It was quiet in the conference room. Oppressively quiet. Yet, despite the echoing void of sound that was the rarely used chamber, that wasn’t the worst part for Slipshod. He could tolerate quiet. Truth be told, there were plenty of times that he yearned for a little silence every now and then. No, it wasn’t the muted aural atmosphere that was putting the earth pony off at the moment. It was the emotional atmosphere; and not just of this particular room. The whole ship...stank.

In two years, he’d never known the Galloway to taste this bitter.

Now, of course not every pony on the ship was in a good mood all the time every single day. Sometimes ponies had bad days. That was life. But those little motes of vinegar were easily lost in the mix of the otherwise prevailing upbeat mood that the majority of the crew experienced on any given day. Making for a generally pleasant dining experience for a changeling feeding off of the emotions of others.

But right now…

It was like everything in his fridge had suddenly moved past its expiration date. For the first time in two years, Slipshod was putting up every mental barrier that he could in an effort to stave off having to experience everypony’s grief and bitterness.

Not all of it was over Valkyrie, of course. Her’s hadn’t been the only life lost during those last fateful minutes of the operation. In addition to her and the member of Blood Chit’s retrieval team who’d been splattered by an autocannon burst, three other ponies had been killed as well. One of the ‘Steed Bay techs had been sliced neatly in half by debris created by the missile that had ripped into the service bay; and a pair of gunners operating one of the DropShip’s heavy energy batteries had been killed when their turret was struck by a Commonwealth PPC.

Five members of the Galloway’s crew had died in the span of a minute.

And Squelch was determined to find out exactly why.

Which was the reason that she, Slipshod, and Twilight Sparkle, were now seated in the briefing room, watching the recorded video feeds that Mig had extracted from their ‘Steeds’ gun cams. Squelch had ordered the feeds pulled as soon as the ‘Steeds were hooked up to their diagnostic umbilicals so that she could review them. Half an hour later, she called her two remaining pilots into the conference room. Twilight’s usual escort had been instructed to remain outside in the corridor, which piqued even Slipshod’s curiosity. Whatever Squelch had wanted to talk with them about, she didn’t want anypony else getting wind of it before she’d decided that they should.

Which made the earth pony a little nervous. There wasn’t a pony on the DropShip who could have not known that the operation had ended ‘poorly’. So whatever Squelch wanted to keep under wraps, it had to be something that wasn’t immediately obvious to the rest of the crew. The stallion, of course, knew a great many things that were best kept secret from other ponies on the ship. To the best he knew, his employer did not.

...Did she?

The sage green unicorn now watched the two videos simultaneously with the pilots whose ‘Steeds had recorded them as they played side by side on the room’s main screen, her chin resting delicately uptop her lightly touching hooves, as if in careful contemplation of what she was looking at. Her eyes barely even blinked as she reviewed the initial appearance of the four unidentified ‘Steeds.

Calmly, she reached out with her magic and paused the playback. Her eyes didn’t leave the screen. If anything, they got more intent as the feeds tracked back a few seconds, and then resumed again. She then paused them in the same place as before.

“Four-point-two-three-seven seconds,” the company’s owner stated coolly, having done the math based off of the feeds’ timestamps. She finally broke off the staring contest that she was somehow winning against the inanimate display screen, and turned those piercing blue eyes on Slipshod, “that’s how much time elapsed between your order to abort the mission, and the reactor power-ups of the unidentified ‘Steeds.”

The stallion winced, unable to bring himself to meet the gaze of his employer. He’d spent two hours sealed in his cockpit waiting for the ‘Steed Bay to be repressurized, preparing himself to face exactly these kinds of questions.

Oddly enough, he was responding exactly how he was afraid he would: with unforgivable silence.

“I’ll grant you,” Squelch pressed on, as though she’d anticipated exactly this sort of reaction from the earth pony, “that CLDF communications protocols are hardly a common thing to encounter...anywhere,” she nodded sagely, “a certain amount of trepidation is warranted under the circumstances. But...then we have this part:...”

The playback resumed. Slipshod closed his eyes, wincing slightly as he heard himself say, “focus fire on the assault’s left barrel! One meter down and two meters back from the shoulder joint! Twilight, get airborne and hit the heavies on their backs! Just to the right of the spine, midway down!”

Again, the playback froze. The stallion shut his eyes and shrunk further back into the chair, as though he might somehow be able to violate every known law of quantum mechanics and phase his atoms through the seat, the floor, the room, the two decks below it, the DropShip’s inner and outer hull, and finally float out into the sweet embrace of death awaiting him in the vacuum of space beyond.

Unfortunately, his sins were far too great for the universe to grant him such a mercy as that, and so he was forced to bear the weight of Squelch’s questions, “...and I find myself asking: ‘how is it, that Slipshod recognized ‘Steed profiles from a kilometer away, before the ‘Steeds in question ever actually came into visual range?’”

He winced again, and reluctantly cracked open an eye as the unicorn demonstrated the voracity of her observation by resuming the playback, which indeed revealed that Slipshod had issued his commands to the others before the newly powered-up ‘Steeds had crested the lip of the caldera and began their descent toward the trio of Steel Coursers.

“‘Steed profiles,” the mare continued, her eyes boring into the earth pony, “which don’t even seem to exist,” this statement was punctuated by the unicorn’s telekinesis sending a display pad skidding across the table to come to rest in front of him, showing the sensor readings of the Sombra and Pharynx beneath large block lettering stating: ‘NO MATCH FOUND’.

Slipshod didn’t respond. He had no answer for her. Or, at least, he didn’t have an answer that he was prepared to give her. For reasons that the golden stallion didn’t comprehend, Twilight Sparkle was remaining mum on the issue as well. He idly suspected that it might be some sort of ancient pony evolutionary defence mechanism from a distant bygone era: when confronted by a dangerous threat that hasn’t noticed you yet; don’t do anything that might cause it to notice you.

Silence echoed through the briefing room again. He didn’t know exactly how long for, but it was both an uncomfortably long, and a painfully short time before Squelch addressed him again.

“I am in the process of writing five letters to inform next of kin of the deaths of their loved ones,” the unicorn said very carefully, “and I would like to be able to tell them more than the typical vapid platitudes of how they ‘died bravely’ and were ‘well respected by the crew’,” she seethed at the earth pony, “I want to at least be able to tell them who the fuck they died fighting against,” she jabbed a hoof at the display, “because that sure as shit wasn’t the 5th Dongola!

“Who were they, Slip?!” the unicorn roared, shooting out of her chair and slamming a hoof down on the table hard enough to crack the screen of the holographic projector, “who shot up my ship and killed my crew?! I want a fucking name out of you, or I swear to Celestia I will drag you down to the airlock and space your sorry flank right fucking now!”

She meant it too. Even through his barriers, Slipshod could feel the raw, visceral, hatred that roiled within Squelch. She’d had ponies die on her watch. That was all part and parcel of a mercenary commander’s lot in life. War wasn’t a game; sometimes ponies died. So losing members of her crew wasn’t specifically what was aggravating the unicorn so much. It was that, in every prior instance, she’d known who was responsible. Mercenary outfits and star nation regulars wore their colors proudly and brazenly. It was how you gained reputation and notoriety: by having creatures know that it was you who’d participated in a specific operation.

So Squelch had always had a name and an emblem to go with the outfit that was responsible for killing one of her employees. It made it...easier. Because you could go out and trace back exactly why that fight had happened, and understand the reason that creatures had died that day. Even if it was ultimately a pointless reason, it still offered some semblance closure. For both her, and the next of kin.

In this instance though, she had none of that. No IFFs. No known paint schemes. No identifying emblem. Not even a hard reading on the tonnage of the mechs in question other than the class category typically associated with the recorded reactor outputs.

Those five crewmares might as well have been killed by ghosts for all the information she had.

Whereas Slipshod appeared to have a much better idea of what they’d been facing. More than that, he’d even inadvertently done something that an extremely select few experienced creatures could have pulled off: he’d identified ‘Steeds based off of reactor outputs alone.

He might as well have identified a pony based on the smell of their fart―which was technically possible.

For a changeling, anyway.

The alicorn seemed to have picked up on Squelch’s lack of exaggeration as well, and made the bold―if foolish―attempt to intervene on the stallion’s behalf, “perhaps if we adjourned for a few minutes to calm ourselves―”

Big mistake, the earth pony thought to himself as the jade green mare whirled on the princess with an audible snarl that made even Twilight recoil with a momentary look of fear in her eyes, “oh, I am calm compared to how I’m about to act with you!” she snapped, glaring daggers into the larger mare, “I may not be a ‘Steed pilot, but I’ve watched enough of these playbacks to know when pilots are pulling punches,” as she spoke, her horn glowed and began to manipulate the controls of the display, queuing up Twilight’s battle with the trio of Pharynxes, “so you better have a damn good reason yourself for why those three ‘Steeds are holding back!

“In the span of four minutes, I counted―counted―no fewer than forty seven moments when those ‘Steeds had a bead on your Rainbow Dash’s barrel and held. Their. Fire. Opting instead to try and leg your ‘Steed,” she growled, leaning upward in order to maintain her glare with the withdrawing alicorn, “and I cannot wait to hear your theory about why’d they do that.

“At the expense of their own lives, no less,” Squelch finished, coolly, as she finally backed off of the purple mare and returned to the seat she’d been occupying previously. Her eyes darted briefly to the crack she’d made in the table, prompting an annoyed sneer which may have actually been directed at herself for losing control and breaking part of her ship.

Slipshod suspected that the cost of the repairs was still going to be docked from his pay though.

The unicorn sat down, straightened out her suit jacket, and cleared her throat, before once more leveling her earlier deceptively serene look at the stallion, “now...let’s hear it: who were they?”

Not answering was not an option. Slipshod knew that. Of course, giving her the unbridled truth was just as equally out of the question. Squelch wasn’t ready for it. She still hadn’t accepted that Twilight was a real alicorn. If he tossed out a story that sounded like the plot to ‘Pony Snatchers from Beyond the Periphery!’ she was going to have him out the airlock before he’d finished the synopsis of the first act!

That meant finding a middle ground that was both factually correct...and not quite entirely accurate.

This was going to be one of the finer lines that he’d ever had to walk, but he certainly had some spectacular motivation to get it right on the first run through, “they were with ComSpark,” he replied simply. The less he said or embellished, the easier this would be.

It was a good thing that he was an empath, because Squelch’s poker face in this moment was impeccable. While her expression didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, the stallion could feel the incredulity beginning to build up within her. He could understand why that was too. After all: ComSpark? ComSpark was fielding an army of secret ‘Steed designs that the galaxy had never seen before? Everypony ‘knew’ that ComSpark was little more than a collection of glorified mail delivery ponies.

The idea that mail ponies were fielding lances of secret never-before-seen ‘Steed designs ambushing mercenary companies on backwater worlds during covert forward supply base strikes was so fantastically incredible that only the most gullible of morons would have believed it.

Which...was kind of the point, “a subsidiary of ComSpark, anyway,” the stallion elaborated, “one that carries out special missions in the Harmony Sphere for Queen Twilight Sparkle,” he ignored the alicorn’s own annoyed sneer at the use of the usurped name and pressed on, “missions that she doesn’t want the other powers to know about.

“There’s no data on those ‘Steeds because ComSpark has classified them. And it’s pretty easy to control what information gets spread around the galaxy when you’re literally the only means of spreading information around the galaxy,” the earth pony shrugged, unable to keep himself from spreading his lips in the tiniest of sardonic smiles.

Squalch’s indignation had withdrawn somewhat as she continued to regard the pilot. It had by no means vanished entirely of course, “...and you knew about these ‘secret ‘Steeds’...how?”

“I saw them while I was on Equus, attending the Sandhoof Royal Military Academy,” another factual truth. He’d done more than ‘see’ them, of course. He’d been fully checked out on those chassis, as well as every other ‘Steed that the changelings fielded. He knew everything there was to know about them. Just about every changeling did who were trained as ‘Steed pilots.

“You saw them well enough to know them by their reactor signatures from a kilometer away?” While her tone remained deadpan, the unicorn’s internal indignation was mounting again.

A skilled sensor tech with suitably sensitive equipment could get a reliable enough reading on a reactor that it could be compared to known ‘Steed reactor models on file. This wasn’t quite the same thing as being able to identify a specific BattleSteed, as different designs sometimes used the same make and model of reactor. Similarly, it was not entirely uncommon for outfits to swap out the factory standard reactor of a given ‘Steed. Either stepping it up in order to either give it more speed or rolling back to a smaller model in order to free up tonnage for additional weapons and armor plating.

Broadly speaking, you could always be sure of the tonnage class based on a reactor’s outputs. There wasn’t a lot of crossover between categories like that. A reactor designed for a light BattleSteed would barely be able to move a medium ‘Steed faster than a pony could trot, and putting a heavy ‘Steed’s reactor into a medium chassis would pretty much preclude it being able to carry any weapons at all. So crossovers like that pretty much never happened.

However, this wasn’t what Slipshod had claimed that he’d been able to do. He hadn’t merely identified tonnage ranges for the new contacts. His orders about where to focus their attacks had suggested that he’d instantly known the specific ‘Steed models that they were confronting.

Now, again, this was something that was technically possible; but was also very impractical for most sensor techs.

The fact was that the same make and model of reactor behaved differently based upon the ‘Steed that it was installed in. Each BattleSteed design had unique drive and weapons systems that put slightly different strains on their reactors, even for ‘Steeds of the same tonnage. Meaning that there would be a―very―slight variance in how the reactor’s output registered on a ‘Steed’s sensor suite.

To be able to pick something like that out, a tech would need to be able to consult a comparative database of ‘Steeds of every design using every make and model of reactor that could be physically installed on it. No such database existed―that Slipshod knew about, at any rate―as there wasn’t much benefit in a group expending the time, money, and resources to create such a database; as that would require going through and outfitting every ‘Steed design with all compatible reactors on the market in order to power them up, get a clear recording of the profile that was generated, and then log that profile.

Any conceivable benefit wasn’t worth it, as all it would really do was let a pilot know what ‘Steed they were going to be fighting once an opponent’s reactor showed up on sensors. Which was typically only a few seconds before visual contact was made, and thus the complete identity profile obtained at that point anyway. So, having such knowledge wasn’t really a huge practical benefit going into a battle.

Like Squelch had pointed out for their own fight: Six seconds was all the time that had elapsed between reactor detection and visual contact. Had those ComSpark designs been part of the galactic database, like any other ‘Steed would have been, his being able to ID their reactor signatures would have been of no real benefit.

It wasn’t like he’d made a concerted effort to memorize those sorts of readings though. He’d merely just happened to see them before while back on Equus two years ago and remembered them. In fact, he remembered every signature that he’d seen before.

That was part and parcel of being a changeling, after all: remembering every minute, fine, detail of what you saw, even if for only a few seconds. How else were you supposed to be able to mimic another creature’s identity?

“Yes,” Squelch’s incredulity was back as Slipshod sighed and closed his eyes, “I know every ‘Steed’s reactor signature.”

“Bullshit,” the unicorn blurted, glaring at him, “nopony knows that.”

“I do,” Slipshod stated coolly, doing his level best to keep a smile off his face now, lest she think that he really was putting her on, “eidetic memory,” he tapped his head.

Anger flared in the mare, “now I know you’re lying to me, because you’re shit with your memory! You forgot our anniversaries; every one of them: first meeting, first kiss, first ‘I love you’, the wedding―”

“August seventh, August twenty-third, November ninth, December twelfth,” the stallion rattled off, still ensuring that he didn’t smile upon seeing the green mare’s shocked expression, “at ten thirty-four, nineteen-twelve, oh-five oh-one, and thirteen-ten, respectively.”

Twilight was just as surprised as Squelch was. The purple alicorn blinked several times, then a thought occurred to her as she looked back and forth between the other two ponies, “wait, you two were married?” another thought, “you got married after knowing each other for just four months?”

The death-glare from the unicorn silenced the princess once again before Squelch resumed sneering at Slipshod, “don’t remind me.

“Of course it turns out you were lying to me the whole time we were together,” she scoffed, “why the sudden bout of honesty now?” Slipshod didn’t trust himself with answering that, “so how many ponies were there besides me? How many times did you cheat?”

The earth pony didn’t flinch, “just the once.”

The mare threw up her hooves, “fuck’s sake; I don’t even know who you are anymore, Slip!”

Squelch’s poker face was superb, but Twilight was best kept away from any and all card games whatsoever, the earth pony decided, “ha!” The alicorn snapped her mouth closed as both ponies shot her a look. The unicorn’s annoyed; and Slipshod’s anxious, “...sorry.”

The viridian mare took a deep breath and looked back to the earth pony, “so, assuming for a second that those were actually ComSpark pilots down there: why?” the mare massaged her temple, “fuck; how?! They were lying in ambush! They were waiting for us―for you!” Slipshod wasn’t certain if Squelch was referring to their lance, or Twilight Sparkle specifically. Chances were that the unicorn hadn’t quite made that connection yet.

“They’d have had to have gotten here before we did in order to do that,” the mare continued, thinking through the situation, “but this op was a secret and even we only found out about it with barely enough time to get here when we did!” She was glaring at Slipshod now, “I don’t suppose you can explain that?”

Of course, Slipshod was fully aware of how Chrysalis’ agents had gotten their hooves on the operational plans for this assault. More than one of those same agents had likely had a hoof in crafting them, after all. It was honestly a toss-up as to whether that lance of ‘Steeds on the planet had been positioned to intercept the Steel Coursers, or if the Steel Coursers had been given a route that would take them straight into the waiting hooves of the ComSpark forces. Perhaps a combination of the two.

He couldn’t tell Squelch that though. She wasn’t quite at the ‘the galaxy is controlled by shapeshifting bug-ponies’ stage of enlightenment yet.

That was likely going to be coming sooner rather than later though. In the meantime, the situation called for more not-quite-the-entire-truthing:

“All interstellar traffic goes through ComSpark,” the stallion reminded her, “they could have gotten the operation plans that way.”

“ComSpark doesn’t read the messages they send,” Squelch retorted dismissively, “that’s part of their neutrality charter. They just send the messages; no matter who from or who to.”

“Just like they also don’t field secret BattleSteed designs?” The stallion asked in a tone of feigned innocence. The quip earned him a pointed glare from his employer. Fair.

The unicorn closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle, “alright, I’ll grant you that there’s nothing that would physically stop them from reading any and all message traffic that they’re sending. As horrifying as those implications are―” this time Twilight managed to restrict herself to a half-suppressed chortle, “―but that still doesn’t explain why they were there!

“Captain Peregrin’s team wasn’t ambushed, so ComSpark doesn’t seem to have a problem with the op; they went after us, specifically. What did we ever do to―” Squelch broke off suddenly, her shocked gaze diverting immediately to the purple alicorn, “...you. They were after you!”

Twilight nodded, “almost certainly.”

The unicorn mare’s expression became haunted as she slumped back in her seat, “fuck...they know. They know we’re harboring a Disciple! We’re fucked!” Slipshod could sense the panic rising within her as her mind reeled with the revelation, “We’ll be blacklisted for sure! They’ll put a bounty―” she jerked up in her chair, confusion clear on her face.

“...they should have put a bounty on us,” she stated, perplexed, “the Highlanders should be arresting us right now―should have arrested us a while ago. If ComSpark knew about you enough in advance to have forces stationed here, then we should have been blacklisted before the Highlanders even approached us with this contract. They’ve had every opportunity to apprehend us over the last two weeks!”

“That would mean a lot of other creatures seeing Twilight,” Slipshod pointed out, “you know, the purple alicorn that’s not supposed to exist because there’s just the one? On Equus?”

“...they wanted to take her without anypony knowing,” Squelch said with shocked realization. Then the confusion was back, “but why? If she’s just some freak-of-nature Disciple,” the alicorn frowned at that remark, “what does it matter if others know who she is or what she looks like?

“What does ComSpark gain by keeping her a secret?”

Slipshod paused for a moment before venturing his response. The unicorn mare had just had a few of her foundations rattled in the last few minutes. She might be a little more amenable now, “...a lot; if what she told us before was actually the truth,” he said, nodding towards the alicorn. Twilight nodded somberly.

Squelch blinked at the pair for several long seconds before once more slumping, defeated, into her seat. She ran a hoof through her mane, shaking her head, “...I should have turned you over to the Canis authorities,” she said under her breath.

Twilight jerked in surprise, “but then Chrysalis would have me and there might not be any way to ever stop her!”

“Yeah...and?” the green mare asked derisively. The alicorn looked completely taken aback by the notion that a pony would knowingly aid the queen of the changelings, “I’ve lived my entire life―apparently―in a galaxy ‘ruled’ by this Chis...all...whoever―”

“Chrysalis,” Twilight supplied.

“I really don’t fucking care,” Squelch snapped, “and that’s kind of the point I’m making here: I. Don’t. Care.

“All I wanted from life was to make a stupendously large sum of money running a mercenary outfit so that I could retire in comfort with plenty of years left in my life to enjoy myself. A mansion, expensive jewelry, spending all day watching a legion of toned, oiled up, cabana colts cleaning massive swimming pools I never actually use; you know: the good life! And I was well on my way to having all that! Then...this happened!” the unicorn mare waved her hooves broadly about the room, “and now that dream is fucked.

“If it’s really ComSpark that’s gunning for us, then we are all fucked. You. Me. Every other pony on the crew of the ship who has no idea―or probably even cares―about what’s going on with you and this dopple queen―”

“Changeling,” this time it was Slipshod who supplied the correction. He then promptly ducked out of the way of the datapad that was flying towards his head.

“I don’t care!” Squelch raged, seething in the direction of the pair, “do neither of you get it? We’re screwed! If ComSpark is really the one gunning for us, there is nowhere in the Harmony Sphere that we can go to get away from them. The moment we jump into any system, they’ll know where we are and they’ll be able to coordinate with whoever they want to get at us!

“And meanwhile, we’ll get exactly no contracts. That means no money. No money for food, fuel, ammunition, nothing. We’ll be dead in the water inside a month.”

Squelch wasn’t entirely wrong in that, Slipshod had to admit. He had to wonder if the failure by her personal forces here today meant that Queen Chrysalis would be willing to move more openly against them. He was somewhat doubtful on that front. ComSpark had a DropShip and/or a Jump Ship somewhere in the system at this moment, and therefore agents who knew that their abduction lance had failed to get the job done and that Twilight had made it off the planet. They could just as easily transmit a message to the Highlanders offering a bounty for the Galloway and its crew if they wanted.

If they hadn’t done that by now, that might suggest that the plan was still to keep Twilight’s existence as low key as possible. For now, at any rate. That was bound to change eventually, once the Queen became frustrated enough. They’d need to capitalize on her hesitation while they could.

Though that would be very difficult to do. ComSpark was indeed uniquely situated to essentially monetarily strangle their outfit to death. After all, ComSpark also controlled the Mercenary Review Board, which was responsible for listing all respectable licensed mercenary companies in the galaxy. The Steel Coursers would doubtless be shadow-banned from the MRB listings. Nothing overtly marking them as pirates or raiders, as that would paint a target on their heads and risk Twilight being outright killed before the Queen could get her. But, if the MRB simply...omitted the Steel Coursers as an organization available for hire, that would mean that they wouldn’t see any further contracts or job offers.

Even previous clients who had worked with them wouldn’t touch them for future business. Payments for mercenary services had to go through the MRB, otherwise the employer could get in trouble too and potentially lose access to respectable mercenary units. No creature in the galaxy liked Squelch enough to risk that.

The Steel Coursers were over with. Squelch might be able to officially dissolve the company and set up a fresh charter under a new name; but even then it would only be a matter of time before the Queen’s agents caught on and were once more on their trail.

Even ditching the alicorn wasn’t likely an option anymore. Not really. The Queen would want to make sure that there were no loose ends.

Slipshod idly wondered if her agents would go so far as to arrange for any Jump Ship they were riding with to suffer a ‘missjump’…

The terminal near Squelch chirped, alerting the unicorn to an incoming message. The jade mare glared down at the offending console and jabbed it with her hoof, “whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait,” she tersely informed the pony on the other end of the line. Clearly, she wasn’t quite finished berating the two of them, Slipshod realized with a grimace.

“Um, Ma’am,” a very brave High Gain ventured, despite having just received orders to the contrary, “we’re receiving a tight-beam from the outer system,” there was a long pause as the mare considered how to phrase the next part, “it has a Disciple ident code.”

Slipshod and the alicorn exchanged equally surprised looks. Their employer merely closed her eyes and pressed a hoof to her temple, “because why shouldn’t it get any worse,” she grumbled under her breath, “fuck it, ComSpark already has us by the teets; why not consort with terrorists?”

She depressed the transmit button, “forward it to the conference room,” she said with a resigned sigh.

“Yes, Ma’am. It’s text only.”

All three ponies shifted their gaze to the main display as the pair of video feeds was replaced by a surprisingly short blurb of text. The trio exchanged equally perplexed expressions at the message’s contents.

“...the fuck?” Squelch finally broke the silence, looking over at Twilight as though the alicorn should have the answer, “what is that, some kind of Disciple code phrase?”

“It’s not any official coded message that I recognize,” Twilight assured the unicorn as she continued to stare at the screen, “I think...it’s literally just a simple question.”

“They actually want to know who my first foalhood friend was?” the sage mare asked sardonically, “what’s next? The street I grew up on and the make and model of my first ground cart?

“Phishing somehow seems beneath even a terrorist cult…”

“Not your first friend,” Slipshod said before casting his gaze to the alicorn, “I think it’s not just ComSpark who knows you’re on this ship.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Squelch growled, “I don’t even know who you are! How does everypony else in the galaxy seem to?!” Then the unicorn blanched for a second and quickly became even more incredulous, “and how did the Disciples know we were going to be in this system?!

“Highlander opsec is a shitshow!”

This time it was Slipshod who snorted. If only the mare knew, he thought before once more focusing his attention on the alicorn, who was regarding the message now with genuine consideration, “they want to make sure I’m really me,” she observed, “by asking me something only the real Twilight would be able to get right.”

“Probably,” the earth pony conceded, “I’m sure that the Queen has tried to get her agents into the Disciples for centuries. Learning the real Twilight Sparkle is alive and about again sounds too good to be true, I bet.”

The purple mare brought her hoof up to her chin, gently stroking it, as she contemplated the screen and its ostensibly simple question, “Pinkie Pie was the first of my friends that I met in Ponyville…” she mused pensively, “but I wouldn’t say that made us ‘friends’ in that moment, seeing as how all she did was gasp and bolt off. Applejack treated me like part of her family right off the bat…Rainbow wanted to hang out again after only just meeting me...

“This is hard,” Twilight admitted, biting her lip as she receded deep into thought, “we sort of became friends all at once that night; I can’t really say which of them was first…” a thought occurred to the mare, “wait...Ponyville wasn’t where I made my first friend, not really. Back in Celestia’s school there was Moondancer! I didn’t think of her that way back then, but eventually I realized that that’s how she thought of me. It turned out that I was really important to her. So I guess she was my first fr―”

The mare broke off, staring blankly at the screen. Then the faintest smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and she let out an amused snort, “...I’m an idiot. I am literally the dumbest princess,” Twilight sighed. She was shaking her head as she rose out of her seat and stepped around the table to peer down at Squelch’s terminal. Her horn glowed with faint, purple, light as she tapped out a short, five-letter, response on the terminal, “send that reply.”

The unicorn glanced at the terminal, quirking a confused brow at the alicorn, “that’s all?” the purple princess nodded. Squelch shrugged in exasperation, “fuck it,” she reached down and activated the comm, “High Gain, I’m sending you message to respond with.”

“...respond, Ma’am? To the Disciples?”

Slipshop could understand the other mare’s surprise. After all, she hadn’t been privy to the revelation that ComSpark was already after them, and engaging in dialogue like this with the cultists was the sort of offense that could prompt ComSpark to blacklist an organization if they ever found out. In their specific situation, of course, it was doubtful that there was anything the ponies on this ship could do that would get them in more trouble with Chrysalis.

In for a C-bit, and all that.

“Tight-beam, of course,” Squelch responded, as though that should put the mare at the comm station more at ease, “unless that’s something you’re not capable of doing? Should I come up there and do it myself?”

“No, Ma’am; that won’t be necessary. Transmitting reply via tight-beam.”

Squelch closed the intra-ship channel, looking back at the alicorn, “I don’t suppose anypony wants to explain to me why we’re playing twenty-questions with the Disciples?”

“You wanted a way out of the system that ComSpark couldn’t track,” Slipshod pointed out, “something tells me that however the Disciples got here, it wasn’t with their blessing.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting that we sign on with those wackjobs?” the unicorn sputtered incredulously, “have you lost what’s left of your barely existent mind?!”

The stallion frowned, “I’m sorry, weren’t you just the one angsting about what ComSpark was going to do to us a minute ago? Unless you want to set down a homestead here, you’re going to have to make a choice, Squelch: ComSpark or the Disciples of Discord.”

“I’m not convinced that I wouldn’t live longer down on that tartarus-scape…” the green mare grumbled.

“The Disciples aren’t crazy terrorist cultists,” Twilight insisted, “If they really are the descendants of Discord’s Rangers, then they’re our best hope of defeating Chrysalis. They’re our friends, and they will help us and keep us safe. I promise.”

“‘Safe’,” the unicorn scoffed, glaring up at the alicorn, “because of you, five good ponies died today,” she reminded the larger purple mare coldly, “because I stuck my neck out for you.

“Nowhere you go is going to be safe,” she turned away and put her head in her hooves, “I should have turned you in…damn me for listening to the two of you,” she seethed.

“If you’d done that, there’d be nothing left to stop Chrysalis.”

“So?” the jade unicorn asked, glaring up at the alicorn, “you act like that’s a bad thing,” Slipshod wasn’t sure that he had the words in his vocabulary to describe the look of utter shock on Twilight’s face upon hearing Squelch’s statement, “if everything you’ve said in true, that we’ve all been living in this galaxy ruled by dopples―”

“Changelings,” the stallion corrected more quietly this time.

“Still don’t care,” his unicorn employer said dismissively, not breaking eye contact with the princess, “we’ve been living like this for...what? Five hundred years? Give or take?” she didn’t wait for a reply from the alicorn, “and everypony hasn’t been hunted to extinction or whatever. We’re still going about, living our lives. From where I’m sitting? Things aren’t actually so bad,” she shrugged, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs over her chest, looking up expectantly at the other mare, “so explain to me why I should actually care who’s sitting on that throne on Equus?”

Twilight’s jaw moved wordlessly for several seconds as she seemed to try and process what she’d just heard. Obviously the idea that somepony wasn’t innately horrified by the state of galactic affairs hadn’t quite occurred to her, Slipshod suspected, “b-because it’s horrible right now!” she exclaimed, as though shocked that she even had to point out that fact, “creatures are fighting and dying all over the place! It’s terrible!”

“That’s life!” Squelch shot back, “sometimes it sucks for some creatures. That’s how it is! What, you think it’s supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows all the time?”

Twilight blinked several times before vehemently asserting, “yes! It was! Well, I mean, okay, it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Obviously every planet has a night cycle, and crops needed rain, and some stars emit different spectrums of light that didn’t create what we think of as classic ‘rainbows’ when they’re refracted by―”

Squelch had ceased to actively pay attention by that point, “oh, I call bullshit! There’s no way every creature was happy and getting along all the time!” she shot back accusingly at the alicorn.

“Of course we all got along,” Twilight defended, “we were friends―all of us! We helped each other, and supported one another. We cared about each other, because we knew that we all came from the same place and had the same needs and desires as every other creature. Things like family, and friends, and love, and―”

“Oh, gag me with a rancid used dildo!” Slipshod scowled reflexively in disgust at the mental image that statement conjured, “you sound like a Cutie Cultist, except somehow worse! Spare me your ‘utopian dreams’ drivel―”

“It’s true!” the alicorn snapped at the other mare, “there was peace for almost a thousand years! It didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t easy, but eventually all of the creatures of Equus were brought together in harmony, as friends. And we brought that harmony with us when we spread throughout the galaxy. It was...amazing,” Twilight’s lip curled in a nostalgic smile as her eyes glazed over at the memories of a bygone era. A better era.

Then her expression fell, “...until I screwed everything up. I got so wound up in my accomplishments―so convinced that I could do no wrong―that I forgot that not quite everycreature had accepted the magic of friendship…

“Then came the day that Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis escaped. My three greatest failures. Individuals that I gave up on redeeming. This―all of this―is my fault, and it’s my responsibility to fix it.

“You can leave me with the Disciples and do whatever you want after that,” Twilight continued, looking at Squelch, “I can’t ask you to come with me and fight. That’s a decision you have to make for yourself.

“You’re right: you’ve all built lives for yourselves in this galaxy, despite Chrysalis’ control―maybe even because of it,” she amended, noting her surroundings, “it was wrong for me to judge you because you never got the chance to experience anything better. That wasn’t your fault.”

Slipshod doubted that the unicorn mare had expected an apology during any part of that. A suspicion that was made apparent by the surprised look on the green mare’s face, “uh...right. Look, we don’t even know where the Disciples are in this system―”

The terminal chirped again, “Ma’am? Another message via tight-beam from the Disciples. It’s a set of coordinates...”

“Oh course it is,” the jade unicorn deadpanned off-mic.

“...It looks like it’s the super jovian’s L2.”

Aagin, off-mic, “pirate jump point. That explains it,” the mare rubbed her head and sighed. She was silent for several long seconds as she weighed their options which, in fairness, weren’t exactly ideal either way. Squelch looked back at Slipshod, “those were really ComSpark forces?”

The golden earth pony couldn’t keep the wan smile from his lips at the desperate note in his employer’s voice. She wanted him to have been wrong―needed him to have been wrong. She wanted to hear that there was still a chance at being able to go on with the life that she had built for herself. That everything she knew wasn’t over and done with and that she’d have to leave it behind.

He’d fed her a lot of lies over the years that they’d know each other. This was the first time he felt bad about telling her the truth, “they were.”

“Fuck,” she toggled the internal comm, “plot a best time course. Then break orbit,” the unicorn said with audible resignation.

“Ma’am?”

“Do it,” the bite in her tone was only half-hearted this time. Squelch completely understood the other mare’s qualms. It looked like she was still entertaining a few of them herself. It actually bothered Slipshod a little to see his employer looking this despondent.

Squelch cut the line and then tapped out a series of commands on her terminal. A brief alert flashed across the screen indicating that a lockdown had been placed on all outgoing communications until further notice. Everypony on the ship would see the message the next time they accessed their terminal in their quarters, letting them know that any personal messages that they sent out would be retained on the ship. Not that any traffic was going to be leaving the system until the Highlander Jump Ship left in a week.

This was so that nopony on the Galloway could respond to the inevitable requests from the Aris Highlanders about where they were heading off to, when they were supposed to be either waiting patiently in orbit of the planet for the assault to finish, or heading back to the Highlander Jump Ship that would be ferrying them back to the Harmony Sphere.

Slipshod felt the deck plating lurch gently beneath his hooves as the DropShip accelerated out of orbit. Squelch stood up and headed for the door, “well, I have about six-ish hours to figure out how I’m going to explain to the crew that their lives are effectively over. Until then...Slip, go secure...the princess, I guess, in her quarters. Then don’t let me see you again until I’m sober, as I’d be just as likely as not to space you,” the earth pony’s brows raised in concern.

The jade mare keyed in her personal comm, “Cookie? I need you to pull out a bottle of the rankiest, swilliest, paint-peelingist, shit you’ve got. Fuck me up, mule daddy―” the door closed behind her.

The two remaining ponies stared at the door in silence, Twilight silently mouthing the last two audible words in contemplation. Finally, she ventured cautiously, “she’s...adopted?”

“Nope.”

“Ah.”

Another long period of silence passed between the pair. Broken once more by the princess, “you realize what ComSpark knowing about my presence on this vessel implies, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” a lump formed in the stallion’s throat. He’d realized the implication since seeing those ‘Steeds on the planet. He simply wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information quite yet.

“There’s a second changeling onboard,” Twilight said nonetheless.

“...yeah.”

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