“I’d heard that love can make a pony crazy; but this seems a little excessive.”

Nacht Belle saw his older brother’s broad grin reflected in the standing mirror, so he knew immediately that it was a jest, but the Pretender to the Federated Moons’ throne also knew his brother well enough to recognize that there was a significant amount of genuine unease within the elder batpony. Truth be told, Nacht wasn’t entirely comfortable with the entire revelation either. Under different circumstances, he might have thought that Victoria had somehow become consumed by madness during her time in the Periphery. However, the newly-minted Archon of the Pony Commonwealth had seen fit to send a considerable amount of evidence along with her message to back up her allegations.

Evidence that, thus far, he had shared exclusively with his brother, and nopony else; and not merely because Victoria had cautioned him against disseminating the contents of the courier’s delivery with anypony he didn’t trust with his life. Quite frankly, he’d wanted a second opinion as to whether he was the only one who had initially found her claims to be wildly outlandish.

Menulis had agreed that, yes, the notion that a shapeshifter replaced Queen Twilight Sparkle many centuries ago and was now using a secret network of doppelgangers to control nearly the entirety of Harmony Sphere politics had sounded patently absurd at face value. However, he had also conceded that the holographic messages of both a dragon―of all creatures―and one of the alleged ‘changelings’―in their true form―which corroborated her allegations, had been quite convincing. The elder batpony stallion had also cautioned that the information should not be spread any further within the Federated Moons.

“You think we shouldn’t go through with it,” the younger sibling said, veiling his disappointment as he anticipated the verdict of his prince, “You think it’s too dangerous.”

Menulis’ grin waned now, settling into an expression more befitting the serious nature of the discussion as he continued to don his BattleSteed barding. Word had reached the palace just that morning about a force of Aris Highlander mercenaries laying siege to one of the Federated Moons’ border worlds. An agricultural center whose loss would have significant ramifications across the rest of the star nation. In a galaxy where relatively few settled worlds were genuinely suited to large-scale farming, the loss of even one such world to even a nation as large as theirs would have far-reaching consequences.

The First Prince would be leading the Fourth Belle Guards, along with a mix of regular military and mercenary groups to defend the planet. He would be away for several months, at the least. Meaning that Nacht would be negotiating with Victoria largely on his own, without the older brother’s counsel to lean on. Given the contents of her message, there was little doubt in either of them as to how serious the ramifications of any decision that they made could be.

“A week ago,” the elder batpony began, “I’d have told you to go for it without a second thought,” he turned away from the mirror briefly, managing to muster up another wan smirk, “a wiley mare like that? You could do worse for a wife. And with her at the helm of the Commonwealth, we’d be hard-pressed to do better for an ally!”

He sighed now, shaking his head as he resumed donning his barding, “but now…? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I think any less of her, or that I don’t want an alliance with the Commonwealth,” he qualified adamantly, “But it turns out that none of us understood the broader ramifications of such a union...or what might have ended up happening to us―to you―if we’d gone through with it.”

Nacht frowned as he recalled the multitude of thoughts that he’d recently entertained along those same lines. If Queen Twilight―or Chrysalis, or whatever her name was―really was dead set against any of the five Great Houses casting aside their mutual animosity for one another and coming together in any sort of alliance, then what would ComSpark have done when his marriage to Victoria was announced? Would he have simply turned up dead one morning? Strictly speaking, the younger noble didn’t suspect that it would have been anything quite so direct.

Him or Victoria dying shortly after partaking in their nuptials wouldn’t have been enough in and of itself to undo an alliance between the Moons and Commonwealth on their own. Seeds of distrust―or outright animosity―would have to be sown. Whichever one of them was killed, ComSpark would have likely been inclined to make it look like the other had been behind it, perhaps disguised as a bid to seize power over both nations. Then any changeling agents within the government of both nations would start drumming up opposition to the alliance among the public, using that death as a catalyst.

“It sounds like she’s committed to throwing her lot in with the Clans against Chrysalis no matter what we choose to do though,” Nacht finally pointed out, “We just need to decide whether we’re going to help her or not.”

“I assume that you would very much like for us to help her?”

“I’d rather help her than fight her,” the younger batpony said, smirking at his prince, “and that’s what we’ll have to do if we don’t side with her. There’s no way that ComSpark is going to let the Commonwealth assist the Clans and not be punished for it. One way or another, you have to know they’ll manipulate us into fighting the Commonwealth.”

“That’s a good point,” Menulis conceded as he finished strapping on the last of his piloting barding, “But I have one last question for you,” He turned from the mirror and approached his younger brother, looking Nacht in the eye with a stern expression, “Are you prepared to accept the consequences if we side with Victoria and lose? Because it won’t just be the two of us that will suffer if that happens. We have the welfare of the entirety of the Federation to consider.”

It was a fair point. His personal feelings towards Victoria weren’t enough to justify making any decision that would affect the lives of billions. Joining with her would mean dragging the citizens of the Federated Moons into a war. One that would be waged against a powerful enemy, and likely see a monstrously high casualty rate.

One the other hoof, “I don’t want our ponies to live as slaves to the whims of some monster on Equus. If there’s a chance that we can free them from that, then I think we should take it.”

Menulis remained silent for several long moments after his brother’s response, maintaining his hard stare at the younger batpony. Nacht held his gaze, unflinching. He had meant what he had said. If his brother disagreed, that was his business, but he wasn’t going to shy away from how he felt about the matter.

He was a little surprised though when the First Prince of the Federated Moons’ features broke into a broad grin, “good!” He slapped the younger noble on the shoulder affectionately and strode past him, heading for the door, “I expect to see a formal treaty on my desk for me to sign by the time I get back,” He paused at the door and glanced back over his shoulder, “and a nephew named after me at your earliest convenience,” he added with a wink.

“I’ll be sure to bring up that provision during our negotiations,” Nacht assured him, wearing a smirk of his own as he regarded his brother. His own concerns got the better of him though as the brief moment of levity’s tenuous hold evaporated, “Stay safe out there.”

The First Prince let an amused snort escape him, nodding his head, “It’s just some Highlanders causing problems. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before, and something I expect I’ll be dealing with for many more decades to come,” he added with a roll of his eyes. Once again he turned towards the exit and left his private chambers, heading for his ride to the spaceport, and the waiting DropShip that would ferry him to the rest of the Fourth Belle Guard, who were already mobilizing near the border.

Nacht spent the better part of the next minute closeting away the last of his apprehension. He reminded himself that his brother was correct: this was not Menulis Belle’s first sortie against the Aris Highlanders. The First Prince was an accomplished BattleSteed pilot―certainly Nacht’s better in every sparring match they’d ever held between them. There wasn’t much to be concerned about. Debatably, it was he who was going to be placed in greater peril, as he attempted to forge a secret alliance that―by all accounts―a hidden cabal of shapeshifting assassins would do most anything to stop.

There were hardly any shortage of means that he could come up with for a shapeshifter to do him in. Being left alone in a room with just a single other pony could result in his death. And that was assuming that ComSpark saw no point in being circumspect about the whole thing. An organization with the kind of reach, influence, and power that they had would have no problem arranging for ‘accidents’, especially if they didn’t have any particular qualms regarding collateral damage.

If word of what he was about to engage in with Victoria reached the ear of the wrong pony―or even a pony who just happened to later talk to a ‘wrong pony’―Nacht would never see his end coming.

By the time he finally left the private chambers of the First Prince, Nacht found himself wishing that he were the one about to ride off into battle while his older brother was the one dodging sniper bullets, knife blades, and cartbombs…

All eyes in the room were riveted to the display screens. Usually the large cafeteria’s entertainment screens were tuned to a multitude of different stations in order to appeal to the tastes of as many diners as possible. Comedy shows, dramas, and even a few local news broadcasts would be thrown into the mix, creating a curious hum of background noise that hung just below the din of several hundred hippogriffs chattering away as they ate.

Not today though. While no changes had been made to the settings of the individual displays in order to coordinate what they showed, there had been no need to. It was highly doubtful that there was a single broadcast on the whole planet of Tortoise Bay that wasn’t dedicated to showing the same thing: the invasion.

As chilling as that description made the whole ordeal sound, there was really only the one way to describe what was happening. Nocreature knew who they were, or where they had come from, or what they seemed to want. Three days ago, a half dozen Jump Ships had materialized in the system and disgorged their DropShip loads. Dozens of massive Princess-class DropShips made their way to the system’s only inhabited world, escorted by what were later determined to be WarShips―as impossible as that might have sounded.

Impossible or not, there wasn’t a griff on Tortoise Bay who hadn’t seen the images snapped by the planet’s orbital platforms which confirmed the massive vessels couldn’t be anything else. Plus, there was nothing else that had ever been built that could have mounted the gargantuan naval cannons which had shot those same platforms out of the sky. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians had been wiped out in the blink of an eye as a coordinated assault by the WarShips had scrapped every significant space station in planetary orbit in less than a minute.

Nothing had been left to oppose the enemy DropShips as they descended to the planet’s surface and deployed their forces. Three of those ships had made their landing just outside the capital city of Summit. Now those first waves of BattleSteeds from those ships were making their way to the city, and the only thing that stood between them and the civilian population was the Eighth Light Talon.

Raven’s attention was drawn from the display screens, which were showing footage from a skirmish that was happening a few hundred kilometers to the south at the outskirts of another major city. Her eyes looked onto the rank insignia molded onto the armor a second before the call went throughout the room, “On your feet!”

Every hippogriff in the cafeteria sprung up from their seats, turning away from the displays and their depictions of ongoing battles and facing their commanding general. The grizzled old hen issued a dismissive wave of her talons at the observed formality, “As you were,” only a few individuals actually seemed to relax noticeably, and it had very little to do with the high ranking officer in their midsts. The general spared a moment to note the video streaming across a nearby display and her beak pulled back in a deep frown, “I’m not going to waste anygriff’s time.

“We still don’t know who these creatures are, or why they’re here. Whoever they are though, they seem to have a lot of expensive toys, and I’m not just talking about the WarShips. There are confirmed sightings of several ‘Steed models that haven’t been in wide circulation since the Celestia League collapsed,” she looked around the room, making sure to meet the gaze with as many other hippogriffs as possible, assuring herself that they had understood the implications of what she’d just told them.

Raven understood. In the first turbulent decades following the collapse of the Celestia League, vast swaths of infrastructure had been utterly destroyed. This included many manufacturing facilities that produced the cutting edge BattleSteeds and weapons of the time. The equipment, designs, and skilled minds behind many of the top-of-the-line warmachines developed by the Celestia League’s engineers were effectively wiped from existence. A few examples turned up every now and then, recovered from an old bunker or newly rediscovered League fortress; but there were not many such relics in circulation. Their rarity made them closely guarded treasures more than anything.

The notion that there was apparently a power out there who possessed a significant number of those rare battleSteeds, and was fielding them on the front lines of a planetary assault was...troubling. To say the least.

“The forces heading for Summit are fifty kilometers out,” the general continued, “The better part of three brigades of mostly assault and heavy tonnage-range ‘Steeds are heading out way.”

Raven felt her chest grow tight at about the same time that a murmur could be heard starting to buzz around the room, growing in pitch as more and more griffs contributed to it. Over a hundred BattleSteeds, with most of them in excess of sixty-tons? That easily outmassed everything that the Eighth had combined by at least double. Factor in that the enemy reportedly was making use of more advanced ‘Steed designs, while their own forces had only two lances of light ‘Steeds and a single lance of heavies, plus support vehicles and infantry?

This wasn’t going to be a ‘battle’ by any definition that she knew the word by…

A call went out from one of the general’s aides demanding silence, and a hush returned to the cafeteria. The senior officer was nodding her head, apparently in understanding of the trepidation of the gathered soldiers, “I know. But I also know that there isn’t a griff here who actually thinks that we should tuck our tails between our flanks and run. Am I right?”

This time it was more than a mere murmur that went around among the gathered soldiers. Raven joined in the affirmation, knowing that, in spite of her own fear, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t at least make an effort to protect the populace. They had the advantage of occupying fortified positions, at least. BattleSteeds weren’t typically well-suited to prying out sufficiently dug-in troops. With some luck, it might even be possible to take down enough of those heavier ‘Steeds that it would cause their attackers to rethink whether or not this invasion was worth the effort.

“Excellent,” the general continued, “Report to your section leaders and move out.”

Half an hour later, the APC that Raven was riding in with the rest of her squad finally arrived at their designated position. The rear door dropped down, and the dozen hippogriffs within made their exit. Three other nearby APCs were unloading the rest of the platoon that would be holding down this section of the defensive line.

The soat-colored hen spared a moment to survey the bunker. She’d been here a number of times over the past couple of years since enlisting, as part of the various training exercises that they engaged in. It was immediately clear that a lot of work had been put into this place over the past seventy-two hours. Cracks in the concrete had been patched, walls had been thickened, the turrets had been refurbished. It almost looked new, if Raven was being honest.

“First Squad, set up inside,” her platoon sergeant barked.

Raven repositioned the larger than usual pack slung across her back and glanced briefly behind her towards the younger golden terciel that had joined up with their squad only three months ago, and had been assigned to serve as her A-gunner. His pack was larger than her own was, and had to weigh almost as much as his small frame did. She motioned for him to follow her as she made her way inside the bunker with the others.

The two of them wound their way through the cramped interior of the fortification, eventually making their way up a small flight of steps which brought them into a small circular casemate. Raven shucked off her pack and opened it up, revealing the components within that were intended to be easily assembled into a pseudo-static energy weapon emplacement. She immediately set about connecting the pieces together; a task made stupendously simple by the fact that the components had been numbered according to the order in which they were intended to be affixed to one another, and could only be attached in a singular configuration.

Well, unless the enterprising soldier in question insisted on bringing power tools into the equation, Raven supposed. So-called ‘private proofing’ couldn’t account for particularly determined privates armed with impact drivers. She was halfway through getting the weapon assembled when she heard the sound of equipment hitting the concrete floor. The hen glanced over to see that her assistant had managed to fumble a couple pieces of the power adapter that he had been working on putting together. He was already cursing himself and scrambling to pick up what had slipped from his grasp.

Raven could see his talons were trembling rather badly. It was no wonder he’d dropped what he’d been working with.

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” the charcoal hen repeated the mantra which had been repeated to her by her instructors many times during her training. Even Raven had to admit that the words seemed contrary initially. If something was being done slowly, then how could it be fast? She later came to realize that a more accurate phrase would actually be ‘deliberate is smooth, smooth is fast’; but the former wording certainly rolled off the tongue better. It might actually have been prone to less misinterpretation. Not everygriff truly understood what ‘deliberate motions’ were.

“Sorry,” the more lightly-colored terciel apologized as he picked up the pieces and once more set about connecting them, “I’m just…”

“Scared?” Raven finished.

“No!” The younger griff insisted defiantly. She might have even been tempted to believe him too. Had it not been for one key fact:

“Well I sure am!”

The frank admission seemed to stun the other hippogriff, who gaped at the more experienced hen in shock. She smiled over at him as she connected the final component for the weapon and proceeded to mount it to the pintle built into the casemate’s gunnery port, “Why so surprised? You heard that briefing: There are over a hundred BattleSteeds heading right for us, and the heaviest thing we have to support us is an old Riflemare!

“Being scared’s a perfectly natural reaction.”

The terciel glanced down at his trembling talons and folded his claws together briefly in an effort to get them under control, “...I don’t want to die,” he intoned softly, almost in a whisper.

“I’m pretty sure most creatures feel that way,” Raven nodded. Her tone wasn’t pithy. Ridiculing the younger hippogriff was hardly going to be productive. Besides, everything he was saying were thoughts that she either had had, or currently was having. It would thus be pretty hypocritical of her to come down on him for it. The only difference between the two of them, in her opinion, was that she was keeping those thoughts to herself so that she didn’t fan the flames of his own fears.

Finally she turned from her mounted weapon and faced the terciel, fixing him with her gaze, “I can’t promise you that you’ll make it out of this alive,” the younger griff winced visibly, “But, I can promise to do everything I can to keep you from getting killed. If you’ll do the same for me. Deal?”

The other hippogriff nodded slowly, his talons picking up the components that had yet to be assembled and managing to get them together properly. Raven helped him out, and soon enough the pair had the energy cannon connected into the bunker’s generators. The backup power supply was also at the ready, in case the small fortress lost main power. All that was left to do now was watch their sectors, and make sure that they were ready to engage the enemy the moment they came into range.

Both hippogriffs set themselves up with binoculars, scanning the horizon for signs of movement. The enemy should have been about a dozen or so kilometers out by now. Which meant that they should be coming into view at any moment.

Raven heard the call over her helmet’s comms before she made visual contact, “BattleSteed on the horizon at two-five-five!” a hen called out. She and her assistant gunner both swung around and peered in that direction. Raven felt the tightness in her chest and gut return as she caught sight of the pair of lumbering Big Macs cresting the rise the better part of ten kilometers west of the bunker. Seconds later, she could see other large ‘Steeds coming into view through the trees, many of them designs that she didn’t recognize.

They’d have a few more minutes yet before the enemy was in range. Those ‘Steeds were big, yes, but they were also pretty slow. It would take them some time to close with the bunker. Time enough for her to get in one last full check of the energy cannon’s systems. She started going through the checklist again, but paused when she her her partner mumble something.

“...The fuck is that…?”

Initially, Raven assumed that he was remarking on one of the several unusual BattleSteed designs that were heading their way, and was going to tell him not to be overly concerned with putting a name to the lumbering shapes. However, when she glanced up to say just that, the hen noticed that her assistant gunner wasn’t looking at the enemy ‘Steeds anymore. He was looking in the same general direction, yes, but his binoculars were angled far to low. Whatever he was talking about, it was a lot closer than ten kilometers.

Raven slid over beside him and picked up her own binoculars again, “what’s what?” She asked, only to have her question answered almost immediately as her unaided eyes spotted...something moving about in the treeline only a few hundred meters out. She peered through her binoculars, but found that they didn’t allow her to form any more of an explanation.

As absurd as the notion seemed, Raven felt like she was looking at a collection of really tiny BattleSteeds. While the objects were clearly metallic in nature, and possessed a lot of the features that were usually associated with ‘Steeds, there was no way that they could be. Accounting for the distance, and comparing them to the trees that they were moving through, they couldn’t have been much more than two meters tall. They certainly weren’t three! ‘Steeds that small simply didn’t exist. How would you even fit the pilot in them?

Were they being piloted by newborn foals?!

Whatever they were, they were heading for the bunker, and needed to be reported. Raven activated her comm, “Sergeant, Tower Two has movement in the trees at two-six-eight. Unknown contacts.”

“Understood, Tower Two. I have eyes on,” her sergeant replied a moment later, “Snapping so pics to pass on to the intel guys. Your orders are unchanged: something that isn’t a friendly comes into range: kill it.”

“Copy, sargeant,” Raven stepped back from the opening and took up her stance behind the energy cannon. She cycled the power on and listened for the telltale whine that the capacitors were charging properly. She leaned in and peered down the sights, focussing on the treeline and the strange not-’Steeds. She had eyes on ten of them, whatever they were.

She was leaning towards the idea that they had to be drones of some sort. They certainly weren’t piloted by anything vaguely equine, as they were moving on two legs. They were pretty well armed for their size, too; better so than some lighter ‘Steed designs that she knew about. The hen could make out what looked to be an SRM mounted on the shoulders, and each arm possessed a weapon mount of some type, though it was hard to identify the specific weapon at this range.

Dark gray streaks of smoke shot through the air as the defensive bunker’s primary turret unleashed its LRMs. Whoever was directing the turret must have been made aware of the new smaller arrivals, because that was what the missiles were tracking. Or, at least, trying to track. They seemed to be exceedingly well-equipped with more than just weapons. Not every missile was moving like it had a solid lock, and those that were tracking targets missed their marks anyway as the mini-’Steeds jetted out of the way at the last moment, dodging the missiles.

A pair of those enemy contacts answered in kind, launching a quartet of short-ranged warheads back at the bunker’s turret. Raven braced herself against her weapon as the concrete floor beneath her trembled. The lights flickered briefly. Debris fell from the sky, littering the ground in front of the casemate. They’d just lost their turret.

More missiles were flying now, impacting along the reinforced concrete fortification. Raven’s ears were ringing from the sound of over a dozen thunderous explosions. Something hit her from the side. For a brief moment, the hen thought that she had been struck by debris, only to find that it had actually been her assistant gunner who’d tackled her. She blinked in stunned confusion, looking around.

It didn’t take her long to see the large opening in the casemate’s wall only a meter from where she’d been standing. The terciel must have seen the missile coming and tackled her out of the way. She heard him groan as he started to rise off of her, clearly sore from the experience. He was bleeding a little from where chunks of rock had found flesh on his mostly-armored body, but none of the wounds looked particularly serious.

“Check the power,” Raven said as she staggered back onto her own shaking limbs. She conducted a quick inspection of the weapon and noted that it was still functional, if considerably dirtier than it had been a moment ago.

“We’re good!” He assured her.

The hen braced herself against the weapon once more and peered down the sights, drawing a bead on the nearest target, “get fucked!” She sneered as she depressed the trigger.

A beam of ruby light crossed the distance between the barrel of her weapon and the armored target almost instantaneously. It struck home solidly on the right hip, but didn’t seem to even stagger the tiny pseudo-’Steed.

Her shot did manage to attract its attention though.

Raven’s was hardly the only shot going out by now. Rifles crackled and energy weapons whined. Tracers and columns of lights of all manner of colors crossed through the air between the bunker and the attackers. It was bedlam. The pair of hippogriffs in the casement were all but oblivious to the wider battle raging around them though. All that their attention was focused on was their specific target.

Muzzle flashes erupted from the bipedal contraption’s left hand. Raven flinched away as she became aware of the torrent of lead slugs strafing across the concrete facing of the casemate. Flecks of rock speckled her helmet from where several of those ricochettes got particularly close. She ignored the danger though. If she allowed herself to be suppressed by the machinegun fire, then she wouldn’t be able to return fire with one of the heaviest weapons that their squad had left with the turret destroyed.

The indicator light near the sight flickered from red to green. It was charged up again and ready for another shot. She depressed the trigger and fired off another shot. This time she hit her target square in the chest. It staggered―slightly―but was otherwise undeterred, advancing steadily as it continued to lay into her position with its machinegun.

Something punched her in her right shoulder and knocked her to the ground.

It wasn’t her assistant gunner this time, Raven noted as she glanced at the location of the impact and noted the rather intimidating looking dent in her armored paldron. In the back of her mind, she made a note to write a very complimentary letter to the manufacturer regarding the quality of their barding. While her joint was understandably sore, there was no sign that the bullet which had hit her had managed to actually penetrate.

Her assistant gunner was at her side, reaching out with one hand to help her up. The hen gratefully took the offered limb and allowed herself to be helped back up onto her feet. She was only halfway up before there was a brief flash of crimson light, and then Raven found herself rather abruptly dumped back onto her flank. She was about to chastise her assistant gunner for his clumsiness when she noticed that he had apparently fallen down too. It took her less than a second to identify the reason:

Half of his head had been burned away by an energy beam. Raven jerked her hand out of the fresh corpse’s limp grasp, flexing her talons as though doing so would somehow get the feeling of death off of them. She glanced at the rear wall of the small room, and noted the thick black line that had been scorched into it...save for a portion that looked mostly untouched. About as wide as her assistant’s head had been.

Raven took a deep breath to try and refocus herself. A lot of griffs were going to get killed holding the line. She’d known that before she even boarded the APC. Of course, ‘knowing’ something and actually being confronted with the reality were two different things. Still, she had a job to do, and she couldn’t do it while sitting on the floor.

The hen got up on her own and gave the power coupling a cursory inspection before getting back onto the weapon emplacement. She’d barely gotten her talons back onto the grips when she froze in utter shock.

It seemed that, in the last ten or so seconds since she’d been knocked down, the enemy had gotten closer to the bunker. A lot closer, in fact. Raven had stood up just in time to find herself staring at one of the armored not-’Steeds which had positioned itself practically just outside of her casemate. It was certainly less than ten meters away.

Up close, it was far more clear what the contraptions actually were, as absurd as the notion initially sounded: they were some sort of hyper-advanced power armor.

Raven was vaguely familiar with the concept. Back in the twilight years of the Celestia-League, there had been experiments conducted to see if BattleSteeds could be effectively ‘shrunk’ down to the point where creatures didn’t ‘pilot’ them, so much as wear them like barding. The practical applications where infantry were concerned were immediately apparent. However, as she had understood things, none of those early designs had ever seen wide circulation. By the time there were workable models, the League was falling apart, and none of the major powers was willing to invest in what was still ‘untested’ technology when there were plenty of tried and true weapons already out there.

The idea of using such powered suits of armor eventually went away completely as most technological development stagnated.

Obviously, somecreature out there had not only retained the knowledge of such designs, but greatly improved upon them.

The charcoal-hued hen surmised all of this based upon the fact that, at this close range, she could clearly see a visor mounted into the head of the suite standing in front of her. She could also see the slitted pupils framed by a scaled face glaring hungrily at her through that visor. It was difficult to know if, given enough time, Raven would have been able to deduce that the being within the suit of battle armor was a dragon. Likely not. It wasn’t like anycreature in the Harmony Sphere had ever seen a dragon before anyway.

In any case, the hippogriff gunner was not given that time. Her killer took advantage of the hen’s surprise, saturating the casemate’s opening with far more machinegun rounds than were necessary to end her life. The battle armor’s occupant took another few seconds to survey the interior of the emplacement before confirming with their point commander that no enemy presence remained. Then they moved off with the rest of their point to clear out the next pocket of ‘resistance’.

It made the dragon chortle to have even thought of what these hippogriffs were doing as ‘resisting’. Nearly all of them were armed with nothing more than some manner of light arms. He could have stood still in his battle armor all day while they fired at him and probably have been in no real danger. Why were they even bothering to mount any sort of defense at all of this was all that they were bringing to the field?

Honestly, the dragon felt a little cheated. He’d been promised a real fight, and a chance at some valuable spoils. What kind of worthwhile treasures could there possibly be in the Sphere if it was all being guarded by junk? On the other claw, this was one of the outer worlds, near the Periphery. Maybe they were keeping all of the advanced and valuable tech closer to their capital?

The residents of the Sphere had best hope that was the case. Because if he and his clutchmates had really come all this way for nothing...well, they were certainly going to find some way to amuse themselves; and the other creatures of the galaxy probably weren’t going to like how they did so…

The cobalt blue dragon didn’t so much as twitch as the large brown earth pony stallion plopped into the chair across the table from her. Timberjack’s arrival had been anticipated. If anything, the stallion in charge of leading the Timberwolf’s Dragoons was running a little late for their daily meeting.

“You don’t realize just how vast the Harmony Sphere is until you have to cross it without the luxury of a jump bridge,” Cinder muttered while nursing a glass of brandy in the lounge of the Great Wyrm, Timberjack’s command DropShip. They’d already been traveling for the better part of two months, and still had a few more weeks to go before they finally arrived at the capital of the Hippogriff Combine and their meeting with Thera Novo, daughter of the star nation’s current ruler.

By all accounts, Thera was a clever tactician and a respectable diplomat―for a military officer. She was also supposedly a lot more reasonable to deal with than her father, Trade Winds, who had grown quite ‘antagonistic’ in his old age. Not that anycreature in the Sphere who valued their hide would ever make such an observation within earshot of him, of course. While trying to negotiate what they needed from the Combine with Trade Winds would be about as productive as trying to snuff out a star with a wet tissue, the hope was that his daughter would be a little more receptive.

To that end, the dragoness had been taking advantage of the considerable downtime available to her to construct a compelling speech in order to sway Thera to help them.

The issue―fortunately―wasn’t going to be one of believability. On the contrary, between herself―a bona fide dragon whose species hadn’t been seen in the Sphere in centuries―and the changeling prisoners still in the DropShip’s brig, they had ample physical evidence of their claims regarding changeling infiltration of the various Harmony Sphere governments. Thanks to the efforts of the Disciple cells in the Sphere, they could also produce any number of documents that would prove the nefarious nature of ComSpark and the imposter ‘Queen Twilight’ on Equus.

No, proving what they were telling her was the truth wasn’t going to be their biggest hurdle. It was going to be convincing her to sign on to fight against it. Of all the star nations in the Sphere, the Combine was one of the most insular. Unlike the majority of the other Sphere powers, the differences at play with the Combine weren’t strictly ideological or political in nature. The Our Worlds League, the Pony Combine, the Federated Moons, and even the Kirin Confederation, were all primarily populated by―and governed―by at least one variety of ‘pony’. That wasn’t the case with the Combine.

Over time, this allowed for the hippogriffs to be ‘othered’ from the rest of the Sphere, and vice-versa. Presently, the Combine maintained nothing more than the barest minimum of diplomatic relations with the other Sphere nations, consisting of a singular mission in the capitals of the other major powers, headed by a consul, rather than a genuine ambassador. They had no treaties or truces with the other Great Houses, and had never expressed an interest in establishing any.

All of this meant that Cinder anticipated fighting an uphill battle when it came time to entreat Thera to commit hippogriff forces to fight alongside the Commonwealth and―hopefully―the Federation. It was entirely possible that she would prove herself to be almost too practically-minded and simply want to take advantage of the opportunity that sitting out the fight presented to her. If the Clans succeeded in defeating Chrysalis, then they would surely have suffered considerable losses in pursuit of their victory, leaving both the Pony Commonwealth and the Federated Moons in greatly weakened states. An uncompromised Combine would have no better opportunity to swoop in and gobble up as much additional territory as they wanted.

Even in the event Chrysalis proved ultimately successful and fended off the Clans, the result might actually prove even more advantageous for the Combine. Not only would the militaries of both the Commonwealth and the Federation have been devastated, but Chrysalis’s forces might also be left weakened enough for the hippogriffs to ultimately defeat. Even if the changeling queen wasn’t left quite that bad off, it was possible that ‘Queen Twilight’ would be receptive to the idea of giving the ‘loyal’ Combine control of the traitorous regions of the Harmony Sphere.

Either way, the Combine stood to benefit. Or, at the very least, not lose everything. Not opposing Chrysalis, at worst, simply left them just as they were now. Defeating the changelings, meanwhile, didn’t necessarily leave the hippogriffs any better off.

Cinder had―very briefly―considered pressuring the Combine to join in with them, threatening to unleash the fury of the Clans upon the hippogriffs if they refused to help. While that might have worked in the short term, the farther reaching implications could have ultimately done more harm than good. Aside from Princess Twilight Sparkle’s certain disdain for the notion of using threats to procure allies, the animosity that the experience would doubtlessly leave the hippogriffs with would undermine efforts to reforge the Celestia League. Not just with the hippogriffs either. Word would get around that the new League was not above using threats to get what they wanted.

Hardly a good way to start the rebuilding of a nation seeking to be based upon the principles of Friendship and Harmony…

Yet, despite over a month of deep thought on the issue, the star admiral was still unsure of how best to gain the voluntary cooperation of the Hippogriff Combine. Which was why she had been working her way through a second bottle of Princessador Solar Reserve while waiting for the Dragoon commander to arrive.

It seemed as though the powerfully-built earth pony wasn’t having a day that was much better than her own though. He had been scowling before he’d sat down, “We lost another prisoner this morning.”

Cinder nodded, sympathising with the stallion as she finished off the remainder of her glass. The dragoness refilled it from her bottle, and then pushed the freshly poured serving towards the earth pony, “...And then there were two. How long do we think they’ll last?”

Timberjack pinched the glass of offered brandy between his hooves and tossed it back, grunting hoarsely as the alcohol burned its way down his throat, “Vi gives them a week. Two at the most.”

The star admiral sighed and massaged her brow. The princess wasn’t going to be very pleased to hear about that. Not that Cinder was particularly concerned about being ‘blamed’ in any way for the deaths of their changeling prisoners. Per her decrees, they were not being tortured or mistreated in any way. At least, not in any direct fashion. Strictly speaking, one could make an argument that they were being starved to death, but that wasn’t the result of anything specific that was being done to them maliciously.

It was simply a matter of being unable to locate a single member of the crew who felt any positive feelings for the prisoners. Nor were either Timberjack or Cinder going to even suggest that a member of the crew should be presented to the changelings to be forcibly fed upon.

Any future thought that the dragoness might have been willing to give to the issue in that moment was pushed aside by the simultaneous alerts that came across both her and Timberjack’s datalinks. The pair exchanged looks before taking note of the messages that they’d received.

Cinder felt her jaw go slack as she looked over the contents of the message. First, because of its origin. This had not been something which had come over traditional communications channels. It bore a Clan signature, and had been sent through their own HyperSpark Generator network. Which was the second surprising element about this.

The Clans did not possess a static HSG relay network within the Harmony Sphere. Outside of their settled systems, all HSG traffic was handled by ship-mounted generators. Meaning that, in order for her to have received this message, there had to be a Clan ship―either Jump Ship or a WarShip―within fifty lightyears of their position. That shouldn’t have been the case. At least, not since the bulk of the Timberwolf’s Dragoons fleet had been left behind in the Commonwealth.

Not that the star admiral believed for a moment that this message would have been sent from within the Dragoons. Seeing as how it was specifically addressed to the Dragoons. Moreover, it was not a message that they should have been receiving at all, as far as Cinder understood things. Not yet anyway.

“Recall?” Her earth pony companion blurted in shock, looking over at the dragoness, as though she might have more insight than he did, “The Dragoons are being recalled?”

It wasn’t merely a ‘recall’ order either, Cinder noted as she read through additional details in the message. The Dragoons were being pressed into service under the direction of Clan Timberwolf. Their reconnaissance mission was officially at an end. There was only one reason for that to be the case that the star admiral could think of: the Clans were going to war. Now. Or at least in the very near future; and they wanted all their forces made available for the task.

The dragoness’ mind raced with the implications. It was too soon. Princess Flurry Heart had promised to give Twilight a year to secure a safe corridor of travel for their fleets, so that there was no need to invade Harmony Sphere worlds in order to secure their supply lines. Clan forces would be able to fly unimpeded to Equus and confront the changeling stronghold directly, with the full might of their armies intact.

Twilight had already accomplished that much, well ahead of schedule. Archon Victoria would allow the Clans to pass through Commonwealth territory. Now their efforts were focused on using the extra time that they had left before the deadline to secure the cooperation of additional allies. That cooperation was far less likely to be secured if the leaders of those other nations saw the Clan forces invading without first being given context; to be assured that the other worlds of the Harmony Sphere weren’t the targets. That it was only Equus which would be attacked. While Victoria had effectively already agreed to allow for Clan ships to pass through her space, Cinder was mostly certain that the archon would have still preferred to be given formal notice of precisely when those Jump Ships and the troops that they ferried were actually in her space.

Even if the princess had been motivated to speed up the timetable as a result of the intelligence leak perpetrated by the changeling mole aboard the Zathura, Cinder would have expected to have received notice about the change. Coordinating with Victoria so that the Commonwealth might be able to contribute some of their own forces to the fight would require time. An entire star nation’s military couldn’t just be mobilized at the drop of a hat!

It seemed, however, that she and Timberjack were not finished receiving information updates. The DropShip’s bridge contacted the Dragoon commander a few moments later. Cinder only caught his side of the conversation, and at first thought that it was an exchange regarding the recall order.

“This is Timberjack...What?! By who?” the earth pony’s gaze shot towards Cinder, glaring at her almost accusingly. The dragoness was actually taken aback by the look, wondering now what he was being told by his bridge crew. It turned out that she didn’t have to wait long to find out. The stallion turned towards a nearby viewscreen in the lounge that had been showing a program discussing various economics markets, and changed it over to one of ComSpark’s dedicated news networks.

“―latest estimates put the death toll at the time of broadcast at around ten million. We ask our viewers to keep in mind that those numbers are estimates, and may change as additional information is made available to our network. However, all regular communications traffic from Tortoise Bay ceased within hours of the first DropShips landing. The identities of the attackers are still unknown, but it is clear that they represent a serious threat…”

As the announcer spoke, snippets of video footage played out on the screen depicting some of the fighting that had taken place on Tortoise Bay. The dragoness suspected that ComSpark actually did know who was behind the attack, given the nature of who she knew ComSpark to truly be. However, she recognized that there was also no publicly available explanation for the source of that knowledge as well. So, in the meantime, their news announcers would have to play dumb until a plausible source of the knowledge was made available to them.

Cinder knew too, of course. There was no mistaking the paint patterns on the BattleSteeds visible in the footage. To say nothing of the Elemental battle armor that featured in numerous shots as well. No Sphere or Periphery power possessed such technology. Only the Dragon Clans did.

Those were the forces of Smoke Jabberwock.

“Similar reports of large fleets of ships of unknown origin have been received from the worlds of Everywhere and Hamlet; both of which are located in the Pony Commonwealth near the Periphery. Nothing is known about the origin of those fleets at this time either. But we do have these images provided to ComSpark by local orbital observatories in those systems.”

The star admiral’s mouth went dry as she recognized the images of the ships displayed now. As before, the emblems on the bows of the WarShips left little doubt as to who they answered to. The massive roaring face of a star-studded ursa major denoting Clan Ghost Ursa...and the snarling head of a timberwolf. Her father’s Clan―her Clan―was invading the Harmony Sphere. It was almost impossible for her to believe that her sire―Twilight’s oldest and dearest friend―would be party to an invasion that didn’t need to happen.

She was briefly inclined to insist that these broadcasts were complete fabrications. That ComSpark had invented them as part of some nefarious plot to villainize the Dragon Clans and frame them for atrocities so that they would be resisted when they actually did arrive in the Sphere. It was a much more palatable explanation than the alternative.

However, the fact that she and Timberjack had received encrypted messages on Clan frequencies that had also suggested an invasion by the Dragons was imminent meant that this wasn’t some changeling misinformation or smear campaign. Oh, she had no doubt that the changelings would distort the facts regarding the invasion at every turn―she suspected that a zero or two had been added to Tortoise Bay’s death toll, for starters―but the invasion was obviously real enough.

Which didn’t exactly make it any easier to understand. They’d been promised a year. Even if a couple of the Clans let their impatience get the best of them...that didn’t explain what Clan Timberwolf was doing at the invasion’s forefront. Her father should have been the last of them to engage!

“Did you know about this?” Timberjack finally asked.

Cinder could only shake her head numbly, “I didn’t,” she could understand the stallion’s suspicions. She was the daughter of a Clan Khan in addition to being a star admiral in her own right. If anycreature was going to be ‘in the loop’ regarding the change in the invasion’s timetable, it would have been her. Indeed, the dragoness was decidedly not pleased that she was finding out about this the way that she was. Cinder realized that she wasn’t exactly that easy for coded Clan messages to reach while flitting around in the Sphere, but still…

“So what do we do now?” The stallion’s dissatisfaction with the new situation was palpable, “Something tells me that it’s going to be a lot harder to get the Sphere onboard with helping the Clans...seeing as how they’re going to be occupied soon fighting them…”

The Dragoon commander wasn’t wrong. The presence of Clan fleets in two Commonwealth systems worried Cinder in particular. If those fleets chose to invade the worlds in those systems instead of merely continuing to jump closer to Equus...it could wipe away Victoria’s good will. Twilight’s entire endeavor to foster cooperation with the Successor States could very well end up taking a giant step back. If not outright collapsing. There was every chance that they might even end up having to fight the entirety of the Sphere.

To say that would ‘jeopardize’ their objective of eliminating Chrysalis would have been a gross understatement.

However, while the broader implications of what was happening might not have been particularly ‘appealing’―to either of them―there was little doubt in the star admiral’s mind what their next course of action had to be:

“Alert the bridge. Ensure that the recall order is disseminated to the rest of the Dragoons,” Cinder began. The words tasted like ash in her mouth. She’d believed―truly believed―that Twilight’s mission to unite at least some of the galaxy against the changeling threat in aid of the Clans could have worked. However, it was obvious that Princess Flurry Heart and the khans of the Dragon Clans did not share that optimism with her, “Then set up a rendezvous so that the Dragoons can reform with the rest of the Clan Timberwolf fleet. From there we’ll likely receive orders in regards to our roles in the upcoming operation.”

Timberjack was staring at her in shock. It actually took him a few moments to find his voice again, “Are we abandoning our mission, star admiral?”

Cinder shot a glare at the earth pony, “our mission is whatever our superiors say it is, commander. We have been given orders to rendezvous with the fleet, and so we shall.”

“Ma’am, no disrespect, but my mission is to help the Disciple cells collect intelligence on the changelings to aid with the invasion of Equus and the defeat of Chrysalis.”

“And now that invasion has begun, commander,” the dragoness quipped smartly. She was not one to disobey an order, and so she was not particularly thrilled to hear Timberjack balking at the notion of following the instructions that they had just been given.

“Has it?” the earth pony asked skeptically, “When was the last time you looked at a star chart?”

He raised his hoof and tapped out a series of commands on his datalink. The ComSpark news coverage vanished, replaced by a map of the Harmony Sphere, “Tortoise Bay...Everywhere...Hamlet,” as the stallion spoke, three points of light appeared along the top of the map. Timberjack glanced over at the star admiral, who was doing her best to keep her expression impassive as she watched the three very spread out markers appear.

“Now,” the stallion continued, “it’s been a while since I saw a draft of the invasion plan. I’ve always known that some aspects were going to change―based on the very intelligence reports about Sphere military and mercenary deployments that I routinely send back to the Clans. However,” he looked hard at the dragoness, forcing her to meet his gaze once more, “unless there has been a very drastic change made recently that you’d like to fill me in about: the plan has always called for a narrow supply corridor.

“Has the definition of ‘narrow’ in Clan space recently broadened to include three hundred lightyears, star admiral?” Timberjack finished, jabbing a hoof at the screen, and the vast distance between the three highlighted systems.

“It’s possible that some or all of these attacks are diversionary, meant to keep the changelings from massing their defensive forces along any specific approach,” she defended.

Timberjack seemed unmoved by her theory, adding in quieter but equally firm tones, “I saw Smoke Jabberwock and Ghost Ursa ships on those feeds. I bet you a million c-bits that Jade Roc ships appear within the week,” Cinder looked away again. She instantly understood where he was going with this, and wouldn’t be taking the mercenary commander up on his bet, “Tell me: has Khan Smolder changed her tone any in the last few decades?”

The star admiral winced. She remained quiet on the matter though, not willing to acknowledge out loud that, if anything, the burnt orange dragoness had gotten much worse regarding her Greed Induced Bigness rhetoric. Of course, her silence proved to be a perfectly sufficient answer for the stallion.

“I thought so.

“I’ve lived among the creatures of the Sphere for decades, star admiral,” the earth pony informed her, clearing away the map and deactivating the display entirely, “most of them are decent folk. They just want to go on with their lives. It’s not their fault that they changelings keep them in the dark about what’s really going on. They don’t know any better.

“The inhabitants of the Sphere are not the enemies of the League-in-Exile,” Timberjack affirmed, “I won’t be party to a ‘plan’ that sacrifices them by the millions.”

“You don’t honestly believe the numbers that ComSpark is putting out, do you―” Cinder began to protest, but the stallion cut her off.

“You honestly don’t believe Khan Smolder cares about civilian casualties, do you?”

The dragoness’ mouth shut with an audible click. The earth pony continued to eye her critically for several more seconds in silence before finally letting out a resigned sigh and nodding, “...I thought so. I don’t have to believe those numbers are exact to know that the casualties are going to be high.

“I’m not going back.”

Cinder felt her blood run cold, “Refusing to follow a direct order from your superior is mutiny, commander!”

Timberjack nodded his head slowly in acknowledgement, “I know. But I bet I’ll still be able to get a full night’s sleep with ‘mutiny’ weighing on me. A few Tortoise Bays on the other hoof…” He shook his head.

“Twilight’s plan was the better one,” he stated flatly, “it should have been Princess Flurry Heart’s from the start.”

“We couldn’t risk approaching the wrong creature in power,” the dragoness blurted, “the price of discovery was too great.”

“I’ll remember that when all of this is finally over and we’re tallying up the dead,” was the earth pony’s grim reply, “My ponies aren’t going to be a party to this slaughter.

“I honestly wouldn’t have expected you to be okay with it either,” he added, casting an aside glance at the dragoness.

The comment hit Cinder like a PPC to the gut. Once more, she couldn’t look the stallion in the eye, “...I have my orders,” she responded, sounding far meeker than she would have liked. Even her own words rang hollow in her ears. Yet…

“I swore my duty to the Clans...and to the Princess of the League-in-Exile,” she managed to stammer out, even as she tasted the bile in the back of her mouth as she silently acknowledged what she was committing herself to. Even as she tried to rationalize how and why her own father would be a participant, “I will not forswear myself.”

“What about your commitment to Twilight?”

“My oaths were to the Princess.

“...Twilight’s just a mare.”

After what seemed to her like an eternity, Timberjack turned away and headed for the lounge’s exit, “I’ll procure you a shuttle that’ll let you depart for the Timberwolf fleet.

“For what it’s worth, star admiral: I hope you aren’t ordered to kill anycreature you know.”

Cinder hoped so too.

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