---

“Fear and panic in the air,
I want to be free from desolation and despair,
And I feel like everything I saw,
Is being swept away; well I refuse to let you go.”
Map of the Problematique, Muse.

---

HLS Majesty, August 4th, 2020.

Samantha.

“Perhaps,” Algernon Spader began, his disarming smile and genial manner entirely at odds with the military gear he wore, “we should start with some introductions.”

He took a sip of his tea and looked around the conference room, apparently noting the individual reactions of each and every person there. At least, that’s what it looked like to Samantha Yarrow. Spader was a genial looking man, even in the black military-style uniform he wore. He even had half-moon spectacles perched on his nose, making him look for all the world like a glorified Oxbridge Professor.

Sam’s father leaned forward on the table, looking thoughtful. Clad in a sleeveless Kevlar vest, Maximilian Yarrow – fifty, going on forty with the training regimen he put himself through – was an imposing figure, quite the opposite of Spader. He looked across at the other man in the room – a man in a long-sleeved naval shirt and pressed trousers, with a small smirk seemingly perpetually glued to his face.

“Maxi Yarrow,” Sam’s father introduced himself blandly. “Reavers.”

“I’ve heard excellent things about you,” the other man said, holding out his hand. “Daniel Romero: Ex Astris Victoria.”

Yarrow shook his hand, a firm clasp that was short and to-the-point. “Good to meet you away from the circus.”

Sam resisted the urge to snort. ‘The circus’ was her father’s way of referring to almost the entirety of the rest of the HLF. He respected a great many of them, but getting them together was rather like wrangling a bunch of angry cats and trying to get them to play with the same ball of yarn and push it in the same direction. The meeting where they had all signed the HLF charter had been… interesting, to say the least.

Yet somehow, in some way, Algernon Spader had managed to wrangle those cats.

“Agreed,” Romero said. “I heard about the battle on the Purity. Good job. Nice to see that we can take down Empire ships with good old fashioned effort.”

“Everything goes down with good old fashioned effort, eventually,” Yarrow replied evenly.

Romero nodded, though his smile became slightly more sardonic. “With one glaring exception.”

“The Barrier,” Spader put in.

Yarrow and Sam both glanced at Spader, whose expression was serious to the point of being uncharacteristically grim.

“What are you thinking, Algie?” Romero asked.

Algie? Sam thought, raising an eyebrow. What a nickname.

Spader smiled. “I’m thinking that you’ve got a lot of clever people, Daniel. More to the point, I’m also thinking that we need to establish a plan of action.”

“You mean a long term one, as opposed to the short term,” Yarrow said.

“Exactly,” Spader nodded. He looked back at Romero. “Maxi here is the sort of person to think long term, just like you. I suspect you two will get on well.”

Romero grinned. “Excellent. What sort of stuff you thinking of?”

Yarrow took a breath. “I’m focusing on building reliable accommodation for people displaced by the Barrier, as well as organising and equipping troops for the conflict. New bases: secure bases. Raiding groups and militias are one thing – but we need soldiers in the best gear available. There’s a lot of surplus and old guns that’ll take us far – I found a man with a collection of World War 1-vintage equipment and he practically threw the guns at me.”

“You’re planning on arming your troops with bolt-actions?” Romero asked.

“I’m planning on arming my troops,” Yarrow replied evenly.

“And you think it’ll get that bad, huh?” Romero asked.

Yarrow smirked. “Oh yes. It wouldn’t be my first, second, or third choice, but it’s better to give people something that can fire than… well, not.”

Romero nodded slowly. “Well, I think I still have a few… friends who can help out.”

Sam glanced at Yarrow, who folded his arms, a skeptical frown on his face. “Oh? How so?”

“Let’s just say, I know a guy who knows a few guys in ATC who’re prone to losing things off the backs of trucks,” Romero said, winking cheekily. “And there are an awful lot of trucks these days: who knows what might fall off the back of them?”

“ATC?” Sam asked, leaning forward. “You mean the guys who make the particle rifles and the Type-7 lasers?”

Romero actually chuckled a little at that. “Well, you know your advanced tech.”

Sam snorted. “Damn right I know my advanced tech. I used to train guys on Type-7’s.”

“That’s good experience,” Spader said, nodding. “And it brings me to another point.”

“What point?” Yarrow asked.

Spader let out a slow breath, as though mulling over what he had to say.

“Lyra Heartstrings wants tech experts,” he finally said.

Romero raised an eyebrow. “The PHL, you mean?”

“I know they’re not much at the moment,” Spader said, “but Heartstrings has the same idea we have. A multinational force that doesn’t answer to any one nation’s authority. I don’t see any reason we can’t be amiable.”

Yarrow was frowning. “Some of our people won’t like that – working with ponies and all.”

Spader gave a small frown. “You one of those people, Maxi? I thought you’d be more open minded.”

“I don’t have any opinion of entire races, that’s not my business,” Yarrow replied, ignoring any implied insult – even as Sam bristled at his side. “But you’re talking about the race that’s committing genocide against our species, the one responsible for a lot of people losing not just their homes, but their countries, entire massive parts of their cultures. And you’re talking about us. A lot of our commanders hate ponies. All ponies.”

“Why do you think Aeron, Helmetag, or Mike aren’t here?” Spader said with a humourless smile. “I like Mike and Helmetag, and Aeron’s… got his good points – if nothing else, he’s organised.” His smile faded. “But they’re in this fight for the hate, and while that’s a good motivator, it blinds them to the opportunities working with the PHL provides. That, and Helmetag’s a terrible judge of character.”

“Is he?” Yarrow asked.

“I hate to say it about old Gregor,” Spader said, “But… yes. Good at rallying troops, absolutely. This is a man who rallied people from all over Eastern Europe under his banner, who even brought Lovikov and Kraber into the fold. Good at judging said people, not as much – again, Lovikov and Kraber.”

“I can work with ponies,” Sam put in. “And they’ll need people instructing them on newtech as it comes out – I’ve got more grounding in that than most people.”

“Good,” Spader said. He looked at Romero. “Comments?”

Romero let out a breath. “I’m not opposed to working with ponies. They’re our best bet with magic, after all. The PHL… is an unknown factor, but we’ll see. Heartstrings certainly seems optimistic.”

“She does at that,” Yarrow said.

“I want to say I don’t think they’ll go far, but…” Sam said. “Well, I don’t believe it. These are ponies, griffons, and others with a hell of a grudge, ready to help out humans at any turn. They could accomplish a lot.”

“Well,” Spader said, smiling. “Whoever said optimism was a bad thing?”

Sam nodded slowly. That was true enough: optimism wasn’t the worst thing to have, not when there were people from across the world (and, with Heartstrings’ PHL, across worlds) collaborating to protect the human race.

Maybe, she thought, I’ll enjoy working with the PHL.

---

Temporary PHL Command, August 19th, 2020.

Sam Yarrow would later look back at the day she met Lyra Heartstrings and think to herself, There was a mare who had the ideals and the guts to back them up. Whatever she would later think of the PHL (and a good eighty percent of what she thought wasn’t repeatable in polite company), Lyra Heartstrings was impressive.

The little Unicorn was smiling when they met, and shook Sam’s hand with her hoof, her grip loose but strong. They met in a corridor, of all places, a bland little concrete nothing that was exactly the same as a million other concrete nothings Sam had walked through in her life. The building was only temporary, after all.

“Hi there,” Lyra said, her voice chipper and friendly, tinged with the tiniest hint of an English accent, like she’d picked it up. “You’re Sam Yarrow, our attaché from Algernon, right?”

“That’s right,” Sam replied evenly. “Got told you needed a tech expert, and Commander Spader picked me.”

“You must be good, then,” Lyra complemented her, with a smile so warm Sam might have almost believed it was genuine.

“I guess,” Sam said. “So, you’ve got problems?”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t believe,” Lyra said with a small laugh. “We’ve got a shipment of ATC gear for our human recruits, but most of them aren’t even properly military, let alone experts in… what the heck even is a powered armour, anyway?”

“You’ve got powered armour?” Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, the REV 6?” Lyra said. “Got that, a few of what they called the Type 8, a few sets of battle armour - they still haven’t finished that, what’s it, Hardball? But this stuff is supposed to be good in the meantime, even if it’s more expensive.”

Sam nodded as Lyra rattled off information. “I’ve read the specs on the Type 8. You tried them out yet? I hear there’s a coolant problem.”

“We’ve not touched them,” Lyra admitted with a small smile. “We daren’t. Not even Alex - have you met Alex?” Sam shook her head. “You probably will. Anyway, not even Alex is really that big on them yet, and he’s probably the only professional we really have.”

“I see,” Sam said, clicking her tongue. “Well, then, I’d best get to showing your people how to work this stuff, then. What about the P220?”

Lyra let out a small laugh. “Yeah, no, we sent that back. You’d have to be pretty desperate to use that piece of garbage. They told us they’d have a refined version in… what, six weeks?”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to fix your Type 8s in the meantime,” Sam said with a sigh. “But I was really looking forward to poking around the innards of the 220.”

“Well, knowing our luck, the 220a will be just as terrible,” Lyra said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, though, I’m sure we’ll keep you busy in the meantime.”

“I’m sure you will,” Sam agreed, as she followed Lyra further into the building.

Despite what would happen later, despite everything, at that moment, Sam shared the optimism that her father and Algernon Spader had shown. At that moment, Sam Yarrow believed in heroes.

One day, years later, blood in her mouth and resignation in her heart, she would look back at that moment, and wonder just how it had gone so wrong.

Next Chapter: Act One: The Resistance Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 3 Minutes