, and honor awaits! Your Empress needs you. Every life not dedicated to the war effort is a life wasted. Together, we will beat back the satyr menace! Enlist now!

A propaganda poster was pasted on the wall in triplicate, with a depiction of Salzaon Granthis as a red-skinned demon. Behind me, there was a parade. I turned and watched as the Centaur APCs, Minotaur tanks and ballistic missile carriers rolled by, followed by a slow procession of regal-looking command Chargers in the white and gold livery used by the nobility. In the center of the formation was an open-topped white limousine with elaborate gold trim. There, perched on her raised platform, was Twilight Sparkle, dressed in white regalia and a peaked cap with a shining black visor. I waved and called out to her, trying to raise my voice above the cheering crowd and rear up to make myself taller and more obvious.

Empress Sparkle! Your Majesty! I’ve made up my mind, I’m gonna enlist!

She smiled and waved back. Good, we need you! It’s really cool and you’ll get to drive one of these!

She pointed up at the Charger. The giant titanium pony. I decided right then what I wanted to do. Too bad I wasted my first tour driving a tank, instead.

The Beast muscled its way into my mind. A burglar rummaging through the drawers. My body jerked and spasmed as the creature’s essence barged inside. This was so much worse than forcible sex. The Beast had shoved its vast ego inside my brain and squished me against the inside of my skull. The pressure in my head made me feel like my cranium was about to pop. I felt like a mouse that had been rolled over by a yak until it burst into a pool of blood and organs. It was so much deeper and more intimate than any mere nervous stimulation. I was violated in a manner most total. My mind, my soul, my very identity. All were ravished completely.

I saw myself killing one of the first cleomanni I ever encountered outside of a vehicle. I had the drop on him. I had every advantage. My hooves fell on him, over and over. He’d broken so easily. His head was mush. My hooves were covered in red.

Why? I didn’t hit him that hard!

I’d cried for days.

Useless, the Beast thought. These memories are too old. I suppose it is true, what you said. You did not have very many joyous occasions in your short life, did you? How unfortunate. This means you will have a less appealing flavor. I am amazed that you are still conscious. Do you not need to breathe, child?

My mind’s eye fast-forwarded to the recent past. Mardissa and I were fighting, and then, we were reconciling, exhausted and in pain from each other’s blows.

You’re a person. Oh gods.

A strange part of me wanted to love her. Like a substitute for the other painter in my life. The one I’d lost. Another part of me dreaded the pain and heartache of failure if I could not woo her to our side. I pushed her away. I pushed her away because I was afraid. And weak. Admitting that she was decent meant that they all had a chance to be, and that invalidated all the hatred that I had invested myself in. Without my hate, I was nothing.

I was lost, and alone, and scared.

The Beast let out a bassy, rumbling laugh. You think to conquer your old enemy with the power of what? Friendship? You will always despise each other. We will make certain of that.

My memories of Camp Crazy Horse were being dredged up. The bar. The cells. That old coot Crookneck’s office.

No. No! I had to keep the Beast at bay.

The creature made its satisfaction apparent. Yes. More of this. I need to know where you little ponies are hiding.

I needed something. A weapon. A spell. Something to keep my memories safe. I began rummaging, too. Tried outpacing the monster as we sifted through the hills of broken glass.

Ah. There it was.

Cicatrice and I were sitting back-to-back in the cafeteria at the academy. He was slowly chewing on a daffodil sandwich, shaking his head in abject displeasure, swallowing only with great difficulty. The food was awful, but the Magister insisted on eating with the students and on us being very informal with him. Something about the suffering making dark magic stronger.

Storm, you ever been mind-fucked?

I looked back at him, appalled. The fuck does that mean? No, I don’t think I have!

He nodded vigorously, taking a bite out of his sandwich and speaking through a mouthful of food like a slob. If a dark magic user is rifling through your head, here’s something you can use.

Cicatrice wrote said something on a napkin, and then presented it to me.

I squinted at the old runes. Karad, Daggas—

Cicatrice raised his hooves. Don’t actually cast it! I have several important spells going right now, and you’ll fuck them up. And you’ll give me a splitting headache, too.

Truth, Valor, Point? Like, the point of a fencing foil? What does it do?

He grinned. It’s a counterspell. Very effective. Takes all the dark magic being focused on you and reflects it right back at the caster. Really fucking ruin their day. And the best part? The stronger your opponent is, the more of that shit goes right back into them! It’s like holding a microphone right next to a PA system speaker. The feedback is ferocious!

What school is that?

Displacement magic. Light and dark. It’s not a traditional dispel. It depends on your light aptitude, though. How good are you with light magic?

Just so-so, really.

Well, practice. Shit, I keep trying to impress that on students. The most important thing for a unicorn is practice. Everything else is just bullshit. Magic is a muscle. You must exercise it to make it stronger.

You sound like my PE instructor.

I am your PE instructor. A unicorn’s horn is an integral part of our bodies. Forget about Chargers and tanks. Your horn is the greatest weapon in Equestria’s arsenal.

I struggled against the Beast. Ignited my horn in spite of its influence, my eyelids twitching, my nerve impulses scattered. The monster’s face was bathed in an orange glow.

Karad, Daggas, Vatorou.

Everything flashed white. Everything inside me that the Beast had sundered to pieces instantly smashed back together into a concrete whole. My senses returned, and with them, the feeling that I was being flung backward. Something long and leathery jerked from my muzzle with a spray of oily black liquid as I fell to the snow. The creature howled in agony, its massive body reeling. I hacked and coughed up the acidic, moldy-tasting filth that it had pumped into my guts, sputtering and trying to center myself. I moaned in pain. The entire length of my throat burned. I lacked the strength to even crawl.

A tentacle whipped and latched around my neck. I heard the Beast’s voice in my head once more. Its eyes were filled with rage.

That was a mistake. You will pay dearly for it, small, finite, mortal flesh-thing. I find that a little humiliation loosens the soul. The surrender of the ego makes it easier to pluck the spirit from the body!

I struggled, albeit briefly. I knew exactly what brand of evil the Beast intended for me. I could feel its terrible will pressing on my mind before it actually began. The sickening touch made my skin crawl. I tried covering myself with my tail, but it was no use. A tentacle wrapped around my dock and bent it out of the way, leaving me completely exposed. I gritted my teeth. My whole body tensed up, but the foreknowledge of what was coming didn’t lessen the blow to my dignity as I felt the Beast gather itself like a battering ram at my gates.

“Fuck you,” I rasped out.

I was dry as a bone, partly because of the altrenogest but also because I was terrified out of my wits. It didn’t matter. The cold, glistening, pitiless creature was perpetually lubricated from top to bottom with foul-smelling black slime, and its coiled appendages had no difficulty penetrating me. Without hesitation or remorse, the Beast pressed inward, stretching me obscenely. A pained moan escaped my throat. The pressure was unbearable.

“Fuck you!” I screamed. It became like a mantra of survival. The profanity was the only thing that kept me from slipping under the waves as I was rocked violently back and forth. I refused to be dominated. “Fuck you!”

I liked to imagine that most rapists regarded their victims, at the very least, as actual living people that they wanted to fuck. Next to the Beast, I was much, much less than that. I was roadkill, and its pumping, twisting, torquing appendages were the shovel. I gagged and heaved and shrieked as I was choked and constricted, my guts cramping over and over, squeezing the rubbery flesh that impaled me unbidden. The squelching noises of vigorous sex, the nauseating, slimy wetness, and the unwanted arousal that consumed my nether regions all conspired to make me feel vulnerable and helpless in a way that I never wanted to feel.

Through the disgustingly intimate connection that we shared, I could feel some small measure of the Beast’s mind. From its perspective, there was nothing even sexual about what it was doing. It was pure, unfettered hatred that drove its movements. I just happened to be some meat that was in its way, like a factory worker caught in an industrial shredder. It received no physical pleasure from this. It wasn’t getting off. It couldn’t. The very idea was beneath it. No. It just wanted me to hurt. It wanted to savor my screams and delight in my struggle.

Despair, little one! the Beast howled into my mind. Despair and die!

No passion. No desire. Only pure sadism. It was then that I knew. This was something truly alien. Something beyond mortal reckoning.

My life up to this point hadn’t been kind to me. I’d forgotten what happiness actually felt like. Now, I feared that I’d never know, ever again.

I looked up just in time to see a hard-driven lance catch the Beast right in the head. Black ichor gushed from the wound as it screeched and swayed. Its slimy tendrils fled from me, the pressure relieved. Star Cross Wraithwood looked down at me, her eyes pitying me through the red-tinted slits of her visor.

“Sergeant, run!”

I tried to stand. I fell face-first in the snow, my body too weak to do even that. Dark whispers filled my head. Proof of the Beast’s defilement. “I—I can’t.”

Everything around me erupted into chaos. Six other Dragoons, including Commodore Cake, descended on the Vargr, going straight for CQC. The aliens fired a few wild shots to try and deter them. When those rounds struck trees, their trunks splintered with the force of a hand grenade.

Their personal rifles fired antimatter, too. Because that wasn’t unfair, or anything.

The Vargr were outmatched in close combat with Dragoons, and they knew it. They retreated into a circular formation and their leader, the one who’d choked me out, deployed a shield generator that ensconced their entire squad in a bubble of glowing blue light. The shield was one-way. From within, they fired out at the Dragoons at their leisure. The bubble was utterly impervious to beamcaster blasts. Lances bounced off the shield and did absolutely nothing.

One of the enemy’s rifles struck a Dragoon dead-center and she was flung backwards, the chest plate on her exosuit shattered. Another Dragoon immediately seized the casualty and swiftly evacuated her while the remaining five continued to engage.

The Vargr leader touched his earpiece. “Komand, rekvist varmhuul!”

With a bright flash, the enemy squad blinked out of existence, the Dragoons’ lances falling on the empty space where they’d stood moments before. Some manner of teleportation. The lances had been driven with such anger, they almost surely would have shattered the barrier were it still present. Instead, only the burnt-out husk of the disposable generator remained, black smoke rising from its charred casing.

Wraithwood dueled with the Beast for a few moments, its massive body quick and sinuous for its size. It dodged her lance, moving with unnatural speed, as though it could read her intent before she executed her attacks. A tentacle lashed out and wrapped around her body. She didn’t even have time to scream. With a ripping motion, a crunch of armor and a spray of blood, the Beast made Wraithwood into a literal wraith. I watched as the monster tore her soul from her body. Her glowing blue essence floated in its grasp, struggling, screaming silently. The two halves of her armored body dropped from mid-air and splashed the snow with red. Unnecessary flesh. The soul was the only sustenance the Beast required.

It yawned open one of its terrible maws, and in she went. The brave, gentle, and skilled thestral warrior who’d saved my life twice and personally rewarded me for my service was gone, in an instant. I’d never even known her. Her spirit’s scream of terror as it was absorbed into the Beast resonated through the gestalt, tearing at my psyche.

Layer Cake screamed a challenge at the Beast, angered by the loss of her superior. Four sets of overdriven beamcasters fell on the monster. It howled in pain, spurting black blood, pressing its body flat to the ground and retreating in a blur of motion, darting over the hill and out of sight, weaving like some horrid snake.

The two Vargr tanks moved up to take the place of the infantry. Their weapons were vicious. Each one bore four gimbaled antimatter repeaters and some sort of continuous-beam cannon. Columns of deadly light lashed out at the Dragoons, who proved far too swift of targets. The terrain was quickly peppered with craters deep and wide enough for entire infantry squads to use as cover. I was deafened by the noise and half-blinded by the flashes. Small antimatter blasts were going off all around me. We were accumulating rads.

I crawled through the snow, back towards the nose of the Vulture, panting and yelping in terror as my world exploded. My friends were there. They would save me. I just knew it.

I gagged and hurled, the Beast’s filth erupting from within me and staining the snow black. It dripped off my chin. It filled my sinuses. The taste of rotten seaweed, overwhelming. I threw up a second time. And a third. And a fourth. Every last drop of everything that was in my stomach came racing out. I mustered the energy to keep crawling, not caring that I’d dragged my gut across the patch of vomit-streaked snow.

“I’m so sick—of throwing up!” I whimpered.

When I finally reached the Vulture’s nose, they were indeed waiting, alive and well. I could see the looks in their eyes. Pity. Shame. Remorse.

They saw. Everything.

“So,” I coughed and sputtered. “You all just—stood there and watched?”

“Storm,” Bellwether said, his face a mask of pain. “I tried. They would’ve killed us.”

“That’s not what I meant. You could’ve looked away. But you didn’t. You had to see me like that.”

Mardissa ran up and pulled me into her warm embrace, cutting through the wintry chill. I felt filthy. Too filthy to be touched by anyone. I hated this. I hated being vulnerable in front of her, of all people.

“Sergeant,” Mar said. “I am so sorry. If I had my armor, I swear, I would’ve done something. I don’t know what. Probably something suicidal. Had I the power to act, I would not be able to stand idly by when faced with such wickedness. I give you my word on that.”

“I’d—like to think I’d do the same for you, Mar.” I smiled softly and touched my hoof to her jaw, watching as a lone tear traced its way down the satyr’s cheek.

Commodore Cake marched up to us. “We gotta go! Two enemy tanks, advancing on our position!”

The other Dragoon had returned. The five of them quickly scooped us up in their forelegs before we could even react, one bearing both Ketros and one half of Wraithwood’s corpse. Another one had grabbed both me and Wraithwood’s other half. I supposed that the Dragoons never left a mare behind, even if she was in pieces. They flew us away from the crash site with alarming haste, the tanks firing antimatter bolts after us the entire time as they receded into the distance.

I looked over my shoulder and watched as the hundred-meter-long transport lifted off, followed by the Orca. Their entire hulls faded and vanished from sight, their cloaks engaged. I was in a complete daze, my mind a morass of contradictory emotions. On the one hoof, I was happy to be alive. On the other, I wished I was dead.

We were flown through the air at breakneck speed, what felt like several kilometers, until we encountered a friendly transport, nestled in a valley to the south. I noted that the livery of the Roc was black, with Conclave markings. The Dragoons flew us into the open rear bay of the hovering Roc, setting us down on the cold metal deck inside.

“Throttle up!” the Commodore shouted. “Go, go, go! Get us the bloody hell out of here!”

The Roc’s fuselage rumbled as the nacelles tilted and it picked up speed. Magister Cicatrice was waiting on the deck of the Roc, flanked by a pair of Pegasus Stormtrooper bodyguards, a dismissive sneer on his face. He was wearing dark robes that crisscrossed over his chest, his beard neatly combed. Another pair of Stormtroopers took up positions beside the cleomanni, quickly patting them down for weapons before assuming escort formations beside them. It was made abundantly clear that there would be no mischief allowed from them.

“A nuke,” Cicatrice said. “The biggest fuckin’ boom, short of a grimoire. Unauthorized. Danger close. Bellwether, my boy, you are getting a bit too big for your britches. Bold, I’ll give you that. Fair warning, Admiral Crusher and Captain Garrida are both going have your ass on a plate with a side of cheese and whining. I’ll tell them there were extenuating circumstances, but still, you keep this up, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.”

“Garrida is still alive?” Bellwether said.

“Alive and already evacuated, along with the rest, yes. Me and the Stormtroopers just finished mopping up. The rest of the most important supplies have been salvaged, along with the entire wreck of the destroyed Vargr ship. Pur Sang is being scuttled by demolition teams as we speak. There’s gonna be a much bigger boom when we set off that fifty-megaton charge. We’ve just been trying to figure out how to lure the Vargr into the explosion, too, but they keep cloaking and running off, the cowards. Were you hoping that nuke would take the Captain out? Hah! Agent, I don’t think there’s a bomb big enough in the whole damn galaxy to do the job. That old hen is too angry to die.” When Cicatrice saw me, he was visibly, increasingly agitated and chagrined. “Oh. Oh no. Fuck. Fucking fucking-fuck! Storm, what did you let that fucker see?”

“Nothing. I gave—I gave that thing as little as possible. Irrelevant shit.”

“Good. Very good. You use that little trick I showed you, way back when? Hell, if you’re still breathing and not speaking in tongues, you must have.”

“Yeah. It helped. A lot. Until that thing decided it would be easier to have its meal if it chewed me up a little, first.”

“What? Oh, you mean—”

“Yeah.” I drew in a deep breath and shuddered. “That.”

“Shit. You hearing any voices?”

“Yes. Continuously.”

“Well, that’s not good. That requires a pretty complicated ritual to fix.”

I shook my head in confusion. “Cicatrice, what the fuck was that thing?”

“C’mere. Into the lounge. All of you. The cleomanni, too. They need to hear this.”

We gave each other a few concerned looks before following him into the Roc’s spacious accommodations. This was definitely not a standard configuration for a Roc. A good third of the bay had been replaced by a lounge area with a circular table and sofas, a kitchenette, and a bathroom way off in the corner. We all sat down on the couches, except for me. I was filthy. My hooves were leaving black, inky marks all over the place. My ass was like a loaded rubber stamp.

“Okay, listen up.” Cicatrice turned to Mar and Ket. “First off, do you two know who I am?”

Mardissa nodded. “One of the Magisters, yes.”

“That is correct. I am Cicatrice, whose domain is dark magic and forbidden incantations. I specialize in soul transference, among other things, and my name is on several papers relating to the creation of Anima with the use of bound souls. Our division specialized in the production of high-grade AIs for use in Chargers, as well as the advancement of our understanding of dark magic in general.”

Mardissa winced. “Great. We just had to run into the scariest fucker in Equestria.”

Cicatrice smiled and nodded. “Right you are. Now, I want you, all of you, to listen close. This war is not what you think it is. The actors behind it are not who you think they are. I saw everything on the Dragoons’ helmet feed, including Star Cross Wraithwood’s demise. Damned shame, that. She was one of our best. That creature? That thing that molested the Sergeant’s soul, and other parts besides? That was a Lesser Archon of Thuax.”

“Well.” I smirked half-heartedly. “I’d hate to see what a Greater Archon of Thuax looked like.”

“You wouldn’t be able to see them,” Cicatrice said. “They’re the size of a star system and you need thaumatic sensors to pick up the glow. The loss of the Highwind colony out on the rimward frontier back in 2142 was because our early warning system failed, and we couldn’t evac the planet before the Archon engulfed the whole world, instantly swallowed every soul on Highwind, and left behind cities full of rotting ponies. Took a lot to cover that one up. Oh, and since it was a pegasus colony, a lot of them fell and went splat. Made it a bitch to ID the corpses.

“The search and rescue teams were pissing their uniforms in fright at the idea that the Archon might come back to eat them while they were on Highwind looking for the bodies. Kept insisting that we use telepresence equipment. Instead, we had picket ships track the thing and told the rescue teams to head for orbit if it so much as twitched in their direction. It was a huge shitshow. The good news is, even though the Archons can project their will over great distances, their actual incorporeal forms move at sublight speeds, so it’ll be eons before they reach the more populous regions of the galaxy.”

My jaw slowly dropped. There was a kind of a pregnant pause, where we all just stood there in complete shock, trading horrified glances.

Cicatrice nodded. “Right. The Vargr, as best as we can tell, based on previous engagements and some newly gathered information, are something like their thralls. Willingly, out of fear and respect, or unwillingly, through dark magic, we don’t know. We believe that those simians and their masters are the chief instigators of this conflict. They have corrupted both the Confederacy and the Empire’s bureaucratic structures, using misinformation, assassination, sabotage, mind control, and various other clandestine methods to keep the war going.

“The Conclave has been continuously tasking specially-chosen members of BASKAF and various special-forces units to detain or kill the individuals who’ve been corrupted. Depends on how deep the corruption goes. The Sergeant, here? She’s infected. She already hears the whispers of the Archons. They’re something like a hive mind, and the Archon’s Kiss is how you get in the club.”

Mardissa shrugged. “I don’t know magic stuff. Is that bad?”

“Ordinarily, it would be a death sentence, however, provided that the tainting can be reversed in time, I think she’ll be fine. I hope. Oh, on the plus side, the tainting process permanently enhances your dark spectral attunement. You should be able to cloak at least twice as long, now, Storm. What’s that for you, like almost half an hour? Lucky you. Next time, why don’t you guzzle the whole fucking Archon? You’ll probably get another half an hour out of that.”

I didn’t want that. I didn’t fucking care that it made me more powerful. I was disgusted beyond words. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Well, go be sick in the toilet, not here. I know. Alien cum tastes like shit, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ll run when you see the Vargr from now on, instead of hiding from assholes with thaumovision using an invisibility spell, you idiot. You must’ve looked like a Hearth’s Warming tree. Would’ve been stealthier if you’d doused yourself in gasoline, lit yourself, and ran straight at them. As a knock-on effect, I’m pretty sure the Archon would’ve passed you up if you were on fucking fire.”

Lieutenant Ketros Armagais stepped up, puffing on a cigarette. Cicatrice was very displeased by this.

“Put that out at once, you stupid imp!” Cicatrice said. “There are no combustibles allowed on deck, and I don’t want the smell in my personal fucking lounge!”

Ket sighed before stubbing his cigarette out on the arm of a couch, making the rest of us gape in shock at his audacity. “You know, the rest of these folks may take shit from you, but I don’t have to. Based on everything I’ve heard, it sounds to me like you didn’t give your guys any fucking intel on these bastards at all. You gave them fuck-all, and now, you’re acting like they should’ve gotten it out of you with fuckin’ telepathy or something. You may be the Magister to them, but you ain’t the Magister of a fuckin’ porta-potty to me. The little lady just had the worst day of her life. Cut the Sergeant some slack, necromancer, or you’ll taste my fist!”

Cicatrice and Ketros had a staredown for a few moments, each glaring at the other. The Magister knew he could break Ketros like a fallen twig, and that was without magic. With magic, he could’ve made Ket reach behind the back of his head, grab his other arm, and intentionally try and fold himself into a pretzel. However, Cicatrice’s expression softened first. He realized he was in the wrong.

The Magister turned to me, his contrition evident. “Sergeant, I’m sorry you had to go through that. The enemies we face, they’re not kind. They’re cruel beyond all reason. You need to learn how to protect yourself. I will teach you. There is also the matter of the ritual that must be done. After that, I want you to go get a checkup from Argent and a clean bill of health. Then, once you get some rest, go see Weathervane. Don’t bottle it up, you understand? It’ll destroy you.”

I was shaking. I was shaking and crying, my head meekly dipping towards the deck. I slowly nodded in agreement with Cicatrice, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want anyone’s condolences. I wanted their understanding. If I’d known what was going to happen to me, I would’ve used that beacon right away. I would not have delayed. I felt like a fool.

“I’ve made my choice,” Mardissa said. “I’m defecting to the Equestrian Liberation Front. If my country is the puppet of those horrid fucking things, then I have no home to return to. My father is either in grave danger, or he’s already in their grasp. I—I know it’s selfish of me, but in exchange for lending you my sword arm, I want us to rescue my family. That’s all I ask. Lieutenant Armagais, are you with me?”

Ket nodded. “I go where you go, ma’am. I lost all my brothers in this war. Some, brothers by blood. Some, brothers-in-arms. If these Vargr bastards are the reason why the war has dragged on for a millennium, then I want payback as much as you.”

“Good.”

Cicatrice squinted at her, before shocked recognition spread across his features. “You’re Mardissa fucking Granthis! Holy shit. I didn’t even recognize you with all those bruises! You want us to go pick up ol’ Sal and the rest? That’s a tall order, considering they’re deep in Confederate space, behind a whole armada, and we’ve got fewer warships than I have hooves. C’mere, let me show you guys something.”

Cicatrice motioned us over to a table where he unrolled a laminated map of the galaxy. “Now, Bellwether, I see you’re being mighty quiet over there, son. A few days ago, I wasn’t entirely forthright with you. I did withhold some things that you should probably know, now that you’ve seen these fuckers and what they do. There are three main divisions the Vargr are split into. The Linvargr, the Hastavargr, and the Estoravargr. The Linvargr are science, espionage, unconventional warfare, and artifact reclamation. See a brain in a circle? That’s them. The Hastas are military. The Estoras are logistics. The Linvargr are the main threat to our operations.” Cicatrice tapped his hoof against various locations on the map, pointing to several star systems on the periphery of our space. “Everywhere that we’ve set up dig sites, trying to claim artifacts of what we presume was their prior civilization, the Linvargr have appeared in force, murdered our science teams, confiscated all our discoveries, and destroyed our research. It’s like they’re looking for something in specific, but we don’t know what, only that it’s very important to them.”

“Do we have any clue what that thing that they’re searching for might be?” Bellwether said.

Cicatrice shook his head. “None. We haven’t even begun to narrow it down. These raids have killed many of our very best Dragoons and Stormtroopers, along with hundreds of our brightest scientists. The Vargr know where these artifacts are. They’re hindering us from recovering them because they don’t want us to have their technology. I’m sure you can plainly see why.”

“Two of their tanks just turned that forest back there into a cratered moonscape,” Bellwether said. “If we had that kind of firepower, no one would fuck with us ever again.”

“You mean you intend to profoundly upset the balance of power in the galaxy?” Mardissa cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, come off it,” Commodore Cake spoke up from the corner. We hadn’t even seen or heard her enter. “We need an edge, or we’re through. You tossers can’t keep us from doing what is necessary to survive. I just watched a mare that I looked up to for well over a decade lose her life to an enemy that we scarcely even understand. If you knew what was good for you, you’d seek an alliance, because once the Archons are done eating us, there’s no telling what they’ll do to you.”

“Those Linvargr tanks aren’t even considered combat vehicles,” Cicatrice said. “Those are mobile sensor stations and research escort vehicles that just happen to have defensive weaponry. The front-line hovertanks the Hastas use are scarier. Much, much scarier. That’s why we need to take the fight to them. They’re complacent, believing themselves safe and secure in their technological advantage. They’ll never expect it.” Cicatrice turned to the satyrs. “Rest assured, we have no intention of nuking Confederate military bases, shipyards, or, Celestia forbid, cities. We intend to use those weapons in raids against the Vargr, hence our interest in recovering as many as possible.”

I let out a chuckle. “So, what you’re proposing, Your Excellency, is that on top of fending off the Confederacy, the Liberation Front—without the backing of any functioning, intact nation-state, without our supreme leader, and with a tiny hoofful of salvaged warships, Chargers, tanks, and WMDs—should engage in outright warfare against a league of soul-eating Elder Gods and their pet apes with antimatter rifles?”

“Well, it’s either that or extinction, so yes, that is what I’m suggesting.”

“Great.” I threw my hooves in the air. “We are so fucked.”

Cicatrice walked over to me and put his hoof on my chin, lifting it and inspecting the mess the Archon left all over me.

“You need to wash that off,” Cicatrice said. “All of it. It’s highly psychoactive. The longer you leave it on, the worse the hallucinations get. Go clean yourself up.”

I pulled away from him angrily. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ going. Thanks a lot for being supportive, guys. Especially you, Ket, except unironically.”

As I tromped off to head for Cicatrice’s oh-so-special flying bathroom, Ket called after me, “The word you’re lookin’ for is sarcasm!”

I slammed the door behind me, planting both my shaking hooves on the sliver of counter in front of the sink. I looked myself over in the mirror. My legs were swollen. My heart was pounding. I had a great stain of black ooze running down my chin and the front of my neck, like I’d been dipped muzzle-first in a barrel full of tar. When I reared up and looked down at myself, there was another, similar stain. Far lower. Where I wished there wasn’t. My whole underbelly and groin were slathered in the Archon’s filth.

My ears rang violently. I lost my balance and stumbled face-first towards the sink.

The other mouth, the Archons’ voices whispered in a mocking chorus. The one that speaks children. The gun that fires stallions at men. Every birth, a death. Every cradle, a grave. Poor matter-child. Better to never be born into the realm of flesh. Certainly better not to be responsible for bearing others into it as well, you pathetic, miscreated mare. We await your doom with bated breath, when you will join us in oblivion and we will dominate your very soul. You are hardly even fit to eat, but the sweetness of your dying screams will at least provide us with some temporary amusement, womb-thing.

I whimpered and curled up into a ball on the deck, my sobs echoing in the transport’s cramped bathroom. “Oh, Celestia. Oh, fuck. Why?” I slammed my hoof into the bulkhead. “Why?!”

Bellwether was wrong. They were waiting. On the other side. Only, instead of dead soldiers and bereaved widows, it was legions of demons too terrible to name. Any misstep, anything that could lead to my death, would send me hurtling straight into their clutches.

There was no escaping it. The noose was around my neck. The penalty for my sins was clear. My soul belonged to them, now.

The chorus of the Archons rose. Ndras Thuax. Ndras Thuax!

Hail Thuax! Hail Thuax! HAIL THUAX! HAIL—

// … end transmission …

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