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Desert Storm

Several hours after we arrived at Tar Pan, the crews from Vanhoover had finished setting up most of the work lights. The harsh diode lighting pooled in the cavernous tunnels, Centaur armored cars and hoof patrols making their way up and down the mine and keeping a lookout for any signs of enemy infiltration. We didn’t want a repeat of the complete fiasco we had a couple days ago. Not when we were in such a fragile state. And what a fiasco it was. The president himself, in the flesh. It was the stuff of drunken wagers. Even my memories of it seemed unreal. A week ago, if somepony had told me I’d be verbally sparring with Salzaon fucking Granthis right in the middle of our own base, I would’ve told them to lay off the crack pipe.

We took a heavy cargo lift down into the mine shaft. One big enough for a fully laden Bull Runner. More specifically, the Bull Runner the bed of which I shared with Black Devil, Mar, and Ket. The three of us sat side-by-side on the edge of the bed with our legs hanging off, my Charger at our backs. The platform squealed and ground all the way to the bottom, thudding against the stops on the lowermost level of the shaft. The Runner’s turbine rose to a shrill whine and its tires dug into the dirt as it drove off the platform and deeper into the mine.

The walls of the mine were layers of smooth salt that formed beautiful banding patterns. Not only did I have to resist the urge to reach out and touch them, I reflexively pulled my legs in to avoid getting them crushed should our driver be imprecise. We came to a halt in the largest cavern, the one we were hastily repurposing into a Charger laboratory. The duostrand loom had to be recalibrated after being moved. They’d poured an instacrete slab for it to sit on, because apparently, the thing had to sit exactly level to work correctly, and the bottom of the mine was far from it.

When we came to a halt, I stepped off the bed of the truck and dropped a couple meters to the dirt, rolling to absorb the impact and rising to my hooves. Mardissa and Ketros climbed down and followed me.

“Ten-shun!” I called out.

A set of hoofbeats rang out as my new unit assumed two neat rows. As I’d requested, Privates Haybale, Jury Rig, and Hexhead were all present and accounted for, along with Corporals Shooting Star and Cloverleaf. Ginger Snap was KIA in the fighting a couple days previous, and with Crookneck’s death, Wind Shear was sorely needed elsewhere. I needed replacements, and I’d got ‘em. Ketros and Mardissa took their place at the end of the formation. Their faces were darkened in the dim lighting of the mine, but I could still make out their features. They were nervous. Maybe even a little afraid. We all were.

“Alright, people,” I said. “Listen up. We got a couple new recruits joining us, today. Private Armagais and Private Granthis. Yeah, yeah, I know you two were probably hoping to keep your commissions, but that’s not how this shit works. You’ve got to start all the way from the very bottom like everyone else. Ponies, you see Private Granthis, here? Her father showed up, in person, both to threaten all our lives and to disown his daughter. She has a new family, you understand? That’s us. You are to treat her with the same respect as anyone else, and that goes for Private Armagais as well. When we were attacked, they both fought bravely to defend our home, not hesitating even for a second to take up arms against their own homeland. The truest sign of loyalty is a willingness to spill blood in the defense of a nation, and that is a test that the two of them have passed with flying colors.”

A couple ponies stiffened visibly at the name Granthis, but otherwise, they didn’t move a muscle or even take a peek at the newcomers as I paced up and down the formation and inspected them. Good. That’s what I need. Discipline. I’d been short of it, myself, as of late, and I hated the mess that I was becoming. Rather than me setting an example for these ponies to follow, I hoped a little of them would rub off on me. I quickly dismissed such notions, however. If I looked up to them rather than the reverse, this whole affair was destined to result in disaster. I had to be stronger than that. I had to be a pillar of strength for them to lean on. I had to remake myself.

I would begin with the truth. It seemed to have served me well, as of late.

“I have never been a leader.” I looked each of them in the eyes as I paced up and down the line. “I am, first and foremost, a pilot, wedded to my machine and little else. Since I joined the resistance, I endeavored for one thing and one thing only, and that was to see the inside of a cockpit again. With the infantry, fighting side-by-side with the militia, I gave it my all, but I also did things that I’m not proud of. I acted rashly. I acted shamefully. During the raid on Dodge City, I got emotional, seeing my old hometown in ruins and with hardly a soul in sight. I got careless. Ponies died because of my actions. I let you down. For that, I apologize.

“We’ve been through some hard times, lately. We lost our home. We lost ponies who were close to us. Ponies who were invaluable to the resistance effort.” I came to a halt, turning and addressing all of them at once. “All of you are here because I have requested you personally, to be my own team. To be my eyes and ears on the battlefield. Chargers are not invincible. Like any ground vehicle, we need support assets to cover us and fill the gaps in our awareness. This is going to be dangerous, difficult duty.

“Charger support teams are part forward observer, part saboteur. You’re gonna be in the thick of it, calling out targets, setting up forward observation posts, breaching into structures, compromising enemy perimeter security, and sabotaging critical enemy equipment, like radar dishes, comms, and anything else that could give them the edge in command and control. Our roles are complementary. You call out the big stuff—enemy troop formations, vehicles, bunkers, the major targets—so I can engage and destroy them. Likewise, I use my rig’s electronic warfare package to tell you where enemy emissions are coming from, so you can engage and destroy the sources. We put out their eyes, we jam pencils in their ears, and then, when they’re blind and deaf, we cut out their spleens. That’s the Charger Corps way. I want all volunteers for this. If anyone has any reservations, any at all, feel free to step back. I won’t hold it against you.”

None budged. I smiled. “Are we going to kneel before our enemies and meekly place our necks on the executioner’s block? No, we will not! Will we accept brutal colonial rule and become their property? No, we will not! We are going to survive this, together. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to win! You got that?”

“Yes ma’am!” they rang out in a chorus.

I nodded. “Rest up, get some chow, and unseal the information packets I’ve prepared for each of you. Briefing’s at 1300 hours tomorrow. Get your shit packed up and be ready to move. Dismissed!”

The formation broke up and they each dispersed to their stations, but Private Granthis paused and turned around when the others weren’t looking. The cleomanni woman blew me a kiss and gave me a parting wink. I sharply inhaled and held my breath in mild shock. I stood there, blinking a few times, rooted to that spot, until she was no longer in eyeshot. I let go of the breath I’d been holding and glanced over my shoulder a couple times before I also departed that particular chamber of the mine.

There was a faint sound of dripping water in some of the tunnels, almost like a natural cave. It had to be leaky pipes or drainage from the surface or something, or groundwater—no, perhaps condensation from the cool air deep underground. I couldn’t quite identify the source. My hooves were shaking as I retrieved a couple plastic pill bottles from my saddlebags and popped one each in my mouth, grimacing as I swallowed without the aid of any water.

Out of mild curiosity, I approached one of the walls of tantalizing-looking salt. I stuck out my tongue and gave it a lick, before spitting vigorously and groaning at my stupidity. It tasted less like salt and more like dirt. As I continued along my way, following the canary-yellow electrical cabling and work lights strung down the tunnel, I encountered a small side chamber.

The pegasus super-soldier by the name of Layer Cake was wearing neon green leg warmers and doing calisthenics in a section of the mine that she’d converted into an improvised gym. The place was full of heavy junk and scrap parts that the techs had thrown out after the move. Things that could be lifted for exercise, if one was so inclined. In addition, there was a full set of weights, although I honestly had no idea how our teams had the time or the wherewithal to bring those along.

My jaw slowly went slack as I watched her switch from doing push-ups to bench-pressing two entire synfuel engine modules out of a Minotaur tank that she’d stacked and banded together with steel bands. The engines dwarfed her. They massed over a couple tons, easy. She was making a pony-shaped depression in the ground.

“Aren’t tank engines a bit expensive for that?” I said.

“These ones are no good. Bad valve seats. The techs don’t have the stuff to hone ‘em.”

“Oh.”

“Got designs on these lips of mine, Sergeant?” She glared daggers at me. “Back for another taste?”

“That was—” I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck with my hoof. “Ma’am, I have no fucking idea what the hell that was, really. I just started these new meds and I’ve been having weird mood swings that I’m unaccustomed to.”

“You might consider adjusting the dosage, then.”

I winced with the sting of her words, but I would not be deterred so easily. “I came to say I’m sorry, ma’am. For what I said. For what I did, as well. It was conduct unbecoming of a former Army NCO, and of a member of the resistance.”

“Sorry won’t bring back Star Cross Wraithwood, Officer Dartwing, or Crookneck Squash, nor will it magically reconstitute our obliterated base.”

“There was something I had to say about that.”

“Speak, then.” The Commodore’s tone was acidic.

“I think there may be an upshot to all this.”

“Oh? And what may that be?”

“That thing. The Archon. Seneschal Arka-Povis.” Just naming it made my guts churn.

Commodore Cake raised an eyebrow. “So, it has a name? Where’d you hear that?”

“It spoke to me, somehow. Some form of telepathy. Really did a number on my head. It said that the reason why the Vargr were more active than usual was because the Confederacy were going too easy on us. Now that the Confederacy are here in force, what if the Vargr pull back? At least we won’t have to go up against them as often, right?”

Commodore Cake did a series of stretches, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. “Possible. On the other hoof, it’s just as likely that they’d use the added pressure to their advantage, attacking us more frequently, not less.”

“What if we can play them against each other? Draw the Vargr and the Confederacy into a fight that neither can conclusively win. Have them wear each other down.”

The Dragoon sighed and shook her head. “Leave the strategizing to your betters, Sergeant. Realistically, we can’t make the Vargr do anything that they weren’t going to do already. They’re smart. They always think several steps ahead and they never leave themselves open. That’s why your downing of that dropship’s got them all pissed off. They never had that happen before, ever. They don’t leave behind intact specimens of their tech. We broke it down, packed it up, and sent the remains straight to Admiral Crusher. Got our top boffins looking over it, now.”

“It just grinds my fucking gears, you know?” I said. “We’re already spread thin as it is, morale is in the shitter, and everypony is losing their marbles. We’re basically on our fucking lips. Oof, no pun intended.”

The Dragoon chuckled. “If there was a way that you could weaponize your idiom sprees, Sergeant, we would have a rather potent addition to our arsenal. I’m sure ol’ Crook would’ve found a way to affix them to your Charger with stencils.”

I gave her my best smirk. “Did I ever tell you about that time I walked in on Crookneck and Sierra fucking on the couch? I seriously wondered, out loud, if Argent could set me up with a new pair of cyber-eyes to replace my ruined organic ones.”

We both had a giggle at that. “Oh Celestia,” the Commodore said. “What a terrible mental image.”

“I’m gonna miss that caffeinated old fuck,” I said. “Died trying to save his work. Guy had some real dedication.”

“That he did, Sergeant. That, he did indeed.”

“Fuck.” I sighed. “Fuckin’ Granthis is coming on to me.”

Commodore Cake cocked an eyebrow. “What? Really?”

“Yeah, seriously,” I said. “She’s crushing on me pretty hard. Not ideal if she’s gonna be my subordinate.”

“Well, there is also the matter of her being a completely different species. One that, historically speaking, we haven’t gotten along with too well, to put it lightly.”

“Pfft, never stopped us back in the old days.” I laughed. “Where do you think all those hybrids came from? Hippogriffs? Yeah, somepony loved the griffon dick.”

Layer Cake frowned. “I’m not too sure if that’s how hippogriffs came about.”

“Well, best guess I had.” I shrugged. “Now if I was gonna fuck anyone on base, it’d probably be—” Should I tell her? “Never mind. Point is, you know, she’s a sweetheart and I don’t know how to tell her it’ll never work without breaking her heart and getting her all maudlin and shit, and the last thing I need is to start screwing my new unit’s morale in its very fucking inception.”

Commodore Cake did a few more stretches, arching her back and tugging on her forelimbs. “It’d be even more cruel to string her along and let her think you’re interested when you’re not.”

I watched, mesmerized, as she flipped her pinkish mane out of her face and braided it into a ponytail with her wingtips. How in the fuck? I wondered silently to myself.

“I’m already taken,” I said. “Should I tell her?”

Cake huffed, rolling her eyes. “You’re still on about that Barleywine lad? The one that was last seen alive in Everfree City? Give it up. He’s bones, darling.”

I shook my head. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s a tenacious fucker. He has to be alive, somehow.”

“I sincerely doubt that, but hey, if you aren’t keen on fucking anyone else, that’s your loss. Celestia knows we all need a good fucking in this lonely hell.”

The both of us had a laugh and I patted her on the back. “You can say that again.” I stiffened and saluted. “I mean, uhh, ma’am.”

“Oh, come off it. We’re a knightly order, not the Army. You can give me exactly the level of respect that I command you to, no more, no less. And I’ve been in the market for a new friend since my last one got rad-sick and died.”

The two of us looked each other in the eye. I slapped my hoof into hers, closing the deal.

“Fuck those Vargr pricks,” I said. “We’re gonna teach them a lesson, too, someday.”

“I see we’re on the same page,” Cake said. “Just don’t cock things up any more than you already have.”

I averted my eyes from the Commodore’s intense gaze. “I don’t know what happened on that mountain. Everything broke down. Discipline broke down. The chain of command broke down. When mortars started raining down on the base, we radioed the Captain for orders, but we couldn’t make contact. So, we went looking for one of the lost convoys, we found a nuke, and Bellwether, well, he made an executive decision he shouldn’t have, and here we are.”

“I heard about what happened to you.” The Commodore’s voice was soft, consoling, her eyes fringed with worry. “You okay?”

Slowly, little by little, I began to shake. My body didn’t feel like my body. It didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real. It felt like I was a passenger inside myself. My eyes misted with tears. My back shuddered with sobs.

“No,” I said. “No, I’m not.”

Layer Cake’s powerful forelegs wrapped around me in a firm hug. “Sergeant, I am so sorry. We came as quickly as we could. So much for being the Empire’s best, eh?”

“You’re amazing.” I sniffled as I held back the tears that threatened to spill forth from my eyes. “The things you do, you know, every time I see a Dragoon fighting, it makes me feel small. Small and helpless. I wish I had the kind of power you did. The power to fight the way you do.”

The Commodore grinned and thumped my chest with her hoof, knocking the wind out of me a little. “Well, come on then! Let’s get you hench.”

“What?”

“Oh, how do you lot say it? Ripped. Yoked. Buff as a yak. Take it from me, all that talk of earth pony strength is bollocks. Anypony can get that strong, even soft little unicorns like you. The only thing you need to do is commit.”

The Commodore leapt to the center of the room, the work lights pooling around her hooves like stage lighting. A jaunty tune began to play. Then, I saw something I never thought I’d ever see.

Commodore Cake broke into fucking song.

With strong sinews, you can be remade, a warrior without compare,

Reborn anew, in our last brigade, a mare beyond despair.

“Where the fuck is that music coming from?” I muttered.

I yelped as Cake’s foreleg wrapped around my neck and she yanked me over to a weight bench and ushered me right into my training montage.

Trials and tribulations, dogging our heels every day,

Wicked alien monsters, who see us as their prey,

Cultivate inner strength, revel in the power that you gained,

Rise up on your hooves, and keep your body trained!

I was sweating my cunt off. She had me pressing eight hundred kilos for reps. The bar was fucking bending in the middle. She had me doing push-ups, sit-ups, and lunges. I was dripping and covered in dirt from the mine floor.

It’s not enough to annoy us, they want to completely destroy us,

Cake pirouetted gracefully. I had no idea she knew how to do ballet.

And dance on our bones,

And live in our homes,

And keep us as pets,

Are you tired of it yet?

Commodore Cake held her hoof to my cheek.

We are better than them, in every conceivable way,

We’re stronger, smarter, and faster, and we are here to stay,

I was doing pull-ups. I hated pull-ups. It was such a difficult maneuver for quadrupeds, and bipeds made it look easy.

With strong sinews, you can be remade, a warrior without compare,

Reborn anew, in our last brigade, a mare beyond despair.

When we were done, the both of us were panting, lying on our backs, side-by-side. My muscles were on fire. I’d never felt anything quite like it before, even in basic.

“A little pony-supremacist, don’t you think?” I said.

“It’s true,” she said. “No other species in this universe holds a candle to us. I mean, think of the average Lesser Archon, of which I’ve been lucky to see only two. Smells like low tide, tentacles for legs, head flared like a stallion’s dick. Do you really see yourself as inferior to that? What about the damarkinds? Stupid furballs that think only with their pricks. The satyrs are weak. Appallingly so. Weak and hedonistic degenerates. Their only solace is in numbers. None of them compare to us. They don’t have magic, they don’t have our strength and endurance, and they don’t have our technological prowess. So, what do they have?”

I was never particularly fond of any of them myself, but this was something else. This was ugly. Too ugly to have come from the Commodore’s pretty mouth. I could see the glint of cold hatred in her eye. I could see the wheels turn in her head as she fantasized about slaying them all. Though I would have readily agreed with her at one time, I wasn’t comfortable with it now, especially not with two cleomanni now under my command.

I turned towards the Commodore. “If they’re all so pathetic compared to ponies, as you say, then why are we the ones living in a Celestia-fucking salt mine?”

“That’s beside the point, Sergeant.” Commodore Cake frowned. “We have much to be proud of, and very little to be ashamed of.”

Honestly, I was scared. I was afraid of what I was. Of my heritage. I reached out with my forelegs and held my hooves in front of my face, turning them over. I had hooves that could crush a satyr’s bones in an instant, and the Commodore wanted to make me even stronger. She wanted to make me into a monster.

“So, ma’am,” I said. “You can sing, you can dance, you’re one hell of a drill instructor, and you also feed Confederate jackholes their own teeth on a regular basis. Is there anything you can’t do?”

“We’re not good at love, darling,” she said.

I looked over at her with concern. “Really?”

“You can always stop taking altrenogest. For us, it’s permanent. We can never quite turn it on, because of our augmentations.”

“Damn. Well, how come there aren’t any stallions in the Dragoons?”

“Not possible,” she said. “The Matrons reproduce by means artificial. To put it bluntly, by artificially fertilizing an egg with another egg. One must attain the rank of Star Cross before even being considered for bearing a Dragoon child. They always select the purest genetic stock. That’s why I look like this.” She waved her hoof over her uncannily, disturbingly beautiful features.

She pulled off one of her leg warmers and showed me one of her legs. Commodore Cake was like a living statue hewn from muscle and bone. She was freakish. I tilted my head in idle wonder at how the muscles rippled beneath her flesh. It was hypnotic, like staring at a spinning top.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re built like a brick shithouse.”

“You could be, too. Why don’t you start training with me every day, Sergeant? Better than ruminating on what we’ve lost. It’ll get the juices flowing in the right direction. What say you?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

We hoof-bumped to seal the deal. I had a feeling I was going to enjoy my time in Tar Pan.

// … // … // … // … // … //

Cicatrice supervised me as I performed the Invocation of the King in his makeshift ritual chamber. I lay down in the circle, applied the henbane, and spoke the incantations. He’d made me rehearse it ten times before doing it for real. I sighed with relief when the process was complete.

“Very good, Sergeant,” he said. “You mess any part of this ritual up, and the Archons will literally make you their bitch. Continue to do it like this, and there won’t be any problems.”

“How long will I have to do this for?” I said.

“Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said, my dear?” Cicatrice frowned. “For the rest of your life. We have never identified a safe, effective method to break the curse. Your soul has been tainted. Permanently.”

I let out a wearied sigh. “At least tell me we’ve got enough henbane and candles.”

“Well, you see, about that.” Cicatrice scratched his head. “My one and only supplier bought the farm, and we’re down to one jar. Sorry, but you’re probably going to succumb to the curse in another month or two.”

I stared at him, eyes wide, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Why?” I squeaked.

Cicatrice let out a thick, raspy guffaw. “I’ve got crates and crates of the stuff. You’re fine.”

I huffed in exasperation. “Jerk.”

The old stallion climbed down from his perch and clapped his hooves together. “You ready for your first real lesson in dark magic?”

“Yes.” I nodded, still a little woozy from the henbane. “Please.”

“Well then, let us begin. First, you know of the six major spectra, correct?”

“Magic 101.” I sighed.

“Well, did you know that they each have their own associated personalities and emotions?”

I tilted my head. “Huh? Really?”

We both took a seat on the floor, directly across from each other. Cicatrice’s magic laboratory in the salt mine had instacrete flooring, unlike many of the others, which were still bare dirt.

“Arcane magic is associated with wisdom and forbearance, while Elemental magic represents unrestrained passion. Light magic is the domain of kindness and generosity, while Dark magic draws on hatred, fear, and envy. Order magic is rooted in honesty, while Chaos magic gains power in deceit. Notice anything?”

“Dark magic involves a wider variety of emotions. Negative ones, but still, wider variety.”

“Exactly. It occupies a larger domain of thought than any of the others. That makes it easier to augment. If you feel hate, you can use it. If you feel fear, you can use it. If you feel envious or covetous, you can use that, as well. Why do you think I demand that my students show me blatant disrespect?”

I shrugged. “So you always have a certain amount of hatred that you can use.”

Cicatrice did a creepy little grin. “Precisely, my dear. Unresolved tension and anxiety are another major source of power for a dark magician, especially illusionists like you. You shouldn’t be taking anxiolytics like you are. That can weaken you. Do you fear death? Do you ever feel like you want to cower and hide from a terrible fate? There is dark power in those emotions. For an illusionist, cowardice is not a weakness. It is a source of tremendous strength. Only those who know the true depths of fear can weave the finest illusions.”

“I—what?”

“You, Sergeant Storm, are capable of concealing yourself for such incredible lengths of time because deep down, you fear. You fear dying unfulfilled, a wet smear on the battlefield, a charred corpse in your cockpit, or whatever fate may come. You want to be normal. You want to raise a family. Your future is much, much bleaker than that, and you know it.”

I let out a dismissive snort. “I feel personally attacked.”

“It’s true, isn’t it? Your fixation on your dead fiancé is because you see him as a thread that you can pull that will unravel the nightmare that is your existence. For you, he represents an escape hatch into another realm; a parallel universe where we won the war and you became a happy wife and a happier mother.”

“Shut—shut up.”

I was getting pissed. He didn’t stop there. He just kept going and going.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

I stared at the floor, despondent. “Raising foals isn’t everything, you know. It’s silly that it’s expected of mares. And women, I guess, if my little chats with the younger Granthis are anything to go by.”

“Of course. Everyone forges their own path. For some, the life of a mother may seem droll. Generic, even. What a demotion that would be for you. Who in their right mind would give up the excitement and adventure of being a Charger pilot, just to be a housewife?”

“I would.” I looked up at him. “You think being a Charger pilot is so great, why don’t you try it? Yeah, it’s fun to defy gravity. Yeah, it’s fun to stomp around and scare the fuck out of people. But when the fighting starts, you have to commit yourself to the mindset that you’re going to win, no matter what, and woe to any who stand in your way. And then, once you’re all done, what do you have? Rubble and corpses. That’s what I do for a living, Your Excellency. I’ve taken so many lives out of this world, why is it such a mystery that I wish I could put a few back in?”

“And undo your life’s work?” Cicatrice grinned. “Why? Just accept what you are. You’re a pilot. You are a being that sows terror and reaps souls. That’s not something that most ponies can say of themselves.”

I gritted my teeth in rage. “I want—I—dammit! The hell are you pushing my buttons like this for?”

He pointed his hoof at me. “For that. You feel that? That anger? That’s the first step. Now, how do you feel about me?”

When I spoke, it was through grit teeth. “Like I wanna knock your fucking lights out, Your Excellency.”

“Perfect,” Cicatrice said. “Then we’re ready to begin.” Cicatrice tossed a foam practice knife in the air and caught it in his hoof. “I want you to make me stab myself. I’ve let my wards down but put up delayed dispels that will undo anything that you do after a short time. Do it. In old Equish. Hate, Torment, Mind.”

I stood and charged my horn, real hatred animating my movements. “Doz, Karetta, Kayo!”

I could feel his flesh in the grip of my magic. It was as if his nervous system was an extension of mine, like his whole body was a tumor growing from my head. It was unutterably strange. I accessed the bundle of nerves in his shaking, resisting legs and, with some difficulty, drove the point of the foam knife into his neck.

There was a bright flash as the dispel went off, the blowback giving me a splitting headache. I sat down with a pained grunt, rubbing my head. “Dammit, could’ve told me about that part!”

“You’ve got to let go before a dispel or, Luna forbid, a counterspell actually goes off. You’ve got to feel it before it happens. The slight tingle is a warning. You’ll get used to it eventually.”

“What was the point of all that?” I said. “Fuck, dude. I’m not sure I wanna do this anymore.”

“Quitting already? It’s just a little exercise. Not like I expect you to use that move in combat. In fact, I expressly forbid it. You’ll fuck your mind real quick that way. The Body-Seize is one of the most basic forms of mind control. Crude and primitive, it turns the victim into a remote-controlled puppet. Imagine if a man has a gun leveled at you, and right before he can pull the trigger, you nudge his aim a little bit off-target, all without even a hint of levitation magic. The best part is, it’s extremely efficient. If you practice, you can make someone trip over themselves from a hundred meters away while barely exerting your magic.”

“How?”

“Like you just did with me. You make the target’s own muscles work against them. You can even cause debilitating pain and muscle cramping if you force certain regions of the body to contract. You don’t have to resort to killing with it. It can be quite potent in the right hooves, unleashed at the right moment. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t put off a glow like levitation does. Truly skilled practitioners can break a satyr’s arm with his own muscle spasms. No warning, no time for them to react. Only pain.”

“Still didn’t answer my question, Cicatrice.”

The old stallion smiled evilly as he eased back into a smug and lackadaisical reclining posture, resting his chin on his hoof. “I just wanted to see if you could hone your anger into a weapon, and you can. Most of my students don’t actually pass that one on the first try, but you? You hate very acutely, my dear, and you channel it adeptly, too. You’re a natural. You must be bottling something up.”

I cried out in surprise as Cicatrice’s magic struck my horn and began drawing something out of it. A bright red cloud began to coalesce above my head. I felt the anguish and hatred seep out of me, leaving a void of calm and serenity in its place.

“What the hell are you doing?!” I said.

“Oh, wow!” Cicatrice grinned. “Very highly concentrated.”

“Concentrated what? What the hell is that?”

“Your anger.”

Equestria was not a particularly superstitious culture. Yes, magic existed, but it was a known quantity; it was researched, catalogued, and understood practically the same as any other science. This was like something from ancient unicorn myth. He’d pulled my very emotions out of my head.

“How the fuck did you do that?” I was filled with wonder and awe. I couldn’t even get particularly mad, because he’d already torn my anger right from my skull.

“Magic. Real magic, not those pissant parlor tricks they teach most of you kids. Did you know that if you bound this raw essence to something like, oh, a dart, or a throwing knife, or something like that, and then you hit some poor cleomanni bastard with it, he’d go completely berserk? That’s one possible use. A crude and unsophisticated use, but a use nonetheless. It’s even better when used in enchanting.”

Cicatrice pulled out a ruby pendant and I watched in stunned amazement as the red cloud was pulled into the lozenge-cut gemstone like a vacuum cleaner sucking up smoke. The ruby and the hammered brass pendant glowed bright red with congealed rage.

“Ruby and brass,” Cicatrice said. “That is the materia that lies on the same part of the spectrum as hatred, indignation, and zeal for justice. This pendant is highly charged after being filled with your considerable energies. If a spell were bound to it, the enchantment could function at a high degree of efficiency for years and years.”

The old codger levitated the pendant over to me, draping its necklace over my neck and letting it hang from my chest. I could feel my own rage sealed within it, interacting with the thaumatic field gestalt.

“So, you’re saying I can store my anger in this thing?” I said.

“No, my dear. Anger is merely hatred that has not yet fully matured. Don’t stop at anger. Cultivate hatred.”

“Not a problem,” I muttered. “Plenty to hate out there.”

“Now, what I am about to tell you must not leave this room,” Cicatrice said. “Do you understand me, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I mean it.” Cicatrice snarled. “A word of this to anyone, and I’ll make your death look like an accident.”

I swallowed nervously. “Of course, Your Excellency.”

Cicatrice sighed. “Humans, or terrans—those are the words for the species that the Vargr are, by the way—had a different understanding of magic from us. What we call the thaumatic gestalt, they referred to as the noosphere. They knew exactly how the mind produces magic fields, they knew how quintessence worked, and they knew how to manipulate those fields with incredible precision using semi-organic computers that made diagrammatic engines look like toys. All this, despite not being particularly magical themselves. We think they may have had some form of group magic or vague extrasensory perception capabilities, but we’re not sure.”

I blinked a few times. “Wow, that’s, uhh, that’s kind of a big bombshell to drop on me all at once, dude. How do you know all this? I thought all we had were fragments of their text.”

“We have more than that. Actual samples of their tech. Much of it is old and degraded, but the hints of how it was constructed remain.” Cicatrice leaned in towards me, his expression grave. “The terrans were the masters of this region of the galaxy, for who knows how long, but they did something stupid. Their hubris attracted the wrong kind of attention.”

My heart was pounding with fear, my breathing disturbed. “The Archons.”

“Correct. That’s just what we’ve been able to piece together from our artifact digs. As you know, they’re not too keen on telling us what happened to their people over a cup of tea. Now, I ask you, where is the evidence of human civilization? Where are they now? Have you ever even heard of a human before? Does the name Terran Concord ring any bells?”

My eyes traced downward in grim contemplation. There was nothing. Not even a single word about them in our history books. Any ruins or dig sites that existed were black projects well beyond the purview of any civilian academics who lacked proper clearance. Humans were completely unknown, and that meant they practically didn’t exist anymore.

The ruin that befell them must have been apocalyptic in scope.

“Salzaon,” I said. “He used the same word. Human. I didn’t know what he meant, at the time.”

“He knows, too. Most of the wealthier and better educated cleomanni know something or another about the Concord. You think Confederate Military Intelligence are stupid? You think they don’t comprehend what’s lurking out there just as well as we do? They’re compromised. Who knows how many high-level Mil-Int members are already infected by the Archons’ Kiss? Who knows if there’s a rogue faction within Mil-Int that already recognizes this, and is currently trying to purge the infected from their ranks? Do you see where I am going with this?”

I nodded. “There is such a faction. And you are in contact with them.”

“You’re sharper than you look.” Cicatrice waved his hoof at me. “You also understand why you must keep this a secret, correct?”

“There may be infected ponies in our own ranks that we don’t know about.”

Cicatrice’s brows furrowed in genuine worry. “Well, that’s just the problem. There aren’t. Not in this resistance cell. You’ve all had routine checkups and blood tests, but you’ve also had other lab work conducted without your knowledge. The sickness cannot hide. The genetic markers and tissue changes are blatantly obvious in a gene sequencing assay. And yet, there is a mole.”

My blood ran cold. “Who?”

“We don’t know. That’s the problem. You and your squad are cleared of suspicion, however. Even Granthis, that stupid cunt.”

“Hey.” I frowned. “She took up arms against the Confederacy without hesitation. She’s one of us.”

“Is she?” Cicatrice’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “How could she not even know what’s inside her body?”

“She passed a lie detector test.”

The Magister grunted derisively. “Of course she did. She comes from a race of professional liars.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I get it. Satyrs are shitheads. But Private Granthis and Private Armagais are my shitheads. I’ve got them handled.”

“Do you? Are you prepared for disappointment if they’re not as friendly as you think?”

“What, you think they’re deep-cover agents sent to infiltrate us? Really?”

“Well, look at the results.” Cicatrice shrugged. “We’re less a base. If they really were spies, then Salzaon has a couple of deniable assets that have been struck from the Confederacy’s records. Now, why would he want that?”

“Maybe he planned this,” I said. “Maybe he knows about the Archon-tainted in his own ranks and is using this as an opportunity to plant some eyes and ears in the resistance, and to have an asset on the outside. Namely, his own daughter. Someone who, conveniently, doesn’t exist and can no longer be tracked from his side. Maybe he thought she was in danger and he decided to leave her in our care before the Archons got to her. Maybe he thinks he’s manipulating her, and us, into solving his little Archon problem for him.”

“Ah, yes.” Cicatrice grinned wide. “You’re properly paranoid. You’re perfect.”

I raised a brow. “For what?”

Cicatrice hoofed over a thick manila envelope. “Here, your orders for you and your squad, Sergeant. This is all part of your current assignment and amends any previous orders you may have received. I’ve already cleared everything with Captain Garrida, and she’s approved you for caster use. You belong to me, now. Get your people combat-ready as quick as you can. We have a job already lined up for you. Sadly, your Charger won’t be ready in time for it, but you wouldn’t be able to use it anyway. This will require subtlety.”

I performed a curt bow. “Yes, Your Excellency.”

“By the way, your suspicions are probably correct, Sergeant. Scout reports indicate Vargr activity in the vicinity of Ghastly Gorge as of a few hours ago. They traced us back, somehow. They would not have been nearly as merciful as Sal was. Notice how little damage he actually did to us? Let’s not kid ourselves. He could’ve led with a few bunker busters, easy. He didn’t have to attempt a costly infantry assault. He wasn’t trying to kill us. He was trying to drive us out before we got hit.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. He didn’t seem to know about the Vargr.”

Cicatrice let out a loud, rasping guffaw. “He played you. He played his daughter, too. Everything the satyrs do is an act. Deception is their stock and trade.”

“Fuck,” I whispered. “That’s so fucked up.”

“Indeed, it is. Too bad Sal still has to keep up appearances to his own men, and to the infiltrators in his midst. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The pendant. Would you like to know how to use it?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

// … // … // … // … // … //

I visited Captain Garrida as she convalesced in the infirmary we’d set up in the mine. She had an infection and was running a fever. She’d needed a complicated laparoscopic procedure performed by skilled surgeons that Cicatrice had flown in specifically for that purpose.

The linnaltan by the name of Edmara Vinhark was present as well. Her crest feathers vibrated in delight as she received a stack of bits in payment for the supplies that our surgeons had needed to treat both Garrida’s wounds sustained during the attack on our base and my own after the botched outpost raid.

The unhinged and obsequiously friendly alien had a three-wheeled tuk-tuk that served as her snake oil wagon, and she’d driven it all the way into the mine, down our lift and into the lower chambers. The auto rickshaw was an uncharacteristically colorful and cheerful thing, adorned with all manner of vials and flasks and topped with a banner that read Mama Vinhark’s Mobile Dispensary.

The alien grinned when she turned and saw me approach. “Ah, Sergeant! It’s good to see you alive and well. You look a little roughed up, though. You doing okay? Need any chemicals only I can provide?”

“Yeah.” I giggled. “I’m having a little problem. Y’see, there’s a little black rain cloud following me everywhere I go, and basically, you couldn’t find one drop of fucking serotonin in my brain even if you tapped my head like a maple tree.”

“I know just the thing.” Vinhark pulled open one of the wooden drawers on the back of her auto rickshaw and tossed me a little plastic baggie. “First one’s free.”

I caught it out of mid-air with my levitation, examining the whitish powder inside. “What’s this? Hey, is this what I think it is?”

“The one true cure for post-traumatic stress.” Vinhark twirled her claws as she gesticulated for emphasis. “And this world has done its best to hurt you, dearie.” Her brow knit with concern. “I can always tell. You on SSRIs? If you have this, you won’t need them.”

“This is molly, isn’t it?” I smiled. One of the favorites of partygoers back in Dodge. That, and coke. I’d been known to partake on occasion, long ago. Went great with sex, loud music, and having sex while playing loud music. Could send a mare straight to the fucking moon.

“Shh, not so loud. Everyone will want one. Gettin’ a little low.” Edmara boarded her rickety little auto rickshaw and cranked up its burbling, smoking two-stroke. “Stay alive, my sweeties! You’re my best customers. You actually pay.”

I watched her conveyance recede into the darkness of the tunnel, its noisy and smelly little engine still audible long after it had disappeared from sight. I smiled at my haul. It wasn’t just a few crystals, either. It was a whole damn bag.

“My very own fairy godmother.” I snickered to myself as I pocketed the divine substance. “She must’ve read my mind.”

I trotted up to the infirmary they’d set up, freezing when I saw Garrida. She was in a bad way, her feathers mussed and her eyes lidded and dazed. Every now and then, the Captain groaned in pain, clawing at the air. Even in their hushed tones, I picked up words like peritonitis and bowel resection from the surgeons attending her. The Gaff’s sword had pierced her gut, giving her a nasty infection. The Stormtroopers wouldn’t let me see her. They shooed me off when I approached.

No one was sure if the Captain would make it. She was in a bad way. The Confederacy were after us. Our entire cell was standing on the brink of annihilation, and yet, everyone kept on doing what they usually did, as if nothing had changed. It was the only way we could cope.

I opened the baggie of white crystalline powder. Ate a little bit. Swirled it under my tongue. Put some on my lips. The high came on quick. It was exceptionally pure. I spent fifteen minutes standing around in a darkened, lonely corner of the base with Lucky hovering over my shoulder playing music, bobbing my head to a tune that was all bass and no melody. After a while, I stumbled into the section of the mine that Granthis had converted into her quarters.

I pushed the tarp aside and proceeded into the room beyond. What I found was like a microcosm of cleomanni culture. A torn Confederate banner was hanging in the corner. Mardissa’s few worldly possessions, including a few liquor bottles and that gaudy tea set of hers, were arrayed on a chipped wooden table. I still couldn’t believe the salvage teams had bothered to recover all our stuff from the Vulture wreck before the second nuke went off.

Private Granthis sat on a cot in the corner, fiddling with the point of a knife and trimming her fingernails with it. She greeted me with a smile.

The cleomanni woman was hilariously direct. “Ahh, so you are down to fuck,” she said. “Well, come on, Storm. No use standing over there.” She patted on the other end of the tiny cot.

“I don’t need sex.” I turned and fixed her with sad eyes. “I just want someone to hold me.”

Granthis’ smile fell. I mounted the cot, planting my forehooves beside her thighs, and gently, we folded into each other, snuggling up close. The pain poured out of my soul as the high intensified. I was crying, but I wasn’t sure if the tears that fell down my cheeks were tears of happiness or sadness or something in-between. It was a necessary purge.

I didn’t want to fuck her. If we fucked, we’d lose something magical. She’d cease to be my surrogate sister and would become something else entirely. What I wanted was far more innocent. More pathetic. I wanted her warmth. I wanted her touch.

As we lay on our sides, face to face, our limbs wrapped around each other, I could feel her breathing. I could feel our souls unite as the barriers between us broke down. The hatred and fear soaked out of my body. My ego fell away from me and the heavens opened up and embraced the two of us. It was wonderful.

“I miss my family,” I muttered. “I miss my home. It wasn’t perfect. We didn’t always get along. My dad hurt me, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But it was home. I’m tired of hurting people. I’m tired of being hurt. When does it end?”

“You ponies are full of love,” Granthis said. “Hurting others isn’t in your blood. I see that, now. You’re like perpetual children.”

“I’m plenty grown,” I said. “I know how the world works. It favors predators over prey. Don’t you think that’s cruel?”

“It’s not cruel, ma’am. It just is what it is.”

“All of us were forced to be something we’re not. You said you wanted to paint. Well, I wanted to start a family. I wanted to have happy, healthy foals. I wanted to raise them in a sane and just world where they didn’t have to fear for their lives. I wanted to create that world for them even if I had to fight and kill for it.”

“That’s overrated,” Mar said. “Just accept that the world is crazy and full of perverts and dupes and greedy fools, and learn to deal. If you’re waiting on a just world, you’re going to be waiting a long damn time.”

“Your kind took so much from mine,” I said. “Every day of my civilian life felt like—like an execution. Like I was being led off to the gallows. I had no control over my future. I had no idea when those air raid sirens would go off, or when my house would be turned into a bunch of smoldering sticks strewn across our lawn.”

“Sergeant, I don’t—”

“I enlisted because I wanted power. I wanted power because I was afraid. I was sick to death of living in fear. I have nightmares, Mar. Vivid nightmares. In them, I’m always powerless to fight back. In my dreams, these shadowy figures made of teeth and claws always kidnap me and my sisters effortlessly. That was the future I had to look forward to, before I joined the Army. That’s still the future I still have to look forward to if I don’t give it my all fighting for the resistance. Hell, they already got Hoodoo and Windy. I’m the only one left. I’m afraid, Mar. I’m so afraid, all the time. I’m scared. I’m scared!”

“Storm, what—”

I hugged her tight, the words tumbling out of my mouth as my high began to peak. “I’m scared! I’m scared! I’m always scared!”

“What did you take?” Mar slowly ran her hand through my mane, gently massaging behind my ears. It felt amazing.

“Methylenedioxymethamphetamine.” I was amazed I could pronounce that correctly.

Mardissa’s eyes widened. “You took one of the most powerful anxiolytics in the galaxy and you’re still afraid? Wow. I had no idea you were hurting like this, sweetie.”

“I love you,” I said. “I love you like a sister, Mar. I don’t wanna lose you. I don’t wanna lose any more family. I’m not gonna send you all to your deaths. We’re gonna win this. We’re gonna make it out alive. We’re gonna be friends in whatever comes after. I promise you. I promise you that.”

“Storm. Wow. I’m touched. Seriously.”

“I don’t know who could throw away a daughter like you. You’re family. You’re family to me! To think, that one could throw away such treasure!” I nestled in close to her. I wanted that closeness. I wanted it. We didn’t need anything as base as sex. Our skin and fur communicated everything like electric fire. This was something that ran deeper. We were falling into each other.

“Why the fuck did I ever hurt ponies?” Mar said. “So much nicer to snuggle them instead. I missed my fucking calling.”

It was an unfair cosmos indeed that drove loving creatures like us into the jaws of hatred.

“Love! Love! All I am is love!” I repeated the word over and over in the idiot haze of my high.

All one needed was love. Love, and nothing else.

// … // … // … // … // … //

When I awoke, disentangling my sweaty body from Mar’s sleeping form very slowly to avoid waking her, I hated myself. I hated everything. Hate. Hate and shame. The vestiges of my ego had returned, and with them, all the little fears I’d accumulated over the years that had taught me to despise basically everyone, myself most of all.

The first thing I did was look for a mirror, and upon finding it, I noticed that my mane was mussed and my pupils were dilated. I felt like I had the worst hangover ever, like someone had taken an ice pick to my head and rooted around inside my skull.

I let out a quiet groan. “Fuck. Now I remember why I quit.”

Molly was the greatest thing ever, until the horrid come-down. I wanted to sleep that part away, but I had work to do, and aside from the occasional brain fade and muscle twitch, I was eager to get to it. My brain circuits had been pleasantly rewired. I had several days of elevated mood to look forward to, as soon as the hangover was gone.

I looked at Mar over in her cot as she slept peacefully. Do I really love her like that? Like a sister? I felt guilty. It was strange. Somehow, I wished I really was her sister. I wished that I’d gone to war in her stead. She could’ve stayed home. She could’ve been something else. Someone better. But for that to be true, I would’ve had to be both a satyr and Salzaon’s daughter, and I wasn’t exactly sure who could suffer the indignity of either of those things for very long.

I’d seen Mar’s worst side. I’d been hunted by her with a friggin’ grenade launcher with a sword bolted to it. We’d duked each other until we were a pile of busted noses, split lips, and blackened eyes. It was a strange way to make a friend, and yet, we also brought out the sweetness in each other in a way no one else did.

I allowed myself a small smirk. “Yeah. She is family to me.” My smile evaporated off my face. “I don’t know if I can afford to lose any more, though.”

My strength renewed, my resolve emboldened, I reached into my saddlebags and unsealed my orders from Cicatrice, quickly reading them over.

“Vanhoover, huh?”

// … // … // … // … // … //

2174 SSC

Twilight Sparkle

The Ghastly Gorge Test Range was a whirlwind of activity, groups of Charger technicians milling about as armored security vehicles patrolled the perimeter. Assembly and trials of the first Mirage prototype were ongoing at Site 7.

I stared down into the bowl of oatmeal slop on the table in front of me, stirring it while ruminating idly. It had gotten hard and cold while I was going over reports from the latest test. The parts we were using were below-spec and there had been some issues. We had a joint collapse while out on a run. Our test pilot got banged up and was in the infirmary getting painkillers and an ice pack for the goose egg on her head. The remainder of the frame for production serial number 001 would have to be inspected to check for stress fractures and then recertified.

In a fit of rage, I knocked the bowl of oatmeal off the table, sending it skidding across the floor. I leaned back in my chair and sighed. So many setbacks. Not enough time. Every minute wasted meant countless lives lost. I buried my head in my hooves. The stress was getting to be too much. The eyepatch that I wore over my vintage, first-of-its-kind Argus Oculocycle implant to avoid scaring ponies was itching me. I was too worn out from work and didn’t feel like keeping up a glamor spell to hide my disfigurement.

The HEMAWS wasn’t ready. It wouldn’t be ready for years. The technology to finish it didn’t exist.

The power requirements were beyond anything our reactors could output. Even cutting-edge polywells weren’t up to the task. We needed something with more oomph. A lot more.

Antimatter was out of the question. We didn’t have militarily useful quantities of the stuff. More a lab curiosity than anything else. There were some ongoing experiments I was overseeing that promised things like pocket stars, but working prototypes were always just beyond our reach.

“If only the ancients would let us have a look at their tech,” I whispered to myself. “This war would have been over centuries ago.”

As I stood with a sigh, rolling my shoulders in my black Conclave hoodie, a young Charger tech walked into the empty mess hall that presently served as a glorified break room. He stiffened as he saw me approach. At my full height, I towered over him. He looked like he’d never seen an alicorn before.

“Your Majesty!” The stallion bowed so quickly, he nearly slammed his face into the concrete floor.

“Calm down, dammit,” I said. “I have a name, it’s Twilight Sparkle. Gosh, you look like an anteater digging for termites. Have some pride, will you? We’re all in this together. Now, if you would be so kind as to grab that bowl and toss it in the sink, I’ll get us both something to eat, and we can talk about how the Mirage project is going. How does that sound?”

I grinned and flipped my eyepatch up. I willed my cybernetic eye to rotate the infrared cam to the primary position and bring him into focus, my implant whirring quietly as the oculocycle’s carriage turned. I closed my organic left eye, taking in all the data overlaid in the right half of my field of vision. I could see his body heat in a rainbow of false color. With a little more image processing, courtesy of my exocortex, I could see his heartbeat and his stress level. Elevated, irregular pulse. The next words to leave his mouth would be lies.

“Your Majesty, I have always respected your work, and I would be remiss if I did not show you the deference that you are due,” he said.

“Bullshit,” I muttered. “You hate this assignment. The Mirage A202 is a failure and a boondoggle. You are frightened and stressed out merely by my presence, and you’re eager to be transferred out of here just to escape all this.”

“I—I—uh!” The stallion practically folded into himself as he withered beneath my cybernetic gaze.

I bared my teeth at him. “Stop blubbering you fucking imbecile! I’m not going to punish you. I am not here on parade duty. I am here to do my job as head of the Conclave, and I want real talk from my crews. Clean that shit up, and let’s talk. I am going to fix this Charger if it fucking kills me, do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

While the Charger tech scooped my lunch into a garbage bin, I fixed both of us some instant noodles, yawning tiredly as I levitated a plastic bowl into the microwave. No time for real cooking, and I didn’t bring an entourage, either. I was much too busy for the luxuries commonly accorded to an Empress. I wasn’t about to do all my work from a conference room, ordering ponies around from afar, aloof on my lofty perch. Not when I’d been at this for centuries next to their decades. I stared tiredly at the bowl as it rotated in the microwave, time seeming to lose all meaning. When it was done, I swapped it with the other one.

As the tech sat down, I passed him a piping hot bowl of soup with my levitation, sighing tiredly as I resumed my seat and began to dig into my own meal.

“Wish this place served hayburgers,” I muttered. “So, give me the rundown. Why did it break?”

“Too much load on the frame,” he said. “Snapped like a twig.”

I frowned. “I designed that frame myself. I spent sleepless hours coming up with the CAD drawings that were delivered to this facility in a secure lockbox. It can’t break. Not like that.”

I set a portable holoprojector disc on the table and brought up a diagram of the failure, sweeping through it with my hoof, spreading my forehooves to zoom in and enlarge the break. I raised my eyebrow at what I saw. There was something I hadn’t noticed before. With a pinching motion, I joined the two virtual parts together, examining them in detail, rotating and zooming until I spotted the culprit.

“Stress riser,” I said. “Right there. You see it?”

“Well, yeah, I—uhh—it’s pretty obvious, now that you point it out.” The technician was sweating bullets.

Though I was practically livid already, I kept my tone even, fixing my unblinking stare on him. “That little machined recess right there, next to that boss on sub-assembly 217-A. That wasn’t in my original plans. Why was this material removed? What did you crazy motherfuckers do to my Charger frame? This isn’t repairable! You can’t fill it in. The whole part has to be machined from a solid billet, and this one is already under my specified dimensions. It’s like putting a mustache back on after shaving it. It’s not possible! Did you do this butchery to the other legs, too? Fuck me. Fuck me running!”

The tech looked like he was on the verge of pissing himself. “Material had to be removed. We had to cut weight because we couldn’t get the high-strength duostrand you requested.”

I fixed him with a wide, lidless gaze, my jaw slowly going slack. “What. What?!” I pounded my hoof on the table. “No, no, no, no, no, you can’t just make executive decisions like that! Oh fuck. Oh fuck, it’s ruined! Fuck!” I was hyperventilating. Weeks of machining. Months of assembly and testing. Down the drain. “You can’t use regular duostrand because it can’t handle the load. If you put ammo and weapons on this thing, it won’t even be able to stand up. It’ll be over the tonnage limit. The HEM—uh—” Almost spilled the beans. “My other planned modular weapons systems would rip it to pieces! Why? Why did you guys think this shit would ever fly under my watch?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know about any impromptu modifications until today. We assumed it was in the original plans.”

“I can’t believe this. It’s like a nightmare. We’re going to have to scrap the whole damn frame and start over!”

“Your Majesty, I—”

I was anguished. My baby, and they ruined it. “Look, I’m not mad at you. The fucking peabrain who made the decision to screw with my design doesn’t have to answer to me. He has to answer to all the ponies we’ve just let down. I want this weapon system out there, in the hooves of our pilots, on the front lines. Saving innocent lives. Killing Confederate motherfuckers. Every hour we delay, another crowd of ponies is mowed down and bulldozed into a trench. You guys have to answer to them and their families. Not me.” My head hung low. “I’m nothing. Just an old, tired mare. Somepony who’s been doing all this shit for way too long.” Silence reigned between us. After a brief moment spent dwelling on the past, I sighed and took another bite of my soup. “So, where the hell is my high strength duostrand, then?”

“The factory was bombed, Your Majesty. Lost to a Confederate airstrike on one of our facilities on Meadowgleam during one of their most recent raids. I’m sorry.”

I sat still, dejected, dread creeping into my bones. “We’re losing.” My eye welled with tears.

I looked up at the naïve stallion in front of me, noting the lack of recognition on his face. An obvious core-worlder. He didn’t know. He’d never been near the front lines, nor did he know anyone who had. He didn’t know what they did to ponies.

The look of confusion on his face was almost painful. “I’m—sorry? What?”

“So, it really was all for nothing.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” He scratched his head.

“Look at me. You see me?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

I took a deep breath. “I have made sacrifices that you can’t possibly imagine. I have tested the very limits of morality and reason. I damned myself. I damned all of us. Look. Look at you and me, and what all of us are doing right now. Does this look like anything a self-respecting pony should be doing? Scheming up ways to gruesomely kill people in a dark bunker? Huh? Because that’s what my machines do. That’s what we’re doing, in the end. I wanted all this to mean something. If our souls are the price, then we ought to get what we’re paying for.

“Never forget what a Charger is. A Charger is for crushing people under its hooves, burning them alive with casters, tearing their faces and their fingertips off with airbursting frag, and poisoning them with nerve gas so their diaphragm is paralyzed and they die of suffocation. I suffocate people. I do it because if I did not suffocate these people, these cleomanni, they would do much, much worse to us.

“You obviously have no clue what we’re doing here or why, and that’s because you have not tasted their evil as intimately as I have. Be very glad that you and your family have never been touched by it. If we did not have the benefit of OA-13, I would have to wring each of the satyrs’ scrawny little necks myself, and it’s not like I have the free time to kill them all with my bare hooves. Have you seen me, lately? I have no life. All I do is work. If I still have the energy to do my job after a thousand years of this miserable bullshit, you nitwits can damn well do yours.”

The Charger tech’s lips trembled with fear. “Your Majesty, I—”

“I don’t care what it takes. Get me my high-strength duostrand.”

I finished my bowl of soup and tossed the soiled plastic in the trash, leaving the nameless charger tech sitting and shaking, staring straight ahead, not daring to even look at me as I departed.

I entered the main hangar, staring at the wrecked Mirage prototype that needed to be completely dismantled and rebuilt, its hulk lying at an odd angle as the techs crawled all over it, its broken leg plainly evident.

I clapped my hooves together to get their attention. “Okay, let’s take this from the top!”

// … // … // … // … // … //

2181 SSC

Mardissa Granthis

Sergeant Storm and I sat across from each other at the table, having a relaxing cup of tea. I’d lost my own native teas in the scramble to escape the murderous rage of the Vargr, but I at least still had my tea set, and the shifty street doc by the name of Vinhark had sold me some of the local varieties to brew up. They were decent enough, but still a far cry from my own stash.

Storm was still shaking off the effects of the drugs she’d taken. I couldn’t believe ponies could do that to themselves. It didn’t make me think any less of her, however. Gods knew I’d probably seek chemical relief too if I’d suffered as deeply as she had.

“I can’t believe your salvage crews had the nerve to go back out and grab all our stuff with the Vargr roaming around out there,” I said. “They have some real stones.”

“They didn’t have much of a choice,” Storm said. “I left a very valuable transmitter in the wreck of your dropship. One that can’t be allowed to fall into enemy hands. I bet they went back for that in specific, and then scooped up everything else they could while they were there.”

“So, tell me about the Equestrian Empire,” I said. “What’s your history? What’s it like, living in your nation?”

Storm looked up at me, a mixture of fear and resentment on her face, slowly melting into a blend of pride and resolve. “The Tonnanen Harredo, you mean?”

I squinted. “Those words don’t translate well.”

“Of course they don’t. Their etymology is rife with symbolism. Tonna means people. Nen means heart. People of the heart. People with a heart. Ensouled people. Or, in some sense, people who are people-shaped. Nen doesn’t just mean heart as in the organ. It means something a person has in their chest that motivates them. The resulting term is a tautology, circularly reinforcing the assertion of personhood.”

“Interesting.” I frowned. “And Harredo? What does that mean?”

“Har. Redo. Great Herd. Well, compounds in Equestrian are written backwards, so it’s more like Herd of Greatness. Other translations include Khaganate, or Empire. Harranftah means Khatun, or Empress. Our armies were divided into Seredo, or Legions. I belonged to Seredo Imrah Vakoseh. In other words, Legion 27.”

“What’s with your number system? What does imrah vakoseh actually mean?

“Imrah means sixteen. Vakoh means eight. Seh means three. Sixteen, eight, and three make twenty-seven. Every new number is the fourth multiple of the last. Thirty-two is vaimrah and forty-eight is seumrah. Sixty-four is not koumrah, there is no such word. Sixty-four is pashna. A hundred and twenty-eight is vapashna. A hundred and ninety-two is seupashna, and two hundred and fifty-six is namran. Get it? The next new word is at a thousand and twenty-four, kel, and then four thousand ninety-six, henran, and so on. Four thousand, one hundred and ninety-three is henran pashna vaimrah lah. Four thousand and ninety-six and sixty-four and two sixteens and one.”

“Oh, it’s in base-four? Oh, I get it! Because you don’t have fingers!”

“Right.” Storm nodded. “Now, count from one to sixteen in Equestrian.”

“I vaguely remember how. Lah, van, seh, koh, uhh—”

“Kolah. Four-and-one makes five.”

“I see. Kolah, kovan, koseh, vakoh, vakolah, vakovan, vakoseh, seukoh, seukolah, seukovan, seukoseh, imrah.”

“One four, two fours, three fours, and then sixteen. Very good.”

“I imagine that made algebra a bitch.” I laughed.

“For you, maybe. For us, it’s normal to break numbers down into fours. We do it without thinking very hard about it.”

“So, what was your life like before you joined the military?”

“I never told you? I was a waitress and a bartender. It was crap. The pay was terrible, the customers made me wanna throw up, and the owner was a sleazebag. I shopped around for jobs for ages before settling for one of the worst. Bartenders are part therapist, you know. I don’t know how many drunken confessions I’ve had to listen to. I lost count. One unicorn actually fessed up to robbing a convenience store at knifepoint, right in front of me. We didn’t get paid enough for that shit.”

“So, you did enlist to escape a boring life after all.” I nodded. “We have something in common, ma’am.”

Storm leaned back in her chair, her gaze averted, her eyes upset but not angry. “You still don’t get it, do you, Mar? None of us had a life. It was all just drudgery and self-medication. If any of us had a culture, it was dead and buried long before I was born. Imagine a whole nation of people so traumatized that all they do is drink, fuck, smoke, and get high. You’re a painter. You ever see Blue Bristles’ Lament series?”

“No, I haven’t, ma’am.”

“That crazy mare painted pastoral and upbeat scenes with blood that was donated by ponies who’d lost someone they loved in a Confederate massacre. The only reason I knew about it was because it was on display at the Baltimare Museum while I was out job-hunting.”

My breath hitched in my throat. “Oh.”

“Every band was a tribute band, because most of the real ones were dead. Every book, every movie, every piece of artwork, everything we made—it was full of pain. I grew up reading children’s stories that were propaganda about satyrs snatching us in the night. I did school reading assignments on maudlin existential novels written by ponies who spent their whole lives cooped up in their Manehattan apartments and contemplating the benefits of a rope around their neck. Every filmmaker aspired to craft the perfect war movie, planting false visions of triumph in our heads. Nationalist messages were everywhere, all-pervasive. Whatever the hell ponies used to be, I never got to see it. I was born too late. Too close to the tail-end of our civilization.”

“Oh, gods.” My eyes welled up with tears, threatening to spill over. “I remember how you told me the Empire dedicated most of their gross domestic product to the war effort. What was your economy actually like?”

“Externally, we mostly exported textiles and cut gemstones while accepting payment in gold. Bits are not a fiat currency, like your credits. They’re gold coinage. Always have been. Hard to imagine that ever changing. There was a sizable black market in our enchanted artifacts, and many Equestrian smugglers made a killing off that, but the Confederacy specifically forbade such trade.”

“Roguetech.” I nodded. “You naughty little devils.”

“That’s you naughty little devils ma’am to you, Private.” Storm smirked. “Well, I may be a unicorn, but I never got any of that sweet roguetech blood money. Saved barely a few grand from my bartending days. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Internally, our economy was highly militarized. We were in a state of total war. Most of our GDP went into war materiel and R&D to make better war materiel, and so on and so forth. From one end to the other, our worlds were studded with universities, laboratories, and factories wholly dedicated to cranking out scholars and engineers of warfare, along with the products of their genius. In deep and dark ritual chambers, our most skilled battlemages worked new and deadly magics, fully intending on using them to kill.”

“Sounds shady,” I said.

“Well, it wasn’t like we had much choice, what with the war and all. I know from my history lessons that the old Kingdom of Equestria was a far more peaceful place. Hell, we barely even had a standing army. Any of our neighbors could have steamrolled us, to say nothing of an interstellar invasion. It was the newly crowned Empress Sparkle who, over a thousand years ago, disbanded the Royal Guard and established her Dragoons in their place, subsequently leading our society towards a technological and engineering renaissance that culminated in the Zeppelin War.

“For the first time, we knew the horrors of machine guns, field artillery, and dying face-down in muddy trenches. Millions perished, but the Equestrian Empire eventually conquered the globe, rendering all other nations into our client states. Equus was renamed Equestria, to reflect our global dominion. This is why ponies are the dominant culture in our society. We didn’t do the prey thing and bend down and present our asses. We bitterly fought a war of conquest over our planet, and we won.”

“Wow. Okay ma’am, you’re gonna have to tell me more about that one, sometime, because that is amazing.”

Storm giggled a little. “I guess it’s your turn, now. Where the hell did the Confederacy come from?”

I stared down into my tea, not sure how I should answer. “We were slaves. Of the old Terran Concord, many tens of millennia ago. We rose up and overthrew our decadent masters. We cast them down. That was how the Cleomanni Concord came to be, in the old Concord’s image.”

Storm’s face slowly warped into a scowl, a glint of terrible recognition forming in her eyes. “Humans. Humans enslaved the cleomanni. For their own benefit. I see. It’s all starting to make sense, now. So, the emancipated slaves became the galaxy’s most brutal slavers. Ironic.”

“Don’t say that word!” I shouted.

“What word?”

“Human,” I hissed. “It’s bad luck! Don’t you see what’s happening, ma’am? The Makers are back. They’ve returned. They serve new masters, and they are vengeful, and they intend to claim all our lives!”

Desert Storm gazed down at the floor of the mine, contemplating what she’d just heard. When she looked back up and her eyes met mine, her countenance was fearful. “Well, what happened to the Cleomanni Concord, then? Last I checked, that ain’t what you call yourselves nowadays.”

I sighed. “Our golden era was not to last. Shadow Nemrin cultists unleashed an unspeakable horror upon the galaxy. The Yomgorin. Necromantic golems that assimilated all in their path, fashioning living ships from the flesh and bones of the dead. Trillions died. Whole civilizations, exterminated. The Concord fell to ashes, and the old League of Protectors was swallowed up. Only by the sacrifice of the great nemrin shamans—the ones who opposed their dark brothers—could the tide be turned against this unstoppable foe.

“The Confederacy and the FTU arose out of the fragmented martial states that survived the unimaginable death and chaos of that time, over ten millennia ago. Many of the Concord’s advanced technologies were forever lost. We never regained our former glory. In case you were wondering, this cataclysm was also the reason why we banned magic in general and golemancy in particular, except for the anti-magic prowess of the modern-day nemrin, who still regret their species’ role in that ancient calamity. Chargers may be impressive pieces of engineering, but they are still soul-bound golems, one of the most illegal things I can imagine.”

Storm’s eyes were wide with terror. “Oh fuck.”

I pulled my sketchbook from one of my overalls’ large pockets, licking the tip of a pencil and fiddling with one of my sketches. “As one of the Confederacy’s elite, I had the benefit of private tutors and a quality education. I know my history. Sergeant, that thing that was on the mountain with us, that night? That was a Yomgor Prime. Their final evolution, before they disappeared entirely. There’s no mistaking it. That was exactly what they looked like in the old legends.” I showed the Sergeant what I had drawn, and she visibly cringed. “Towering things, as black as pitch. One great and terrible slitted eye, surrounded by many lesser eyes and mouths. A head like a mushroom and many grasping tentacles for legs. They were rare and impossibly powerful creatures. It was said that if one saw you, you were cursed to die.”

Storm was visibly upset, her legs shaking. “Private, I would thank you not to show me an image or illustration of that horrid fucking thing, at least not without prior warning.”

“Sorry.” I blushed.

“Continue.”

I ran a hand through my hair nervously. “The Shadow Nemrin weren’t just trying to make a weapon. After what Cicatrice said, I see that, now. The last pieces of the puzzle have finally clicked into place. All this time, and no one ever suspected the terrible truth. Those gods-accursed nemrin cultists were trying to make living, corporeal hosts for their true masters, the Archons. Through the crucible of war and the many chaotic mutations that their creation underwent, they somehow succeeded in that goal, inflicting something truly hideous upon all of us; the actual presence of the Archons in our midst, with bodies of flesh and blood.”

Storm stood up, sweating, terrified. “We have to stop them. We have to. We don’t have a choice.”

“What if we can’t?”

“Then we’re all fucked,” she said.

I stood and paced the room with my teacup. “You know, the reason why my father ran for president in the first place was because he believed the Empire had murdered a longtime family friend of ours, an artifact hunter by the name of Sonnem Bertag. A valuable investment of ours was ruined in the process, namely, the sizable cost of his last expedition. My father campaigned to end the armistice and resume the war, and he used Bertag’s death as a sob story to win his office. I now think this was a case of mistaken identity. The Vargr hunt your scientists when they pry into the old relics of the Makers, don’t they? Well, I’m starting to think the Vargr may have been the ones who killed Bertag, likely with the full intent of reigniting our two nations’ conflict and keeping him from the relics he sought, thus killing two birds with one stone.”

“Fuck,” Storm spat. “They played us all real good, didn’t they?”

I snickered and took another sip of my tea. “Payback time, ma’am.”

“You’re damn right it is, Private.”

// … // … // … // … // … //

Desert Storm

I gazed up at the shadowed form of Black Devil, standing tall in our makeshift Charger bay. Her twin forty-millimeter cased-telescoped autocannons had been oiled up and wiped down so well, they shined a glossy black. All that was left for the technicians to do was mount the twin heavy beamcasters on the back, and she’d be combat-ready again. For that to happen, the casters needed to be range-tested and certified, a complicated process that involved placing the weapons on fixed test mounts and carefully calibrating them for hours.

Improperly calibrated HBCs were very, very temperamental and were known to occasionally fire highly divergent shots and strike the vehicle that they were mounted to, or even explode with considerable force. They needed to be kept in tune to operate correctly.

In the meantime, we had a job to do.

I turned and faced my troops, who’d lined up for the briefing at 1300, as I’d instructed. There was worry etched on a couple of their faces, but the ominous, looming form of my Charger inspired courage in most of them, and it showed.

“People, listen up,” I said. “Magister Cicatrice has assigned us to a special mission. By now, you will have read your packets. You will also know why this briefing is going to be kept short. We’ve been given a Centaur for this op. This vehicle has a special mission-specific configuration, as described in your packets. This vehicle is to be kept camouflaged and out of sight, near the objective. We’re going plain-clothes for this one. Light barding, casters, knives, and grenades. Keep the emitters and the radiators under your outerwear unless we need to go loud. Private Armagais, Private Granthis, I assume you’ve trained with your gear?”

The two of them were wearing some modified armor and beamcasters that took into account their bipedal nature. The two of them nodded in affirmation.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ketros said. “A little weird, but they’re nice when you get the hang of ‘em. The radiators make it hard to wear a pack, and they jut out a little bit. Not sure how well I can move in close quarters with this thing on.”

“Unacceptable,” I said. “Consult with the armorers to get some more adjustments done until you can carry all your gear. I want all of us in tiptop shape for this. You all know what to do. Be ready to board that Centaur at 1700. Dismissed!”

The squad filtered out of the Charger bay, heading off to get their gear in order. All of them except for Corporal Cloverleaf.

She waved her prosthetic leg at me, grinning broadly. “Hey, Sergeant, ma’am.”

“How are you holding up, Corporal?” I smiled.

The green earth pony looked down at her cybernetic foreleg, admiring its paint job. “You saved my life, Sarge. I was gonna fucking end it all. But you? You showed me something different. You showed me I still have something left to live for. Thank you.”

“Not at all, Corporal. Just trying my best to keep us all in one piece.”

Cloverleaf teared up a little, smiling sadly. “I heard they got you, too, Sarge.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and my posture became more guarded. “Yeah. What of it?”

The Corporal hocked a loogie and spat on the floor of the mine. “Sick fucking bastards. Was it dingoes?”

I didn’t want any more rumors going around about the Archons. “Yep. Dimbulbs.”

I lied. I could tell by Cloverleaf’s eyes that she knew I’d lied, too.

“But, Shooting Star said—”

I cut her off right there, glaring at her. “I don’t care what she said. Drop it, Corporal. We’re not discussing what happened on that damn mountain, do you understand?”

Cloverleaf looked confused and hurt. “Y—yes, ma’am.”

I offered her a little smile, relaxing my shoulders. “You wanna hit the gym a little? Commodore Cake has been putting me through her own regimen. Really helps clean all the stress and the bullshit out.”

The Corporal’s spirits lifted immediately. “You sure, Sarge? Don’t we need to save our strength for the mission?”

“We can recover from any soreness once we reach the AO. We won’t be seeing any action for a bit until we’ve been there for a while, anyhow.”

“Let’s do it, then!”

“Race you there,” I said.

“You’re on, ma’am.”

Our giggles echoed as we broke into a gallop through the dark tunnels of the mine. I figured, if somepony was in hell, they ought to make the most of it.

// … end transmission …

Next Chapter: Record 18//Signal Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 4 Minutes