Booted hoofsteps echoed off the vaulted marble ceiling of the palace hall. Occasionally marred by the more subtle crunch of debris still leftover from the brief―but intense―firefights that had sprung up as Victoria Blueblood’s force’s clashed with her uncle’s loyalist guards upon breaching the palace compound’s defenses. It would likely take weeks for masons to properly patch up the bulletholes. Once Victoria actually got around to even worrying about such trifling matters like how spotless the walls of the palace halls looked.

Such things were hardly at the top of her list of priorities at the moment.

She’d only just received word that the compound had been fully secured, and the last of Dominus’ forces captured. It remained yet to be seen how much longer it would take for the same to be said for the rest of the city. To say nothing of the planet and the rest of the Pony Commonwealth. Victoria, for the moment, held only the manifested symbol of power for the star nation. Which was not the same thing as holding actual power.

If the local system governments refused to acknowledge her claim, then securing the archonship over the Commonwealth got a lot harder. After all, spending the last few years ‘dead’ was likely to cause more than a few of those local governments to understandably doubt that the pegasus mare was, in fact, who she claimed to be. She―or, more specifically, the League-in-Exile―didn’t have time to spend months or years trying to convince every regional duke and planetary governor of her identity.

They needed to fastrack this process.

Victoria and her armed escorts finally arrived at the door that led to the most straightforward and expedient means of doing just that: her uncle’s personal quarters. The pair of guardsponies outside of it snapped to rigid attention and saluted the ivory pegasus.

“Please inform my uncle that I request an audience with him, at his earliest convenience,” the young mare asked. The aristocratic accent from her youth still felt weird on her tongue after so long without use. It almost felt like this was the false image that she was projecting, and that ‘Vought Corsair’ was who she’d always been. Victoria wondered how long that feeling would endure.

One of the guards nodded his head, “yes, Archon,” and dutifully vanished through the door. He returned seconds later, bowing once more, “Archon, your uncle has granted you an audience.”

Victoria suppressed a wry smirk. It would have been unseemly for her to do so. It wasn’t as though nopony knew that Dominus was effectively her prisoner and her ‘request for an audience’ couldn’t have actually been denied. She was his jailer. He entertained her visits at her leisure, not the other way around.

However, there were certain ‘niceties’ that were expected to be observed where prisoners of noble blood were concerned. Such had been the case as well when Natch Belle had been her prisoner all those years ago. It was important that the perception of choice and autonomy be maintained so as not to erode the dignity of the captive noble. It was simply how things were done.

Notionally, her uncle still had full run of the palace and its grounds, but he was ‘choosing’ not to leave his quarters simply because he had no desire to. Were he crass enough to actually try and step hoof outside his personal suite and exercise that notion, a notably awkward situation would be created for all concerned. A lot of dignities―and a specific royal’s equinage―would be bruised.

Fortunately for everypony concerned, Dominus seemed to be mostly content to ‘go with the flow’ for the time being.

When Victoria entered the suite and closed the door behind her, she found her uncle lying comfortably on a devon, a book wrapped in his telekinesis floating in front of him. The older unicorn stallion feigned not realizing that somepony else had entered his presence for several pointed seconds before marking his place and setting the book aside. The pegasus merely maintained her composure and chose to ignore the slight. Whatever ‘power’ her uncle might choose to try and flex in this setting, both of them knew who was truly in control at the end of the day.

That was all that really mattered. Not this pageantry.

“Is there something that I can help you with, Victoria?”

The younger mare had to suppress a snort at how dissonant the elder stallion’s tone sounded, given the realities of their situations. To an outside observer, it wouldn’t have occurred to them that he was her prisoner, or even that she’d just recently deposed him as the archon of the Pony Commonwealth. In fact, it didn’t even sound like he was surprised to find that his niece was even alive after his attempt to assassinate her several years ago! The sheer audacity of his nonplussed greeting grated at the pegasus, but still she kept a firm grip on her composure.

Instead, she chose to meet him with an equally unperturbed tone, “my aides are drafting a concession speech for you to deliver this afternoon,” she informed him casually, “a copy of it will be delivered for you to look over in an hour or so.

“Nothing overly objectionable or incriminating,” she assured him, “just a succinct abdication and appointment announcement.

“I just wanted to check your availability for delivering it.”

Dominus, in a testament to his poise as the―former―archon of the Commonwealth, didn’t react with the least bit of anger or even bitterness. In fact, for all the affectation he gave to his voice and expression, she might as well have informed him about a new policy announcement that he was giving, “I will need to consult my schedule for the day, but I’m confident that I can make some time to attend to your request.

“Is there anything else that you’d like to ask of me, my dear?”

That last part evoked a visible twitch from the mare. She almost snapped at him, in fact. She could entertain the obfuscations of the power dynamic at play in this moment. That was all part of The Game that nobles ‘played’ at. She understood it. However, she was finding it significantly harder to pretend that they didn’t share the history together that they did. The history where she tried to depose him in a political coup, and he executed her conspirators and tried to have her killed for it.

Acting like none of that had happened was a bit too much to ask of her, especially after she’d received the final tally of the casualty reports for both sides. Thousands had died today. The majority of them were on her uncle’s side, but that didn’t make them any less citizens of the Pony Commonwealth. Ponies whose only ‘crime’ had been to adhere to the oaths that they’d sworn to defend the throne, no matter who sat upon it. Had her coup from years prior been successful, those same ponies would be defending her now. In time, she was certain that nearly all of the surviving palace guards would be right back to holding their old posts.

Yet, because of some shape-shifter on Equus, and her aversion to real peace in the Harmony Sphere, so many now lay dead. Lives lost which could have been averted, were it not for outside machinations.

If those machinations truly were from ‘outside’.

Victoria had to wonder now, “...did you know, Uncle?”

The elder unicorn furrowed his brow, frowning at the young mare, “know what?”

“Did you know about ‘them’―about Chrysalis and the changelings? Did you know, when you sent your assassins after me?”

That was the moment when the pegasus saw her uncle drop the facade and fall out of the ‘role’ that he’d been playing in their little talk. The hurt and pain―real pain―etched into his face, was clear to see. Dominus was not a Bridleway veteran. He could play the role of the ‘indifferent noble’ well enough, but that was part of the job of being archon, and not the result of any real acting talent on his part.

“...I didn’t know you were on that ship,” the unicorn finally said, his voice quivering slightly, “I swear to you, Victoria; I didn’t.”

Damn her if she didn’t believe him too.

“They weren’t even ‘my’ assassins,” the stallion continued, “Duke Bittercreek informed me that he’d uncovered a plot by House Lackadaisy to usurp the archonship, and had taken care of it,” he paused for several long seconds, “your name wasn’t even mentioned,” he insisted, “I...found out on the news, like everypony else.”

There was a hardness to his tone now as he glared off into the distance, reliving a memory that only he could see, “Duke Bittercreek insisted that you ‘weren’t supposed to be there’,” he said in a low growl, “but I found it difficult to believe that his spies were good enough to ferret out a coup plot, but couldn’t read a passenger manifest.

“The rose garden blossomed particularly beautifully that year.”

Victoria barely paid attention to the pyrrhic satisfaction in her uncle’s voice as she found herself pondering how likely the―former―Duke’s insistence of his ignorance was to be true. He wouldn’t have known about the destruction of her ship, as that had been a ruse set up by her own loyalists. She might have felt some measure of guilt in regards to his being executed for an offence he’s had no hoof in, had it not been for one other detail.

While Duke Bittercreek might not have been involved in the bombing used to cover her flight from the Harmony Sphere, what he would have known about, was the explosion that happened a week prior. While it was anypony’s guess whether the Duke’s spies were working for―or, at the very least, provided information by―Chrysalis’ changeling agents in the Commonwealth; what was not in doubt was that they were behind the bombing which had truly nearly claimed her life. It had shocked her to think that Dominus would have permitted such a thing. After all, even Victoria had imagined that the most serious punishment that she’d have faced if her uncle had uncovered the plot would have been to be imprisoned in her quarters much like her uncle was now.

Nobles―especially heir-apparents―were not executed haphazardly, after all.

That’s what she had thought, at least. Then she’d nearly been killed in a bombing.

“Are you saying you knew nothing about the attempt?”

The unicorn sighed, “I knew about it, yes; but I thought that it was only Ramshackle Lackadaisy and a few of his cohorts who were the targets. I had no way of knowing that you would be there too. I would never have cleared the operation had that been the case; I swear.”

Victoria grimaced, “it wouldn’t surprise me if that was why you weren’t told,” she murmured, “and you really have no knowledge about Chrysalis or changelings?”

The stallion frowned, looking as though he might be a little concerned for his niece’s mental health, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Who is ‘Chrysalis’?”

“A subject of conversation for another time,” she assured him, breathing her own sigh of relief. It was a massive weight off her shoulders to know that her uncle wasn’t out to kill her, and had merely been a pawn being moved around the board as part of somepony else’s machinations. With luck, that would make the transition of power less contentious, “once things are settled, we’ll discuss it.

“Are you comfortable, Uncle?”

The older unicorn smirked, “as can be expected, under the circumstances,” he chuckled, “this was certainly a far more abrupt retirement than I had expected.

“In a way...I’m proud of you, Victoria,” the pegasus balked, which prompted a more robust laugh from the unicorn, “I mean it! You aspired to be more than you were, and seized upon the opportunity to make those ambitions into a reality!

“It was very Blueblood of you.”

Victoria wasn’t certain that she felt truly flattered by that ‘praise’. Still, if it meant that she wasn’t going to have to worry about Dominus contesting her authority too much in the near future, she supposed that she could live with it, “thank you...I think. I’ll have that speech to you as soon as I can.

“In the meantime, I need to check back in with our forces in orbit. There was a ‘situation’ developing a little while ago. I need to find out what the resolution was,” at worst, Victoria would be dealing with a new representative for the Rayleigh’s Irregulars.

Or whatever their name was changed to in the event that Squelch had ultimately been killed by her assailant.

“One thing you’ll find about being the archon,” Dominus said mirthlessly, even as he grinned at the pegasus, “is that there is always a ‘situation’ developing somewhere. Good luck, Victoria; you’ll certainly need it.”

With that, the stallion retrieved his book, and the mare took her leave.

Once outside, the pegasus turned and headed for her―formerly her uncle’s―office. She’d be able to get back in touch with the Dragoons and the Irregulars from there with some measure of privacy. After learning the details about how the situation aboard the Zathura had been resolved, she could arrange for HyperSpark messages to be sent out across the Sphere announcing the change in Commonwealth leadership to the rest of the galaxy. She was well aware now of Chrysalis’ ability to read such communications, but the new archon also recognized that she was still supposed to be acting as though she didn’t know that changelings existed.

That meant going about doing things as she always had, or would be expected to; and that meant continuing to use the HSG network to send expected messages between systems.

Well, most messages at any rate. There was one pony that Victoria wished to contact that she suspected it was best to keep the changelings in the dark about. She keyed up her datalink and spoke into it, “prepare a courier ship. I have a letter that I need to send…”

The better part of a thousand lightyears away, another royal was dealing with a ‘developing situation’ of her own.

Flurry Heart sat in front of her vanity, staring blankly into its mirror as a gilded brush made its way gently through her mane for the hundredth time. Likely it had been far more than times that. She was hardly in the business of counting brush strokes. It wasn’t even about getting the tangles out of her mane―she had spells for that!―it was about distracting herself with a repetitive task when her life’s usual stressors started mounting and weighing on her mind.

She’d been doing a lot of brushing since Twilight’s reappearance.

The pink alicorn wanted to curse that mare to oblivion and back again. Wanted to lay the blame at her hooves for the myriad crises that were springing up throughout the League-in-Exile like mushrooms after a heavy rain. Wanted so badly to have a scapegoat; or, at the very least, a way to foist all of these issues onto somepony else.

However, that wasn’t an option. Not really. As loath as Flurry Heart was to admit it―and she was uncertain if she would do so in public―she was the Princess. In true, official, fashion since Twilight’s abdication. Which meant that, now, the bit stopped with her.

She had to field the issues and devise solutions, even when she had no concept of how to do so. There simply was no precedent for the problems that she was facing right now. Worse, perhaps, she expected those problems to be getting significantly worse in the near future.

No, that wasn’t quite right. They were already ‘worse’; she just hadn’t yet received the reports that would outline the full breadth of their direness. That was what she was waiting for at this moment: the other horseshoe to drop.

Flurry Heart tensed up suddenly as a pair of legs draped themselves around her shoulders. A second later, a delicate muzzle began to brush over the nape of her neck, gently nibbling at the base of her mane and slowly wandering along her wither. In the mirror, the princess could see the saffron unicorn behind her. She let out a sigh, which she tried her best to keep from sounding too annoyed. It was hardly the other mare’s fault that she’d chosen to be affectionate at a bad time. Not that Flurry Heart felt like she ever experienced many ‘good’ times these days.

“I hope Her Majesty found last night as pleasurable as I did…” the unicorn murmured as she began to move her muzzle back up towards her monarch’s ears.

The alicorn closed her eyes and pointedly moved her head to the side, away from the other mare’s attentions, as a clear indication of her lack of interest. The unicorn immediately ceased in her nibbling, looking in surprise at the pink mare, “not now, Myrtle.

“In fact, it’s best that you leave,” Flurry Heart said after a moment’s thought, “for now,” she amended. The saffron unicorn’s expression looked hurt, but she nodded nonetheless and stepped away from her liege.

“Of course, Your Majesty; as you wish,” the mare backed towards the royal suite’s door, bowing low, “I will await your summons,” and with that, she withdrew, closing the door quietly behind her.

“You do that,” the alicorn said in a flat tone. Inwardly, she made a note to reassign the unicorn elsewhere in the palace. Somewhere where Flurry Heart was unlikely to encounter her. Perhaps to the guest wing, as a maid.

It wasn’t that the mare-in-waiting had transgressed or done anything wrong―and the regular rotation of palace staff was nothing out of the ordinary, so this reassignment wouldn’t necessarily be viewed as ‘punishment’ for anything either. Quite the contrary, in fract, Myrtle had proven to be quite an enjoyable distraction...for a time. The novelty had worn thin of late though. As a result, their charms had waned, and Flurry Heart found that the unicorn held little interest for her any longer.

That new sous chef that had recently started working in her personal kitchen was rather cute though. She might serve as an adequate distraction for a few months…

As the alicorn entertained the thought, the terminal near her vanity chimed, announcing an incoming communique. Flurry Heart sighed, briefly debating whether or not she truly wished to be confronted with one of those things from which she found herself requiring distracting. It was a fleeting thought, of course. She’d specifically asked for this notification, after all. It wouldn’t do to turn it away now.

She resumed brushing her mane while reaching out with her magic to accept the call, “yes?”

“Your Highness,” the stern vassage of one of her star admirals, a steel gray pegasus stallion, appeared on the screen, “I have the rosters, as you requested,” she could already tell from his tone that he was not looking forward to delivering his findings.

Which was fitting, since the pink alicorn was not anticipating looking forward to receiving those findings. Yet, she needed the confirmation all the same, “and…?”

A palpable pause as the officer mentally prepared himself to deliver what could very well end up being the final report of his career, if his princess was displeased enough by it. Flurry Heart liked to think that she wasn’t quite so capricious towards her officers when they were simply doing their jobs, and the troubles that they reported to her were no fault of their own. Such as was about to be the case now, she knew, “and...nearly the entireties of the fleets and listed clusters of clans Smoke Jabberwock, Ghost Ursa, Jade Roc...and Timberwolf, are unaccounted for.”

Flurry Heart’s lip curled in a slight sneer at the star admiral’s choice of phrasing. Being ‘unaccounted for’ made it sound as though nopony knew where those forces had scurried off to. Of course, the reality was that everypony knew perfectly well where they’d gone. It was the worst kept secret that the Clans had ever tried to obfuscate―if they had even tried to do so. They certainly hadn’t tried to keep their activities veiled from the other Clans.

While it would have been an outright lie to claim that the departure of those forces was at all surprising, the alicorn could forgive the star admiral for not expecting Clan Timberwolf to be a participant in the impromptu ‘crusade’ into the Harmony Sphere. After all, Spike was ostensibly one of the most outspoken critics of it!

However, there was something to be said for the adage: ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, and that was more or less why Timberwolf was going along. As well as in order to maintain their de facto status as the preeminent Clan in the League-in-Exile. Sitting out such an important endeavour entirely risked costing Spike what little regard he had left among the Khans of the other Dragon Clans, and undermining his―admittedly tenuous―hold on them.

By joining in with the others, the purple dragon could both save face and do his best to mitigate the destruction that would undoubtedly befall the Harmony Sphere at the claws of his brethren. At least, that was how he and Ember had floated the notion to her when they brought Flurry Heart the news of the summit which all of the Clans had held recently.

One which the Princess had found herself specifically not informed about. Apparently, it had been ‘dragon business’, and not an official League-in-Exile matter.

Curious then, that it should involve the redeployment of so many soldiers and ships which were―theoretically―pledged to the League’s―and thus her―service. Very ‘curious’ indeed...

Not that the foreknowledge of this mass departure of war materials made the official news of it any less palatable. She’d hoped that the invasion would have been put off for much longer―was supposed to have been put off, in fact. The timetables which Spike and Dragon Lord Ember had been relaying to her had anticipated a departure date that was the better part of six months in the future. Long enough for Twilight to make a respectable attempt with her own plan to oust Chrysalis. Perhaps time enough even for her to succeed in freeing the Harmony Sphere of the changeling queen’s control, and thus rob the Clans of their facile casus belli to launch this ‘crusade’ of theirs in the first place.

It seemed though that the dragons were not nearly as patient as their long lives should have predisposed them to be. One would think that, for a creature which could endure for millenia, another few months wouldn’t have been a huge bother for them. Apparently, Flurry Heart had misjudged their thirst for power.

“Thank you, star admiral,” the pink mare said, reaching out with her magic once more, “dismissed,” she terminated the transmission before the pegasus stallion could say another word. There was nothing more that she needed to hear from him, and the alicorn certainly didn’t have any worthwhile instructions for how he and the rest of her military were to proceed. Yet.

Flurry Heart was trapped now, between a rock and a hard place. Conflicted about who she was supposed to root for. If Twilight Sparkle succeeded in opening up an avenue for the swift conquest of Equus, there was every possibility that the League-in-Exile no longer had the forces that would be required to take the system anyway. If she committed what the League had left, and they lost...the Clans invading now certainly wouldn’t have the strength needed to complete their conquest of the Harmony Sphere.

By the time they’d captured a few dozen systems, their forces would be spread too thin in order to simply hold what they’d already taken to advance any further. They would need time to fortify and garrison their holdings before they could launch another round on conquests. Time that Chrysalis would spend consolidating her forces and rallying the Successor States under her influence to repel their dragon invaders. Even if Smolder’s belief that any one of her BattleSteed pilots was worth a hundred of their Sphere counterparts, her lances would be facing thousands.

Their WarShip fleet would prove decisive, yes, but even they had their limitations. The Clans had been able to build and staff only so many of the vessels. All of the intelligence reports that Flurry Heart had seen suggested that their present fleets outmatched what Chrysalis was fielding...at present. However, if ComSpark were to release ‘recently unearthed’ schematics to the other star nations that would allow them to build their own, it wouldn’t take long at all for Smolder’s invaders to encounter battles in orbit that they couldn’t hope to win.

Their first round of invasions would no doubt be beyond decisive. Flurry Heart shuddered at the thought of being one of those planetary garrison commanders who would be unfortunate enough to find themselves leading the initial defensive actions against the Clan invaders. A pre-League Crystal Empire knight would stand a better chance of defeating a SneakyShy in open combat than a Harmony Sphere ‘Steed regiment had of beating a mere star of Clan-built BattleSteeds.

But...then the advance would inevitably stall as the Clan battle lines grew thinner. They’d pause their conquest, consolidate, reorganize...and then they’d run into a genuinely reinforced and prepared enemy for the first time. All of the fresh, unbloodied, Sphere pilots would be dead, leaving only the battle-hardened mercenaries who had far more real combat experience than any Clan pilot did. It would be superior technology up against superior ability.

Those battles would not be quite so decisive, whatever the hubris of dragons might lead them to believe otherwise. They would falter. They might even fall…

Four Clans. Nearly a quarter of the military might of the League-in-Exile hung in the balance with this invasion. If they were soundly defeated...it would be the end of their hopes to free the Sphere from Chrysalis and the changelings. Forever.

Did she then throw in her full support for the crusading Clans then? She could rally the rest of the League-in-Exile, and launched a full invasion now. They might have a chance if they all moved in and rushed as much territory as possible in the initial advance. If they took enough systems, then it was possible that they could rob Chrysalis of the resources she needed to build up a counter force, while gaining more for themselves to expand their own warfighting capability. It would be a long and bloody fight, but one where their technological superiority might prove to be all the edge that they needed to ultimately win. If they could take a quarter, or even a third of the Sphere before a proper response to their invasion could be organized, it might be enough to stifle the ability of the rest of the galaxy to properly oppose them.

Twilight would not approve of the death toll that would be involved, but making such weighty decisions were not a concern for the purple alicorn any longer, so it hardly mattered what her opinion on the matter was. This was about defeating Chrysalis and freeing the creatures of the Sphere. Surely it was better than some of them be sacrificed for the cause of eventual freedom than to doom them all to eternal servitude?

The denizens of the Sphere might resent the Clans at first―and would certainly resist them as invaders. However, in the fullness of time, the alicorn wanted to believe that her actions would be vindicated. Once the League was reestablished...

Not that Flurry Heart actually believed that the Dragon Clans genuinely had any intention of helping her to restore the League. Not any longer. They knew that Ember couldn’t compel them with the staff. That this invasion was happening―against the expressed wishes of the reigning princess―was proof of that. This had been Smolder’s final little test of her working theory that the Dragon Lord no longer possessed the control over them that she once did. Which meant that the dragons were now free to do as they wished.

Spike would undoubtedly try to mitigate the damage as best he could, but his claws would mostly be tied. He could only dictate how Clan Timberwolf would conduct itself during the invasion. Warriors from the other clans wouldn’t respect his authority. They would only listen to their own commanders and Khans, and Flurry Heart knew the kinds of dragons that Smolder had taken with her.

The pink alicorn let out a resigned sigh.

She had tried to do her best. She really had. Keeping the exiles together had been of paramount importance if they ever wanted to have a chance of defeating Chrysalis. So she’d compromised, in the interests of maintaining that unity at all costs. With Spike and Ember’s help, she’d adapted the Elements of Harmony to be more palatable to dragons, rather than risk them breaking away. She’d nurtured their more ‘brutish’ natures in order to cultivate more aggressive soldiers for the inevitable counter-attack that they would lead against the changelings who’d evicted them.

It had been necessary.

Taking back the Harmony Sphere was the only thing that mattered. Whatever changes needed to be made, whatever sacrifice was required to accomplish that goal, was worth it. Twilight could be as horrified as she wanted to be at how different the League-in-Exile today was from the Celestia League that she had once ruled. The fact remained that it had to be different. They wouldn’t have a chance of defeating Chrysalis otherwise.

...was what Flurry Heart had been telling herself for five centuries.

But, now…?

She was losing control. The ‘League-in-Exile’ barely existed as a functioning government in most regards that mattered. It had become too decentralized. The Khans wielded most of the power―especially marital power―and they weren’t loyal to the Crown. The emphasis on Clan loyalty and personal power the modified Elements encouraged had helped to undermine that.

Culminating in the brash and haphazard ‘crusade’ being launched right now. Smolder herself might believe that she could rebuild a newer and better League, but other Khans like Garble? They just wanted to accumulate wealth and power in order to trigger the same Greed-Induced-Bigness that their ancient ancestors had enjoyed before ponies had brought them Friendship.

They didn’t want Harmony.

Which meant that, despite her best efforts, she had failed. Utterly. The League-in-Exile had died some time ago, in any respect that truly mattered. The Clans were fractured, and some had broken off to invade. She could try and salvage as much as she could of her princedom and join their invasion. Or, she could stick to Twilight’s plan, hold what forces remained loyal to her in reserve, and hope that they’d be enough to take Equus.

Both were hardly ‘ideal’ options, but they were the only choices that she could see.

The brush continued to stroke though the alicorn’s mane as she considered which option she would take...

Twilight idly wondered in the back of mind if she was beginning to develop empathic abilities. Because she could clearly sense the despondent feelings of every other creature around her. Though, now that she thought about it, that sense probably had more to do with the somber expressions being plainly worn on every face. Hers was likely no different. A bit more haunted than some, perhaps. Save for Xanadu’s.

After all, unlike the others sitting at their table in the galley, the two of them had actually seen the aftermath of the fight in the ‘Steed Bay.

“It’s my fault.”

The alicorn could have sworn that she’d been the one speaking. It came as quite a surprise when she saw the cobalt dragoness next to her glancing in the zebra’s direction, “I threw the numbers off when I joined up,” the striped stallion continued, his head bowed, “the confusion...it let that other changeling slip through the screening on Capensis.

“This is all my fault.”

The star admiral sitting across from him glowered at Xanadu, “that’s bullshit. I’m the one who ordered the modified screening,” she countered, “if we’d done a proper segregated search, it wouldn’t have mattered what the roster said. We’d have found the bastard.

“I should have done a proper search,” she insisted, bitterly, “even if a few of the civilian’s died, those lives weren’t worth the risks in the grand scheme of things. As the senior officer, it was my call and my fault,” Cinder looked over at the alicorn, like a filly resigned to be scolded, “Your Majesty, I accept full responsibility for this failure. If you desire my commission, I shall forfeit it immediately.”

The purple mare was already shaking her head, “I had the chance to search the ship months ago when I first found out Slipshod was a changeling. I let him talk me out of it, but I should have known better. We’d have found the other changeling long before reaching Capensis if I’d listened to my gut and insisted on revealing the existence of any changelings and vetting the crew right then and there.

“Whatever panic revealing that information might have caused couldn’t have been worse than what’s happening right now,” she added ruefully.

“What about me?” the fourth and final member of their group, Squelch, said. She glanced around at the three of them, wearing a sardonic smile, “I get to take some blame too. I hired Dee, after all. He gave me his resume and everything.”

The mare’s gaze now turned to her coffee, which she had been nursing without much enthusiasm since having it delivered by Cookie. It was pretty tepid right now, and not worth drinking. The mug did give her hooves something to do though while her mind was occupied with the plethora of ‘what ifs’ whirling through it, “it was a few years ago, but I swear I remembered seeing it mention his attending Hayyard University. As in the one on Equus.

“When you told me it was all changelings there,” the unicorn nodded towards the alicorn, “I double-checked the ship’s records,” she frowned now, “it still said Hayyard, but it specified that it had been their New Aboddon campus in the Federated Moons,” the mare shrugged, “so I didn’t think anything of it.”

There were several seconds of silence as the unicorn’s eyes seemed to burn into her lukewarm drink, “...when I heard what happened, I looked at my personal files, where I still kept a copy of the resume Dee submitted when he applied for the position,” her lips curled back in a slight sneer, “he was on Equus, at the Camelbridge campus. He’d altered the ship’s records,” a glance in the alicorn’s direction, “the day we brought you aboard.”

Squelch took a deep breath and leaned away from her drink, “So, now that we’ve established that there were a lot of failures along the way, maybe we can talk about how we’ll be moving forward from here?”

Twilight looked over at the sage green unicorn mare and pursed her lips, about to say something...but wasn’t quite able to find the words. Of the four of them, Squelch somehow seemed the most calm. Or, at least, a lot calmer than the alicorn would have expected her to be under the circumstances.

The mercenary commander had been attacked by a pony who’d looked like a close comrade, only to find out later that it had actually been a different close comrade, who ultimately turned out to be a traitor. Now she was down a ship’s doctor and a ‘Steed pilot on the eve of an invasion that would be punching deep into the heart of the Harmony Sphere. Strictly speaking, Twilight wasn’t certain that the unicorn should even be out of the infirmary right this moment. Doc Dee hadn’t been very gentle with her during his attack. Nor were there any indications that he’d made much of an effort to actually treat her injuries in the aftermath.

Her flesh was visibly discolored through her coat around her eyes and right cheek. One of the ship’s medics suspected that she’d suffered a mild orbital fracture, and had suggested that the unicorn rest up for a few days. However, Squelch had insisted that she only needed one good eye to run her company, and would proceed with her regular duties. She had, however, been dosing herself with copious quantities of painkillers in the meantime. Her injuries were distracting, Twilight had to admit, and it pained the alicorn to see the other mare walking around the ship with a pronounced limp, but she wasn’t exactly in a position to order the unicorn to take it easy.

In fairness to Squelch, it had seemed to put a lot of the crew at ease to see their commander out and about, even in her injured state. In their minds, Twilight supposed, if their employer could go about her duties while hurt as badly as she was, then they certainly had no excuse to do anything but their own best despite the circumstances.

That didn’t mean that Twilight wasn’t at least a little concerned for the mare though. Once she’d informed Squelch of what had actually happened in the wake of her attack, the sage unicorn had almost immediately excused herself from the infirmary and picked up right where she’d left off, calling back Timberjack and Victoria as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Watching all three of them very pointedly not remark on her battered appearance had been...fascinating, to say the least.

It was a common enough coping mechanism, the alicorn supposed. Perhaps not the healthiest means of dealing with trauma and loss, but an excusable one. The galaxy didn’t come to a halt and allow a pony to work through their personal problems at their own pace. It marched on.

As must they.

Squelch did have a point though: time was not on their side, and so it wouldn’t do for them to waste too much more of it throwing around blame for something that none of them could change. The alicorn took a deep breath and nodded, “Victoria’s courier ship left the planet an hour ago. It’ll take a couple months for them to reach the Federated Moons and make contact with Natch Belle.”

“Timberjack’s courier will take a little longer than that to get back through the Periphery and reach the start of our Jump Ship bridge,” Cinder added, “call it another month to get the Clans organized and formed up, and another three months to get to Commonwealth space. We can be at Equus in nine-ish months? Assuming nothing goes wrong.”

Xanadu cast the dragoness a baleful glare, “do you really think that Chrysalis is just going to hang around for nine months sitting on her bug-butt doing nothing? She knows we’re coming. She’ll be ready for us.”

Everycreature at the table tensed up at the reminder from the zebra. Squelch wore a disgusted expression on her face. They all might have found ways to ascribe blame to themselves over the collective failure to find out Doc Dee was a changeling, but it was the green unicorn who was seeking to monopolize responsibility for Chrysalis catching wind of their plans.

The ship’s physician hadn’t assaulted her simply to frame Slipshod. Presumably, that had just been something of a ‘bonus’. His true purpose in her quarters had been in order to circumvent the lockdown that she had placed on comm traffic off the ship. The HyperSpark Generators located on nearly every inhabited planet across settled space―both within and outside of the Harmony Sphere―were the only means of faster-than-light information transmission in the galaxy.

The ones in the Sphere were also under the unilateral control of ComSpark, and thus Chrysalis’ changelings. Any transmissions sent through them was assumed to be information that was also passed on to her agents. Despite the ‘official’ CompSpark narrative assuring users that their data was kept confidential and remained unmolested by HSG operators.

Consequently, both Squelch and Timberjack had all instituted blackouts on transmissions off their ships in order to keep any information from being sent through the HSGs of the systems that they were traveling through. Even something as innocuous and innocent as a letter home could―when combined with other tidbits of idle traffic from similar personal messages―could serve to alert the changelings to the upcoming Clan invasion of Equus. It was safest to just place a lockdown on all communications and remove the risk until Chrysalis was defeated.

In the case of the Zathura, Squelch had restricted access to the ship’s outbound comm network using her personal codes. Nopony else could get a message out, not even from the bridge, for any reason. This had caused some mild irritation with High Gain and the other techs when they were trying to deal with system traffic control and other mundane operations which they now needed their employer to handle for them, but it was better to be inconvenienced than have the whole invasion compromised.

However, by accessing her terminal while she’d been logged into it, Dee had been able to bypass that lock and send out a transmission to the planetary HyperSpark Generator. While Victoria might have been able to place a similar camms blackout over the palace and her own forces until they got things there under control, the planetary HSG itself wasn’t controlled by the Pony Commonwealth government. All Sphere generators were operated by ComSpark personnel, who didn’t answer to local authorities. Victoria making any attempt to curtail their usual operations would have raised too many questions, and suspicions.

Dee’s transmission had since been relayed out of the system. Nopony doubted what its final destination would be.

What was perhaps worse than the fact that a warning of any sort had gotten out at all, was what they later learned the message had specifically contained once they reviewed the transmission logs. Cinder had been near apoplexy when she’d seen that it had listed the entirety of the League-in-Exile’s active fleets and ground forces. Vows had been made regarding numerous bodies being summarily relieved of their ‘incomptetent heads’ upon her return to Clan space. Twilight wasn’t convinced that the dragoness was being hyperbolic either.

Now, not only did Chrysalis know that they were launching an invasion of Equus, she knew exactly what forces would be used to do it. Which meant that the changeling queen was in a perfect position to start gathering together the forces that she’d need to repel the imminent invasion of her seat of power.

Cinder’s teeth were audibly grinding as she glared at the zebra pilot “of course she’s not just going to sit around and wait,” she growled, “but what am I supposed to do about it? I can’t just fart out another fifty clusters of Assault ‘Steeds and an armada of Dreadnoughts!

“Why don’t you bend over and I’ll check to see what I can pull out of your ass?!” the star admiral flashed a clawed hand―one talon in particular―at the striped stallion, “what we’ve got is what we’ve got, and we’ll just have to go in with it, even if Chrysalis will be waiting to meet us head on.

“Clanners don’t go down easy,” the cobalt dragoness insisted, puffing her chest out and painting her words with a measure of pride, “we’ve been preparing for this fight for generations. Most of our soldiers were specifically designed for it,” she reminded him. She looked to Twilight now, “we’ll take that system, Your Majesty. Even if I have to dismantle their ships personally with my bare claws!”

Twilight didn’t doubt the star admiral’s conviction for a moment. However, “I doubt that will be necessary, Cinder; but I appreciate the offer,” she flashed the dragoness and reassuring smile before looking at the zebra.

Xanadu was a far sight from his usual chipper self, but she recognized that he was still dealing with the events from earlier, and their aftermath. Even somecreature as typically happy-go-lucky as him had to have a breaking point, and he’d apparently reached his, “nocreature is expecting Chrysalis to just sit idly by,” she assured him, “but there’s nothing we can do about her right this moment.

“Even if we took the Timberwolf’s Dragoons and made a best-time run for Faust, we’d arrive months after they’d been warned,” she pointed out, “and since Timberjack doesn’t have a single WarShip, we’d all be slaughtered before we even reached the planet,” Xanadu grunted and sat back in his seat, grudgingly acknowledging their present collective impotence.

“But we’re not going to sit here doing nothing either,” the purple alicorn informed the group, “Victoria’s with us, and she might even be able to get the Federated Moons on our side as well,” she looked to Cinder, flashing the dragoness a wry smirk, “they may not be Clanners, and I don’t know if they’ll have a full fifty clusters worth of BattleSteeds between them, but it’ll be more firepower than we’d have without them,” the star admiral politely acknowledged that the additional forces for the invasion would be welcome.

“I’m sensing a ‘goodwill tour’ in our future,” Squelch muttered, frowning at the alicorn.

“If we could get even just one of the other Successor States to join in, it’ll help shift the odds further in our favor,” Twilight pointed out.

“Easier said than done,” the sage unicorn countered, “we had an ‘in’ with Victoria that we don’t with any of the other Houses, and we lucked out that she has a hook in House Belle. Getting one of the other three Houses isn’t going to be anywhere near as easy as this was.”

The purple alicorn frowned slightly. While she recognized that the connection that Slipshod’s host family had had with Victoria was likely to be a unique advantage when it came to aligning one of the major Harmony Sphere powers to their cause, she was less willing to think of the new archon’s relationship to the younger brother of the Federated Moon’s First Princess as a ‘hook’. Twilight wasn’t quite that jaded. However, now was not the time to debate the sincerity of noble relationships which were indisputably politically advantageous.

Xanadu piped up again, now sounding slightly more optimistic, “aren’t Mig and Tig kirin nobility? Maybe they can line up a conversation with whoever’s in charge…”

Squelch’s frown deepened, and the mare was already starting to shake her head, “their mother is the noble, and the three of them aren’t on what I would call ‘good terms’, at the moment. She’s not going to do them any favors any time soon.”

“It doesn’t hurt to have them ask anyway,” Twilight said, “it’s a better chance than we’d have if we just called up the Chancellor out of the blue,” that much Squelch had to admit was true, and agreed to float the idea by the twins when she next saw them, “which just leaves the Hippogriff Combine and the Our Worlds League. I don’t suppose there are any ideas in regards to them?”

“Between the two, the League would be the easiest to approach,” Squelch said, “they’re the easiest to sway, since we’d just have to convince Captain-General Moonlight Radiance to join the cause. While there’s ostensibly a parliament that would have to sign off on big matters―like invading Equus, for example―the reality is that the League isn’t nearly as egalitarian as they like to make themselves sound.

“Their whole ‘everypony is equal’ shtick gets tossed right out the airlock the moment it conflicts with whatever the head of House Glimmer wants to do,” the unicorn flashed a wry smirk.

“The Combine, meanwhile, couldn’t give two shits about what happens to the other races in the Sphere. They only even employ non-hippogriff mercs when they need fodder more than fighters. Getting them to help...” Squelch paused, making a show of trying to come up with an option, “I just don’t see you―or any of us―being able to do it.

“Not with Trade Winds being off his rocker the way he is,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “the sooner he kicks that bucket and Thera inherits the position, the better off the whole galaxy’ll be…”

Twilight thought back on the intelligence reports that she’d looked over while in Clan space, and how they had compared with what was otherwise ‘common knowledge’ and could be accessed through local system networks. While the two didn’t always line up perfectly with one another, as they were filtered through very different lenses, they did happen to concur on that point: the current head of House Novo, Trade Winds, was half mad. Or, at the very least, so paranoid as to make negotiating with him the next best thing to impossible.

His daughter, on the other hoof…

“Cinder,” Twilight spoke up, and the dragoness stiffened in her seat upon being addressed by the alicorn. While perhaps no longer the ‘princess’ of the League, the star admiral still held a clear reverence for any command that the purple mare gave her, treating it no different than she would any ‘genuine’ royal decree, “I want you to meet with Thera and reveal the truth to her regarding the changelings. If she’s as prudent as everyone says she is, we might be able to get the help we need from her.”

The star admiral squirmed uncomfortably in her seat for a moment, “...is that wise, Your Majesty?”

The former princess shrugged helplessly, giving the dragoness a wan smile, “all our cards have already been tipped to the enemy. We can’t afford to be circumspect anymore,” she pointed out, “we need allies, and we also need them to know what’s at stake. My understanding is that Thera, while not technically ‘in charge’, does have a lot of latitude with regards to the Combine’s military,” Twilight glanced to Squelch for confirmation on her assessment, and received a nod from the other mare, “and, for the moment, that’s what we need most.

“We can work on political unity later,” Twilight pointed out, “after we’ve dealt with Chrysalis.”

“Understood, Your Majesty,” the dragoness bowed her head, “I’ll assemble a team and depart for Combine space as soon as practical.”

“Good. Take Timberjack with you―not the whole company,” she hastily amended when the dragoness shot her a raised eyebrow, “but Timberjack himself has built up a decent reputation in the Sphere as an honorable pony. Having him to back you up might keep them from being too skeptical about the whole changeling matter.”

Cinder nodded in agreement. The alicorn took another deep breath, letting at out slowly and managing a―mostly―contented smile, “it sounds like we at least have a plan of action now: Cinder and Timberjack will talk to the hippogriffs, Mig and Tig will test the waters back home, and the rest of us,” she motioned between herself and Squelch, “will pay the Our Worlds League a little visit.”

She was about to wrap up the meeting when she noticed that Xanadu seemed a little uncomfortable about something, “what’s wrong?”

The zebra cleared his throat, and seemed to have some difficulty making eye contact with the others, “nothing! Just...really glad that the blackout on HyperSpark communications has meant that the twins couldn’t send their mother their latest...um, ‘video message’,” he offered up a sheepish smile and a short cackle of forced laughter. The other three continued to stare at the stallion with varying degrees of confusion etched on their faces, “it, uh...probably wouldn’t have helped things if she’d seen it.

“So, you know...we lucked out there! Hehe…heh…” the zebra pointedly picked up his drink and began to take a long, unproductive, sip from it; still having difficulty making eye contact with any of the others at the table.

The awkward silence at the table lasted for several seconds before it was finally broken by Cinder, “they made a video with you too?”

Twilight found herself wearing Xanadu’s drink a moment later, and never received a satisfactory explanation as to why.

“Outbound Whinney-One-Zero-Seven, you are clear for throttle-up on nav corridor two-four.”

“Roger, Botany Tower. We copy throttle up on two-four.”

Briar leaned leisurely back in his chair, kicking his cloven hooves up onto the control station so that he could more easily relax. Something that he’d have gotten reprimanded for by his supervisor, were his supervisor in the control room and not already back in her quarters after signing out of her shift early. Not that there was anycervid who would blame her. One-Zero-Seven was the only craft that had been docked at the orbital platform, and there wasn’t any other traffic in the system that fell into their jurisdiction. The Botany Bay system was hardly what one would call a ‘hive of activity’, even by most Periphery standards.

Having three craft in planetary orbit was an ‘all hooves on deck’ madhouse, as far as their usual level of activity was concerned. That buffalo-crewed light freighter could pretty much have flown anywhere that it wanted to without having to worry about running afoul of any other traffic. However, the fact that they effectively had free reign of the system’s space was no reason to completely ignore established interstellar flight control operations.

Or so Briar was consistently told. He wasn’t exactly one to complain though. After all, it meant that he had guaranteed employment where he was required to perform less than an hour of anything even remotely approaching ‘work’ during a typical duty shift. If the Botany Bay government wanted to pay him to watch vids for seven hours a day, he wasn’t going to argue with them!

Speaking of, “Safe travels!” the young deer cut the comm and pulled his datapad back out, cueing the show that he’d been watching back to where he’d left off and resumed the playback. A new season was slated to be released in a couple of weeks, and he wanted to refresh his memory of the characters and events involved.

He wasn’t certain how long the light identifying an incoming communications request had been flashing by the time he looked up from his vid and finally noticed it. He couldn’t think of a reason why it would have been flashing at all, honestly. He put aside his datapad and skimmed the details regarding the message’s origin, initially suspecting that the freighter he’d recently cleared had run into some sort of issue and needed to return. However, that turned out not to be the care.

Far more interestingly: it was from the Jump Ship at the system’s nadir.

Why were they contacting him? Briar couldn’t think of anything vocation-related that the Jump Ship’s crew could possibly have to talk about, and he certainly wasn’t personally close to any members of its crew.

Briar reached out and opened the channel, “this is Botany Bay System Traffic Control; Tech Officer Briar Patch speaking. How can I help you?”

The cervine buck waited patiently for several long seconds, but received no reply to his acknowledgement. He frowned and did a quick check of his console to confirm that everything was functioning properly and ensure that he hadn’t accidentally muted or deafened anything. He couldn’t locate any problems on his end that would explain the silence, so he tried again, “this is System Traffic Control acknowledging your comm request. Please respond.”

Silence.

“Did somecreature flank-dial, or what?” the buck muttered under his breath as he set about doing a more thorough investigation of the anomalous signal. First was a quick diagnostic of his own panel to check that it was functioning properly and hadn’t thrown out any false alerts. When that came back clear, Briar checked the station’s comm array to make certain that it was capable of sending and receiving traffic. His surface-bound counterparts on the planet below confirmed that they could understand his transmissions, so there didn’t seem to be anything wrong on his end of things.

The problem had to be with the Jump Ship then.

The cervine turned his attention now to the platform’s long-range sensors, which he rarely had any cause to regard given the lack of activity in the system. The console saw such infrequent use that he discovered that it wasn’t actually even on at the moment. Somecervid had probably shut it down for it’s weekly maintenance and then forgotten to turn it back on again. Wouldn’t have been the first time. After all, he’d clearly forgotten to make sure it was on for his shift…

When the console completed its boot-up checks and finally began relaying sensor information, Briar was positive that it was either broken, or hadn’t been calibrated correctly. It should have been showing him two contacts: the buffalo freighter and the Jump Ship.

He was looking at dozens. Half of them were registering as being larger than the Jump Ship itself! That obviously wasn’t possible.

Briar initiated a reset and a diagnostic of the system, which consumed another fifteen minutes of time. When the display came back up, it was showing nearly double the number of contacts that it had previously!

“What in the…?” the buck rubbed the back of his head idly with his hoof, trying to make sense of things.

The chances of this being a malfunction of some sort were looking less and less likely. If it really had been a defect in the system or the equipment, then Briar reasoned that he should be getting back a lot of ‘garbage’ readings on the alleged contacts. While he would go so far as to say that a lot of what he was seeing was plausible, he wasn’t finding a lot that was outright impossible. Technically. The mass readings, vectors, velocities; they all made rational sense, to a degree. Everything pointed to these being genuine contacts in the system. The computer was even generating some profiles for them based on the sensor reflections.

Not that those preliminary identifications were doing a lot to convince the traffic control tech that what he was seeing was really happening. The dozens of DropShips that were being detected all matched up with readings he’d seen before―though never quite so many of them at once. However, he was more than a little skeptical about the supposed ‘WarShips’ that the computer was identifying.

After all, those just...weren’t a thing. Not in real life anyway. Vids set in historical periods showed them, sure―and rumor was that some of the Great Houses back in the Sphere had one or two smaller ones stashed away to show off for big events―but an actual fleet like he was seeing now simply wasn’t a thing that existed!

Speaking of ‘existing’, it was only now that Briar Patch realized that, aside from the dozens of new signals that he hadn’t expected to see on the sensor plot, there was also one signal that was conspicuously absent from it: the Jump Ship. It was gone.

Curious about―and somewhat dreading―the reason for this, Briar tapped out the set of commands necessary to review sensor logs. He punched in the timecode for the moment that his console noted initially receiving the communications request from the Jump Ship. It was there on the plotter now, the buck noted, along with a trio of other signals that were each at least as large as a Jump Ship in their own right. He sped through the recording, noting that several more large unidentified signals emerged.

Then the Jump Ship vanished. However, what Briar did not see noted on the sensor logs was the telltale energy spike of a jump translation. The ship hadn’t left.

It had been destroyed.

The question now was: by who?

There were a few proximal regional powers in this part of the Periphery that Briar could think of who might be invasion-minded. Not that Botany Bay had a lot to offer in the way of wealth, weapons, or resources, that would make an invasion worthwhile. Nor did they possess the sorts of defenses that would have justified committing the forces that he was seeing displayed here. A single Friendship-Class DropShip with a half-load of BattleSteeds would realistically be all than anycreature needed to take his backwater home of a planet.

What he was seeing here was the sort of force he’d have expected to be employed against a robustly garrisoned Sphere world!

Briar moved back over to his console and brought up one of the platform’s optical arrays. These saw even more infrequent use, as there was usually very little of interest to look at in the system. However, he wanted to verify what the computer was telling him about their visitors before he started waking important cervines up. Though, if what he found turned out to match the computer’s deductions, Briar suspected that he was going to get yelled at anyway for waiting so long to call anycervid.

Not that there was anything that could realistically be done, given the numbers involved. He could count the number of BattleSteeds on the planet with one hoof. In fact, an amputee could display an accurate count.

When the scopes came online, and Briar directed them towards the system nadir, the buck felt his blood go cold in his veins. In one of his vids, the sight would have filled the traffic control tech with a sense of awe. During one of the more pivotal climax scenes, he might have even been cheering.

He wasn’t cheering now though.

He was frantically calling up his supervisor in her quarters, “Fern! I need you in the tower; we’ve got an emergency!”

After repeating the call for the third time, the buck finally received a response from an audibly irate doe, “what, in the fuck, do you want, Briar? If the station isn’t deorbiting, I swear I will―”

“We’re being invaded!” the buck blurted.

There was a long, pregnant, pause from the other end of the line, followed by a, “...what?”

Briar ignored the clear note of doubt in the doe’s voice. After all, he’d just spent the better part of half an hour in denial himself. However, now that he’d finally come to terms with what was happening, it was his duty to make sure that word got out to the proper creatures who would know better than he did what needed to be done. Never mind that even a lowly tech like himself was acutely aware that there wasn’t anything that realistically could be done to stop whoever was coming.

Perhaps he would be commended if he just got back on the comm now and started trying to preemptively offer these newcomers the unconditional surrender of the system? It might minimize the death toll somewhat…

“Dozens of new contacts have jumped into the system over the last hour,” the buck began explaining to his supervisor, “they blew up the Sojourn! Now they’re heading towards the planet. There’s something like twenty DropShips, maybe more. Friendship-Class or larger.”

His superior sounded much more awake now. In the background, he could hear muted sounds of somecervid getting dressed, “who are they?”

“No idea,” the buck admitted, “I don’t recognize the transponder coding. Maybe it’s scrambled, or really out of date―or our systems are really out of date,” he added under his breath as an aside, “I got scopes on them, so I know they’re there. I don’t recognize the markings though,” he reached over and tapped out some additional commands, sending a still image to the doe’s terminal, “anyone you recognize? Merc unit or maybe a new pirate faction?”

Fern spent several seconds scrutinizing the dark silhouette painted on the bows of several of the WarShips. A winged creature with a large, gaping, toothy mouth; posed as thought leaping at the viewer. She finally gave her frustrated response, “never seen it before.

“Keep tabs on them. I’ll call up the governor’s palace.”

“Will do, boss,” Briar said before closing down the channel. He looked back at the system plotter and swallowed back a lump of dread that had been building in his throat. The audible resignation in the doe’s voice in that last part―while not unexpected―had served to confirm the buck’s own weighty fears: there wasn’t anything that could be done to stop the threat headed their way. She was going to call the palace as a matter of protocol, not because she believed that it would do any good.

The buck reached out to his console and placed another call. There was no response this time, but that didn’t surprise him much, considering what the local time at the destination was. He contented himself with leaving a message, “hey, Mom; it’s Briar. Haven’t told you that I loved you in a while. Just...wanted to say it again in case...well, while I had the chance…”

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