The former princess of the Celestia League had her work cut out for her, Slipshod thought to himself as he walked through the ship after the latest in what had turned out to be a series of ‘Feelings Forums’, as she had dubbed them. She’d cast a knowing glance in the changeling’s direction the first time she’d invoked the name, but he had no idea why. The alicorn had found something amusing about his inclusion in them though. Which he supposed was no small thing for any creature aboard the Zathura these days.

The botched raid on Colton had taken its toll on the crew’s morale. Which was, perhaps, putting things lightly. With so many lives lost on a single mission, it felt like there wasn’t a single being on the ship who hadn’t lost somecreature who was important to them. Whether it be a close friend, a lover...or a sister. There was a miasma of depression permeating the whole ship that was giving Slipshod something of a migraine, in spite of the emotional blocks that he’d been erecting around himself.

Over the past few weeks, that oppressive sensation had begun to subside, but it was a slow process since there wasn’t really anything that was going on which could distract the crew. In the past, he and Doc Dee had tended to be the ones who took proactive steps towards combating feelings of loss after missions that went sour. Slipshod had assumed that the unicorn physician did so as a matter of his own training. It had made sense to him that a ship’s doctor would be concerned with the mental health of the crew, as well as their physical wellbeing. Obviously, he now knew that there had been more nefarious motives involved. The same selfish desire to obtain a palatable meal that had prompted himself to get involved―

The changeling suppressed a scowl as he reflexively batted the thought aside. He might not feel like he was getting any better about not having those sorts of thoughts in the first place, but the stallion did allow himself to acknowledge that he was getting better about recognizing and stopping them. That was part of his ‘homework’ between sessions with the former princess: to be aware of when he was thinking about his changeling nature in a negative way and put a stop to it. He was also tasked with documenting the thought in question and the time he’d had it.

Slipshod wasn’t certain whether that last step was supposed to actually help him in any way, or if the purple alicorn simply liked having quantitative data to review for the sake of reviewing it. The former Celestia League monarch might not be a bona fide psychologist, but she certainly took notes like one. It seemed like there wasn’t a moment during any of their meetings where her quill wasn’t moving.

She also wasn’t half bad at playing therapist. For a creature that didn’t have the innate ability to sense emotions like a changeling, Twilight had proven herself remarkably adept at discerning how others were feeling and helping them to trace those emotions back to their source. She’d managed to zero in on his own feelings of self-loathing quickly enough.

The stallion was still on the fence regarding her theories on their origin: ‘Inadequacy born from his failure to attain affirmation from his mother’ seemed just a little on the nose in this instance. On the other hoof, he was hard-pressed to deny that being cast aside by his former queen hadn’t at least precipitated a few of his more potent self-destructive tendencies.

First and foremost was probably his desire for revenge, to the point where he was ready to endanger his life and the lives of others in order to attain it. To say the least, that wasn’t exactly a ‘healthy’ coping mechanism.

And neither was his constant ‘othering’ of himself in comparison to the rest of the crew. Yes, he wasn’t really a pony. However, Twilight had reiterated numerous times that not being a pony didn’t automatically make him a monster. There were quite a few non-ponies on the ship.

The same went for the fact that he was possessed of a significantly divergent diet when compared to ponies. While the Zathura specifically didn’t have a significant non-herbivore population, it was hardly a secret that griffons and hippogriffs didn’t live exclusively on oats and dandelion sandwiches. The fact that they ate meat and fish didn’t make them ‘monsters’. So neither should his nature as a psychovore. He couldn’t help his physiology, and shouldn’t feel ashamed about it, or a need to apologize for it.

These had all been easy concepts to grasp on an intellectual level, of course. Any foal would have rolled their eyes at how obvious those facts should have been. However, it was hard to remain objective while simultaneously carrying around the associated emotional baggage that had come with his history. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, his life hadn’t been as objectively difficult or ‘traumatic’ as what other creatures might have experienced; but those events had still been important to him.

He’d been taught for years―decades, even―that changelings were superior beings, above all other creatures in the galaxy. That his species controlled everything that happened in the Harmony Sphere and made the other denizens in it bend to their will. Nothing significant transpired that wasn’t the direct result of Queen Chrysalis and her loyal changeling servants pulling on the strings behind the scenes.

Obviously, being a changeling and thus a shaper of events in the galaxy, any time something went wrong, it was clearly because he had screwed something up. Things in the galaxy happened only because changelings made them happen. If a mission failed and creatures died, it must have been because he made it happen somehow. It was his fault. He’d screwed something up and precipitated the deaths and failure that followed.

An irrational thought process, he acknowledged, when viewed from the outside. Yet...one that he’d ascribed to for far too long to simply ignore.

While it was true―and even Twilight had acknowledged as much―that any leader bore some measure of responsibility for the decisions that they made, that wasn’t necessarily the same thing as being at fault. If every decision was made in good faith, then any subsequent failure was outside of their control. Nocreature―not even changelings―could genuinely manipulate every variable. Everycreature was fallible, and could make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes got other creatures killed.

Slipshod had conceived the mission and ordered its execution, but he’d done so from a place of good intentions. He had genuinely believed that the operation could be conducted with their small numbers given everything that they’d done to try and minimize the defensive force in place. Obviously he’d been quite wrong. He’d misjudged the HSG’s security staffing, and how much of an advantage the defenders would have. Because of those oversights, seventeen members of the crew had not returned from the mission.

Slipshod bore some responsibility for those deaths, but that didn’t mean that he had caused them. Punishing himself, or manipulating others into hurting him, was both unproductive and unnecessary. What he’d done hadn’t been a crime. If he were an officer operating as part of a formal military and had organized a mission that had failed spectacularly like this one had, he’d have almost certainly been relieved of his command, but he wouldn’t be prosecuted or imprisoned.

A month ago, Slipshod would have scoffed at the notion that thinking of himself as being too ignorant to be punished would actually help in any meaningful way. Indeed, when Twilight had first floated the idea at the Feelings Forum, he’d let out quite the hardy derisive laugh. But, when she’d asked him if Squelch deserved to be punished for allowing Doc Dee to fool her and pass on all of the information that he’d gathered on the Clans to Chrysalis, he’d begun to understand her position. Squelch hadn’t known that there was anything wrong with the doctor, and he hadn’t known there was anything wrong with the mission. Punishing either would accomplish nothing productive.

Accepting responsibility without taking on excess guilt. It was a difficult line to walk.

Nor was he alone. As the pony who had organized and led the raid itself, Blood Chit bore a great deal of the responsibility for how it had all played out too. However, executing such missions was not something he had an abundance of experience doing. Not directly. Some of the search and rescue tasks he’d performed prior to signing on with a mercenary company had been ‘more exciting’ than others, true; but he had been a participant in such operations, and not tasked with planning them out or leading them.

There was apparently quite the gulf between the two distinctions.

To put it simply: the pegasus hadn’t been experienced enough to reasonably be expected to plan an operation that dangerous. Likewise, the rest of his team had not been expertly drilled in storming hardened facilities. Their area of focus lay in operating in much more open areas; large enough for a BattleSteed to move around it, for example.

With the benefit of hindsight, they’d had no business conducting that sort of operation. After everything they’d been through recently, they’d both been thinking a little highly of themselves, perhaps. Reviving the ruler of the defunct Celestia League, learning the truth about the Disciples, Clans, and the changeling threat, tracking down the not-so-dead heir to the Pony Commonwealth and helping to install her as archon…

It was easy to forget that, in spite of all they’d been party to, they were still just a middling little mercenary lance. They’d been doing a lot with a little up to this point thanks to possessing superior ‘Steeds; but that advantage didn’t extend to their security forces. Perhaps it would have been possible for a single platoon of elite shock troopers equipped with top-of-the-line weapons and gear to take the generator; but that wasn’t what they’d had. Or used.

Mistakes all around. Responsibility aplenty.

Minimal ‘fault’.

That’s what Twilight insisted at those forums. Slipshod wondered how long it would be until he didn’t have to force himself to believe it?

The stallion’s datapad beeped at him. He glanced down at it and fought down the chill that filled his gut. No amount of Feelings Forums could adequately prepare him for this upcoming moment. Twilight had given him several ‘pep talks’ on the matter as well. Slipshod was ambivalent regarding how much confidence that they’d filled him with.

With the alicorn’s help, the changeling had been able to come to an understanding with Mig over the roles that they had both played in the death of her twin, and how nothing about any of it had been malicious. Their relationship wasn’t what it had once been, but the stallion could see them returning to something as close to what they’d shared eventually. Once they’d both managed to come to a place where they could move on from Tig’s loss.

He and Blood Chit had mostly reached the point of complete recovery, having had a lot more common ground to share regarding how they’d failed to more carefully consider the operation and its risks. Both had been able to acknowledge being unfair towards the other in the wake of the disaster. Especially Slipshod. The pair of stallion’s even hung out and spoke outside of their mediated meetings with Twilight. Which was a stage further than he was with Mig at the moment.

However, there was one more pony that the changeling had ‘wronged’ with whom he had not yet reconciled.

A pony who would only be learning about what had happened to the members of her crew in a few short minutes. While Slipshod had dutifully typed up the after-action reports and scripted the notifications for the relevant next of kin, there had been no way to get the information to Squelch before her arrival. Anything that was transmitted through the Harmony Sphere’s HyperSpark Generator Network would have been read and reviewed by the changelings.

While the changelings certainly knew that one of their secret arrays was out of action, there was no reason to supply them with all of the relevant details about had it had been found and why it had been destroyed. Nor was there any pressing need to deliver that information right into their pocked hooves.

All that Squelch knew about their mission to Colton was that it was something of a ‘successful failure’. While they had been paid out for their contract, it had been terminated prematurely due to the death of Captain-General Moonlight Radiance. This had not been the result of any fault or lack of performance on the part of the Rayleigh’s Irregulars, hence the payout. However, it was impossible to ignore that their overall broader mission to secure a commitment from the leader of the Our Worlds League against the changelings was unmistakably a huge setback.

A setback that was compounded by the news regarding the new captain-general and where he’d been for the last year. Slipshod and Twilight had both agreed almost instantly that Stellar Nova was, at best, a deeply devoted changeling sympathiser. More likely he was a changeling imposter who was replacing the genuinely dead heir apparent.

Planting one of her drones right at the head of state was a departure from Chrysalis’ normal modus operandi. Such individuals were in the public eye almost constantly. Everything that they said and did would be scrutinized by the entire galaxy. Slipshod and the other infiltrators had been afforded many years to properly research the host’s families and social network so that they could avoid making any obvious faux pas. Given how long ago the bombing had happened―what was with Great Houses and bombs, anyway?―the changeling agent who was standing in for Stellar Nova couldn’t have had more than a year.

Slipshod expected that, for the near future, Stellar Nova would be spending a lot of time ‘working’ out of sight of the press, and away from close friends and family as well, so that the changeling could avoid making any glaring mistakes while they completed adapting to their new role.

Not that any of that mattered much to them or their objectives. The Our Worlds League was off the table as an ally regardless now.

They probably weren’t going to be the only ones either.

Nopony on the Zathura had an explanation for the Clan ships invading Harmony Sphere worlds. Twilight had been near-apoplectic when she’d seen the initial reports, and her attitude hadn’t improved much in the following weeks in that regard as more planets fell. She maintained her composure during the Feelings Forums well enough, but Slipshod could sense her apprehension simmering just below the surface, even while she smiled at them and gave them advice and encouragement.

If there was anything approaching ‘good news’ about the whole ordeal, it was that it was―hopefully―looking like only four of the Clans were involved. For the moment anyway. Others might be working their way through the Periphery to hit other parts of the Sphere, so it would still be some time before either Twilight or Slipshod felt confident that there weren’t others. However, there was no way for them to confirm any of this. They couldn’t exactly get a message to Cinder, who was supposed to be their liaison with the Clans; not without alerting the changelings anyway.

Timberjack and the star admiral were likely going to find themselves having a difficult time convincing the Hippogriff Combine to help the Dragon Clans fight against Chrysalis while Clan forces were actively invading their territory.

There was also the matter of the many―many―messages from Victoria Blueblood that were waiting in Squelch’s inbox. With nearly ten Commonwealth planets currently being occupied by Clan troops, Slipshod was venturing that they weren’t exceedingly polite invitations to a nice dinner.

The changeling stallion took a deep breath and finally acknowledged the message he’d received, notifying him that Squelch’s transport had docked with the same orbital platform that the Zathura was currently moored at. It wouldn’t be long now before their employer was back aboard and ready for an update on everything that had happened in her absence. Slipshod fully expected the evening to not go ‘well’ for him.

If there was anything approaching a silver lining to be had: it was that hopefully Squelch had some idea of what their plan of action was going to be now.

The Clans had seemingly abandoned Twilight’s plan, there was no chance at all that any of the Great Houses were going to help the same forces invading their territory, and Slipshod was ready to bet that at least one of those messages from the archon was a declaration that the Commonwealth would no longer be having anything to do with Twilight or their company, regardless of how much they had helped her in the past.

They needed a new plan.

Slipshod went to his quarters to get cleaned up and changed. Squelch was going to be in a bad enough mood as it was. The very least the stallion could do was see to it that she wasn’t further irritated by him greeting her all disheveled. Besides...this meeting was actually going to be something of a first for him with her. Kind of. A good impression wouldn’t hurt.

An hour later the stallion was standing by the DropShip’s airlock doing his best not to fidget in his uniform. A small part of that was due to the few little feelings of nervousness that refused to be cast aside. Most of it was because the uniform didn’t fit right anymore. It had been tailored for an earth pony after all.

His wings, especially, were bothering him, being restrained by the jacket that had not been designed to accommodate them. So they were left to be pressed uncomfortably against his backside. He’d need to put in a request for pegasus-cut uniforms and barding when the opportunity came up.

The door finally opened, revealing a jade green unicorn mare with exceptionally drawn features. Fatigue, brought on by both the long trip and the stress of the Clan’s recent antics, wafted off of her. She opened her mouth to greet the earth pony stallion, but her words caught in her mouth and her fatigue was quickly replaced by shock. The feeling subsided quickly, leaving the mare with a somewhat amused curl in her lip as she examined the individual who had come to greet her. Then there was a spike of anxiety as the unicorn mare quickly glanced over her shoulder, confirmed that nopony was around her in the transit tube, skittered through the airlock, and finally sealed the entrance behind her.

“New look?” she asked finally, smirking at the changeling.

“Trying it out,” Slipshod shrugged, “At least while I’m on the ship,” he amended, “I’ll obviously be a pony when I’m out in public.”

“You look…” the mare seemed to briefly struggle for the word that she wanted before finally saying, “like you.”

“Thanks. So...how was the trip?”

“Long,” the unicorn sighed, “and now it’s over and I can get back to work. We need to talk. All of us,” she added, already stepping past the stallion as she proceeded deeper into the ship, “You, me, Twilight, Mig, Tig, Blood Chit―the whole command staff. Call Cravat too, since I still haven’t gotten us a new doctor yet―”

“Squelch,” the changeling cut in, hesitantly as he felt his apprehension about the mare’s probable reactions mounting, “first there’s something that we do need to talk about. In private. About the last op…”

Half an hour later, both of them were sitting in silence in Squelch’s cabin. She’d been remarkably quiet and patient as the stallion recounted the mission on Colton. Some parts she’d already heard about, obviously, like the captain-general’s death. The rest of it was all coming at her for the first time though.

Squelch didn’t respond at first. She leaned on her peaked hooves, staring past the changeling with unfocused eyes. Inside she was...numb. Processing. She was hardly new to the concept of losing members of her crew. Theirs was an inherently violent and dangerous profession, after all. Death happened. However, this was the latest in a litany of deaths that it was difficult to deny were tied to him.

Valkyrie. Flechette. Debatably Doc Dee. Now over a dozen others, including Tig. The changeling may not have pulled the trigger in any of those instances, but he certainly was involved.

Finally the unicorn mare began to slowly nod, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. She hurt; he could feel that much. However, she was also a professional, and there was work to do, “...You said that some data was at least recovered from the facility?”

“Some drives were recovered,” Slipshod corrected softly, “Three of them. We can’t read anything off them though. Could be encryption, could be corruption. Blood Chit said they’d initiated some sort of mass data wipe protocol. For all we know, there’s nothing usable on them at all.”

Another acknowledging nod, “alright. I assume that changeling encryption algorithms are way above what the computers on this ship can crack?” The changeling nodded, “And you don’t know the decryption keys, do you?” He shook his head.

“In that case, we’ll put them on the backburner,” Squelch concluded. She took another cleansing breath and changed the topic, glancing at her computer terminal, “I assume that these aren’t love letters that Victoria’s been sending me?”

Slipshod frowned, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say about―?”

“What do you want me to say, Slip?” she snapped. Far more loudly than even she had intended, it seemed. Her next words were markedly quieter, but held the same grit, “Seventeen of my employees are dead. A few friends among them. I’ll grieve for them on my own time, in my own way. Right now, I’m on the clock. Which means I only care about business.

“So we’re going to talk about business. Okay?”

The changeling continued to regard the jade mare. She did hurt at least as much as he did, though for different reasons. She had none of the guilt. Only regret. Regret at being away. Possibly regret at leaving him in charge when he was obviously woefully unqualified to lead. It was difficult to really pin it down while the unicorn was actively working to suppress those same emotions and replace them with determination.

He decided that it was best not to continue to press the issue here, but it was probably worth speaking to Twilight about including Squelch in their subsequent Feelings Forums. In the meantime, it was clear that the unicorn needed him to help her focus her mind on other things, “Okay.

“No, they’re probably not love letters,” the stallion confirmed, “I haven’t read them, but I can guess at their gist. I think every broadcast station has daily updates on the invasion, even the entertainment channels.”

“Invasions,” Squelch stressed the plural slightly, earning a raised brow from the stallion, “I don’t believe these are a coordinated effort.”

“Despite the fact that they timed their arrivals almost perfectly?” Given the many hundred of lightyears separating the fleets, it was quite impressive that they managed to hit their intended targets within days of one another. The notion that it hadn’t been coordinated was actually much harder to believe.

“Let me rephrase: I don’t think the fleets are working towards a unified goal,” Squelch corrected, “They definitely timed their arrivals, maybe; but they’re not expressly working with each other.”

“How do you figure that?”

“There’s no unified strategy. Each Clan has their own way of doing things. Target priorities, unit compositions, battlefield conduct. If they were all working together as part of a singular invasion effort, then they’d all be using the same tactical doctrines. But they’re not.”

It was true that each of the four distinct Clans which had been identified so far invading the Harmony Sphere had their own ways of doing things, Slipshod acknowledged. Clan Timberwolf seemed to be limiting itself almost exclusively to military targets, avoiding engagements near populated areas whenever possible. They hit methodically, thoroughly securing one area before moving onto the next most significant pocket of resistance. The worlds they secured retained much in the way of their infrastructure and industrial capacity.

Clan Ghost Ursa seemed to hit everywhere all at once when they landed, their divisions breaking up into smaller units almost immediately. One would have thought that spreading out their forces like that would make them vulnerable, but the speed at which they moved onto their targets robbed the defenders of their initiative. Waiting to gather their forces to strike the Clan at one location meant risking the loss of a dozen other strategic points. Defending commanders felt compelled to spread out their own troops to try and protect everywhere at once. However, the less advanced ‘Steeds of the Harmony Sphere were no match for Clan Ghost Ursa’s complement of heavy and assault-weight lances.

Jade Roc, meanwhile, seemed to prefer a mixture of both combined-arms fighting involving the integration of aerospace fighters, as well as the seemingly counterintuitive practice of honor dueling, of all things. It wasn’t unheard of for Jade Roc commanders to blatantly comm defending leadership and offer to wage a one-on-one fight, with the condition that the loser’s forces would surrender to the winner’s. It struck Slipshod as stupidly reckless for the Clan commanders to risk losing their more advanced ‘Steeds and weapons to the Sphere defenders in such a way. On the other hoof, he had yet to hear of an instance where a Clanner had lost such a duel; and it had thus led to the Jade Rocs managing to capture the most warfighting material intact compared to the other Clans.

Then you had Clan Smoke Jabberwock. They were, in a word: ruthless. Anything that resisted was crushed. Military or civilian, it didn’t matter. A Jabberwock unit would level a city just as soon as they would a firebase. It almost felt like their goal was to cause as much collateral damage as possible. Perhaps it even was. If so, it had certainly proven itself an effective strategy in its own right. Worlds in the vicinity of their latest invasion had a tendency to start evacuating to systems further away. By the time the Jabberwock fleet made it to the next target on their list, there was hardly anycreature there to defend it any longer, leaving them with an easy time of mopping up the stragglers.

There was nothing at all similar about how the Clans waged their wars. Still, “Having different strategies doesn’t mean they aren’t a coordinated invasion effort,” Slipshod countered, “Maybe it’s meant to make them harder to react to? Using a variety of tactics means that one singular strategy can’t be developed to repel them.”

“If that was the case, then they’d all be varying the strategies they used from one planet to the next,” Squelch said, “Make themselves less predictable that way. As it stands, it doesn’t matter that each Clan fights in a different way if a defending commander knows exactly what Clan is going to be coming their way.

“Besaides, it’s not some sort of brilliant tactical edge that’s letting the Clan forces sweep through their targets,” the mare pointed out, flashing the changeling a sardonic smile, “their ‘Steeds are bigger, with better weapons, and they’re hitting some of the most poorly defended planets in the Sphere. The Great Houses all keep their elite units stationed on strategically valuable worlds―none of which have been hit yet―and their pet merc companies are all concentrated along the borders they share with other Successor States.

“It’ll take months for the Combine and Commonwealth to mobilize a counter-attack with their genuinely well-equipped units. When that happens, we’ll see how serious of an advantage the Clans actually have in a fight with their tech.

“ComSpark is already putting up contracts backed internally to fight the Clans. The Clans will be stalled within a year.”

“Not if more of them show up,” the changeling stallion pointed out.

“That’s a big ‘if’ right now,” Squelch cautioned, “I think we’d have seen other Clans if they were coming. At least any time soon. If they wait too long to start their campaigns, it’ll be too late. The whole point was that the Clans can’t afford a protracted war with the Sphere. Tech advantage or no, the Sphere has a massive industrial capacity advantage. If the Clans can’t deliver a knock-out blow within the first year, they never will. The Great Houses will be able to throw a nearly infinite supply of ‘junk’ ‘Steeds at them until the Clans’ forces are whittle to nothing.

“Even if it costs the Sphere twenty Derpies for every Clan Big Mac they bring down, I bet that’s a price that Chrysalis is willing to pay, right?” She looked at Slipshod expectantly, and the changeling stallion nodded reluctantly. His former queen wouldn’t hesitate to grind down the Clan forces with as many pony bones as it took. Changeling ones too, now that he thought about it, “Something tells me that the dragons won’t be quite as willing to get every last one of themselves killed trying to do whatever it is they think they’re doing.

“Once they lose their momentum, I fully expect they’ll pack up and go home.”

The unicorn’s last sentence dripped with resignation, and Slipshod could feel the mare’s despondency. It wasn’t difficult to imagine why either. Twilight felt mostly the same way most days now. The invasions by the Clans were almost certainly doomed to fail. They were too spread out, and hitting too wide of an area to advance on Equus fast enough. They were a month into their invasion and hadn’t even pierced fifty lightyears into the Sphere. Barely a tenth of the way to the Faust System at its center.

Squelch had also almost certainly been correct that this was likely the quickest the Clans would be able to move. They hadn’t been meeting much meaningful resistance yet. No significant threats existed in the Periphery―certainly none that wanted to risk bringing down the might of one of the Great Houses down around their ears anyway―so the worlds along the outer edges of the Harmony Sphere didn’t possess more than militia forces equipped with outdated equipment. They weren’t meant to resist dedicated invasions, just pirate incursions and Disciple raids.

The moment the Clan forces moved on to a world that was defended by regular BattleSteed regiments, they’d find themselves not having quite such an easy time of things. Which wasn’t to say that they wouldn’t inevitably win those fights, Slipshod conceded, but it would take them far longer to secure those worlds than a week; and the longer they spent bogged down on one heavily defended world, the more time the defenders would have to fortify the next planet targeted for invasion. Slowing them down even further.

Eventually, attrition would finally claim too many of the Clan ‘Steeds for them to spare forces for an invasion. Especially if they wanted to continue holding what they’d already conquered. Every world they invaded meant that there were fewer troops they could bring to the next. The Harmony Sphere was a stupendously vast expanse, containing thousands of inhabited worlds. The Clans simply didn’t have the numbers.

Which was why Twilight’s plan to secure a safe corridor to pass their invasion through had been so essential for success!

That was the part of this that Slipshod didn’t get: why were the Clans effectively throwing away their best chance at bringing down Chrysalis?! It didn’t make any sense! Princess Flurry Heart was going to end up losing her one chance to bring down the changelings and rescue her mother. What could have possessed her to order this kind of reckless attack?

Squelch turned back towards her personal terminal and began to skim through the missives that she’d received from Victoria Blueblood, “well, she hasn’t demanded mine or Twilight's head on a pike, so that’s good news. However, she had understandably revoked her offer to allow the Clans to pass through Commonwealth space.

“So…” the unicorn mare leaned back in her seat with an exasperated sigh, “we lost the Commonwealth, the Our Worlds League is a bust, without the Commonwealth we don’t get the Federated Moons, the Combine probably isn’t going to want to work with the forces actively invading them,” she was shaking her head, “Even if the Confederation accepts for whatever reason, it’d be too little too late.

“Oh well,” she said with a dismissive flip of her hoof as she tapped out a command to bring up a map of the galaxy. Slipshod noted that she was focusing it on several Periphery regions, “time to move on, I guess.”

The changeling balked, “we’re abandoning the mission?”

“We’re not ‘abandoning’ shit,” Squelch growled at his insinuation, “the Clans are the ones who reneged. The invasion’s a wash.”

“You still have a contract with Twilight,” the stallion pointed out, “you’re not seriously going to break it, are you?”

“I accepted that contract with the understanding that I’d be receiving a ludicrous amount of money at the end,” the mare countered, still not sounding at all too pleased at Slipshod’s implication that she was acting in bad faith, “money that Twilight would only have if she restored the Celestia League.

“Invasion’s a wash,” she reiterated, “which means we can’t beat Chrysalis, which means Twilight can’t restore the League, which means we can’t get paid what we were promised.

“The Clans broke the provisions of the contract. Not me. We did everything we reasonably could to help out, and now it’s all gone to shit. Not our fault, and not our problem.

“What is our problem will be finding somewhere we can go and make a living,” the unicorn said with a frown, “the Harmony Sphere’s right out,” she noted, “what with the changelings putting a big old target on our heads. That means heading for the Periphery.”

Squelch paused and tapped her chin in thought, then her lips spread into a smile as an idea occurred to her, “those zebras seemed pretty hard up for BattleSteeds,” she mused, “I bet we could land some sweetheart deals seeing as we’d have two of the most advanced chassis in the whole Periphery! We could probably set our own price…”

“There’s no way that Twilight’s going to go along with that,” Slipshod said, shaking his head, “and I doubt she’s going to just give us the Rainbow Dash―”

“She doesn’t have to; it’s already mine,” Squelch cut it, flashing a hard look at the changeling, “Under the statutes of just about every salvage law ever written, that ‘Steed belongs to me. I just happen to let Twilight pilot it. And if she doesn’t want to come, that’s her choice. I’ll drop her off wherever,” she said with a dismissive shrug before refocusing the map on her screen on the Farisian Empire.

“You know,” the jade mare mused, not looking away from the screen, “it might actually be a better idea to sell the Rainbow Dash. It’s a powerful ‘Steed, sure, but with the money we could get for it I bet we could buy a whole lance worth of medium and heavy ‘Steeds…”

Slipshod wasn’t giving up on convincing his employer to stay though. They’d come so far, invested so much effort―so many lives―in trying to bring Chrysalis down. If they left, it would all have been for nothing, “And what about wanting to make the Sphere a better place? That’s what you said you ultimately wanted, remember?”

“Well I guess I’m going to have to settle for making the Periphery a better place,” the mare growled.

“You can’t just―”

“What?” Squelch snapped, turning to scowl at the changeling, “What can’t I do, Slip? Leave? Sure I can; it’s easy. I just book a docking collar on a Jump Ship. Simple as that.

“I don’t have your hate-boner for Chrysalis. Or Twilight’s, or Flurry Heart’s. Alright? I don’t care about any of this. I can leave, and not lose a moment’s sleep. It’s not. My. Fight.”

They held each other’s gaze for several moments in silence before Squelch finally turned away. In a more subdued tone she added, “You don’t have to come with us either. You can get off with Twilight and the two of you can get yourselves killed fighting a lost cause or whatever.

“Not my business how you want to die.”

“You don’t actually want me to leave,” Slipshod stated bluntly. She might consider it unfair for him to be reading her emotions right now, but the changeling hardly cared at this point. He was getting really tired of lying. His lying to others, their lying to him―the whole concept of falsehood in general was really getting under his chitin these days. It was responsible for so many of the problems in his life and he was done with it, and wasn’t very much inclined to let others continue to do it around him either.

“...No. I don’t,” Squelch admitted softly, “but I’m also not going to die for your petty revenge,” she affirmed, “And I’m not going to stick around to watch you die for it either.”

“I have no intention of dying,” Slipshod insisted, “this fight isn’t hopeless yet,” it wasn’t a lie if he actually believed it, the changeling thought to himself. While he acknowledged that things were looking rather bleak, that wasn’t the same thing as saying that all hope was lost, “we still have a shot.”

Squelch turned around and leaned back in her seat, favoring the stallion with a skeptical look, “Oh? How do you figure that? None of the Great Houses or mercenary companies are going to help us fight ComSpark while the Clans are invading.”

“You’re right; they won’t. Which is why our new plan is going to be to help ComSpark.”

The jade mare raised a skeptical brow.

“Are you crazy?!”

All things considered, Twilight was actually taking his proposal pretty well, Slipshod thought. He’d known that Twilight was going to be the hardest one to sell on this idea when he’d initially conceived of it. However, he was confident that, ultimately, the alicorn was intelligent enough to give his plan fair consideration based wholly on its merits, and not succumb to her biases. No matter how well-founded those biases might actually be.

“Just hear me out,” he pleaded patiently. The purple mare looked like she was prepared to do anything but, he could also feel her trying to gain control over her reflexive distaste for the premise of his idea. After a long moment consisting of her face morphing between varying degrees of distaste, the alicorn finally grunted and waved her wing at him to continue with his explanation.

“The Clan invasion is a pretty big threat,” the changeling stallion explained, looking more broadly around the conference room at the other gathered members of the ship’s command staff. Squelch had called the meeting after he’d managed to get her on board with his proposal so that they could see if he could sell it to the rest of the ship. Not exactly an essential step, honestly. Squelch was willing to give it a try and so she could simply have decreed that it was what they were going to do. However, there was quite a lot to be said for working with a crew that believed in the course of action they were taking as much as the commander did.

“For the moment,” Twilight grumbled. It was hardly lost on the alicorn, just as it hadn’t been with Squelch, that the assault was ultimately doomed to fail at achieving the goal of defeating Chrysalis.

Slipshod acknowledged the observation, “exactly. The invasion is doomed to fail, but,” he stressed, “that’s only if the Harmony Sphere puts aside their differences and works together. If the Great Houses refuse to help each other, then the Clans actually might have a chance of conquering them the way they’re going about it; even with just the four Clans that we’ve seen so far.”

“So...what? You’re saying we need to sabotage any attempts the Great Houses make at forging alliances?” Blood Chit asked, sounding dubious, “Isn’t Victoria Blueblood planning to marry Nacht Belle to create an alliance between the Commonwealth and the Federation? How exactly do you propose to stop that from happening? Because I thought we weren’t big on outright assassinations?” The pegasus glanced over at Squelch.

However, it was Slipshod who supplied the answer as he firmly shook his head, “nononono, that’s not it at all. Shit, a month ago ComSpark would have been the ones backing an assassination to stop that from happening!” The changeling noted that he was smiling as he said that, and that the expression was perhaps subject to being misconstrued, so he hastily continued, “but now? Chrysalis actually can’t kill either of them! She needs them to work together against the Clans!

“She’s going to need to get every Successor State cooperating with each other in order to stop this invasion,” the stallion was wearing a broad grin as he looked around the room for signs of comprehension.

It was Twilight who seemed to catch on first, her earlier expression of contempt for his proposal melting away, “...Which is exactly what ComSpark has been working to prevent for centuries,” she realized, her eyes growing wide as the implications began to dawn for her as well, “but now she and ComSpark are going to have to actually encourage the whole Sphere to work together!”

“Exactly!” Slipshod said, “A unified Sphere, working together to defeat a common enemy. The moment the Clans are driven back, we couldn’t ask to be in a better position to oust Chrysalis. All we have to do is turn the Great Houses against ComSpark.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” This time, it was Mig who spoke up, “ComSpark’s going to come out of this fight looking like a damned hero,” the rosie kirin mare pointed out, “they’re already putting up self-backed contracts calling for joint ops between the major merc outfits. There was also a news broadcast the other day talking about ‘new breakthroughs in technology’ that ComSpark scientists recently made with weapons and such.

“Nocreature’s going to turn on ComSpark in a year.”

“They will if ComSpark cuts them off from all HSG access until they agree to become ComSpark protectorates.”

Blood Chit frowned, “why would ComSpark do that? I thought the changelings already had effective ‘control’ over the Successor States with all of the spies or whatever they had scattered throughout the governments?”

“They do,” Slipshod acknowledged with a nod, “but their leadership and the wider public doesn’t know that,” he reminded the stallion, “they don’t know anything about the changelings, or what ComSpark is really up to. They think they’re all independent and masters of their own destinies. So when they think ComSpark is trying to seize control in the wake of the chaos caused by repelling the Clans, I bet they’ll be pretty pissed at Queen Twilight for trying to take advantage of them.”

“That still doesn’t answer why ComSpark would cut off HSG access,” Twilight said, having lost the plot again.

“I mean, they obviously won’t,” the changeling admitted, “but if we can get the Harmony Sphere to believe they did...”

There were a lot of thoughtful expressions visible around the room. HyperSpark communications technology wasn’t just a convenient way to send mail across the galaxy, it was the backbone of Harmony Sphere infrastructure. Planetary economies relied upon the large transstellar corporations that shipped and produced goods among their multiplanet factories. Those transstellars, in turn, were entirely dependent on being able to send messages back and forth across the black at faster-than-light speeds. If they suddenly had that ability stripped from them, production schedules would slip, and profit margins would plummet.

In short order, the planetary economies that relied on those companies would collapse. There’d be chaos and pandemonium across the galaxy.

For this reason, HSG facilities were not only generally classified as being ‘off limits’ during any fighting going on between the warring factions in the Sphere; but they were also built up more like military fortresses than part of any sort of civil infrastructure. They were also exceedingly well defended, just in case whatever mercenary company operation in the area got a little ‘carried away’ during an operation.

Taking out one of them would be no easy feat. Nor would just hitting one or two of them really have much of an effect on anything beyond those specific worlds. Crippling the hundreds of HSGs that made up the Primary Circuit would require a coordinated strike of unmitigated proportions. Frankly, there was no conventional force that could possibly pull such a thing off. So it was forgivable when the question was asked:

“How?”

“Our old friends: the Disciples of Discord,” Slipshod’s grin was back, “they have forces scattered all through the Sphere, and they even know where just about every secondary generator is, in addition to the Primary Circuit. If we can get them to organize coordinated strikes on all of ComSpark’s HyperSpark Generators, we can collapse the array and stop all interstellar message traffic.

“But not before getting out a broadcast from ‘Queen Twilight’,” the changeling motioned towards the alicorn, “giving the Successor States an ultimatum to either submit to her will, or be forever barred from using the HSGs.”

Squelch finally spoke up, pacing around the edge of the conference room, “The heads of the Great Houses will be livid,” she concluded, “after all, it’ll have been their forces fighting and dying to repel the Clan invasions. Officially, ComSpark doesn’t have forces of its own beyond HSG security elements, so they won’t be able to contribute significantly to the fighting directly. But to have Twilight turn around and demand submission from the same creatures who have ostensibly died by the millions to keep her safe?

“They won’t stand for it. Especially if we’re putting enough bugs in enough ears while the invasion is still ongoing. Laying the groundwork, so to speak.”

The alicorn was grimacing now, “Well, I can’t say I’m very thrilled about what this plan involves doing to my reputation. On the other hoof...it does sound like it could work in uniting the whole Sphere against Chrysalis.”

“Well, probably not the whole Sphere,” Slipshod acknowledged a bit unhappily, “‘Stellar Nova’ isn’t going to turn on Chrysalis, no matter what. If anything, he’ll be the first one to bend his knee.”

“Four out of five’s better than what we were looking at a week ago,” Squelch pointed out, “which makes this the better plan. It’ll also let us add in at least three of the Houses’ pet merc companies too―something tells me the Dragoons are going to have other allegiances. Without a working HSG network, C-bits are less than worthless, so they have no reason to accept any ComSpark contracts against the Successor States, no matter how much money Chrysalis offers them.”

“Fine,” the purple alicorn relented, “it’s a solid plan. We’ll do it. What’s the first step?”

“Making contact with the Disciples,” Slipshod said, “there’s no ‘plan’ at all unless we get them onboard. Now, they’re an extension of the Clans and the League-in-Exile, so it’s hard to say how willing they’ll be to support all of this, seeing as how it kind of hinges on the Clan invasion failing. I’m hoping that they’ll be able to look past that and focus on the bigger picture of bringing down Chrysalis.

“However,” the changeling stressed a little uneasily, “I have no idea how to make contact with them. Cinder or Timberjack probably would, but…”

“They’re Clan,” Squelch finished for him, locking her gaze on Twilight, “they owe allegiance to Flurry Heart, not to you. We can’t trust that they’ll support what we’re trying to do if they learn what it is. Again: we need the Clans to lose the fight for this to work. For all we know the Disciples won’t help us because of that either, but we don’t have much to lose by asking.

“Besides, if they really are the successors to that ancient recon unit you mentioned, then it’s possible they’ll be more willing to follow you, personally, whether you’re their official ‘princess’ anymore or not.”

Twilight nodded, “you’re right, it’s worth a shot. And…” she let out a defeated sigh, “I also agree that the Dragoons probably won’t be willing to help us,” there was a second, much more profound pause, “Cinder either. She’s incredibly devoted to the League-in-Exile and her Clan. She won’t abandon them.”

The loss wafting off the alicorn was palpable. She might as well be grieving over the death of a close friend. In a way, Slipshod suspected that, perhaps, she was experiencing just that. Star Admiral Cinder was the daughter of her oldest and dearest friend. In certain ways, Spike and Cinder were perhaps the closest thing to family the mare had left in the galaxy. Aside from Flurry Heart, obviously, who was a genuine blood-relation. However, unlike the pink princess of the League-in-Exile, the pair of dragons didn’t actively loath Twilight.

And now she was effectively turning her back on them in pursuit of a higher goal. It had to be tearing her apart inside. Loyalty was an Element of Friendship. One of her core values. Now it was being tested: her loyalty to her family, versus her loyalty to her―former―subjects. Right now, supporting one was looking like it meant forsaking the other.

He didn’t envy the alicorn at that moment.

“It’s decided then,” Squelch concluded, “we’re seeking out the Disciples.”

“They’re currently to your south, advancing northwest on a heading of three-one-eight,” High Gain informed their lance, “They shouldn’t come closer than ten klicks to your position, but Squelch recommends you remain powered down just to be safe.”

“Understood. We’ll stay put,” Slipshod replied from his dim cockpit, “Any luck picking out Disciple signatures?”

“Not yet.”

The changeling couldn’t say that he was surprised by that response, but it still frustrated him a little. BattleSteeds were easier to track from orbit as a consequence of their main reactors putting out a lot more energy than the engines that tended to power ground vehicles. As a result, the Zathura had little difficulty monitoring the lance of mercenary ‘Steeds prowling through the wilderness on Kiso’s northern continent. Trying to locate the group of Disciple raiders that the mercenaries were hunting on the other hoof…

Realistically, they weren’t going to learn where the Disciples were until one side or the other started shooting. At which point, their own lance of ‘Steeds would have until the fight was over to get themselves over there and save whatever remained of the Disciple group. Hopefully, at that point, Twilight would be able to open a dialogue with the survivors and convince them of their noble intentions.

While it was perhaps unwise, Slipshod was actually feeling optimistic about this operation. Things had already been moving along about as smoothly as they could reasonably be expected to. It hadn’t taken Squelch long at all to locate a posted contract to hunt down a group of Disciple raiders which had appeared on a world in Kirin Confederation controlled space. They had not directly accepted the mission however. ComSpark was certainly still monitoring them, and wouldn’t have believed for a second that a ship which had the real Twilight Sparkle onboard would actually consider hunting down her loyal followers.

Instead, they had taken on a brief convoy protection contract on another planet in the system which had gone off without a hitch, and were ostensibly in orbit of Kiso’s primary population center to resupply. Indeed, the Zathura was in orbit waiting to be contacted with a pickup time and location for the ammunition and parts which they had ordered. In the meantime, Slipshod and the rest of Gallop Lance were ‘training’ on the planet’s surface.

The changeling stallion once more brought up the information that they had on the mercenaries that had actually taken on the Disciple-hunting contract. Silent Knights was a smaller outfit―though numerically larger than the Irregulars―that tended to operate exclusively in Confederation space. They were a newer outfit, not even operational for a whole year yet. Their heaviest ‘Steed was reported to be a Thunderlone, but it shouldn’t be part of this operation.

After all: everypony knew that the Disciples of Discord were a joke group of crazy raiders that didn’t come close to posing a real threat to anypony. They were the sort of adversary that were used to blood rookie pilots so they could get in some genuine combat experience without placing them in too much ‘real’ danger. The sort of units that they tended to field wasn’t worth the wear and tear costs of deploying a heavy BattleSteed.

Given the speed that the Silent Knights were moving at, Slipshod expected this to be a group of mostly light units with maybe a medium-weight chassis being piloted by whatever senior instructor was supervising the performance of the others. The moment Slipshod’s lance showed themselves the other mercenaries should simply scatter. They had come out here to hunt down Scorpion Tanks and Harrier Hovercraft, not to tangle with line-worthy ‘Steeds. ComSpark wasn’t offering anywhere near the kind of money that was worth risking death over to hunt down Disciples.

“Heat spike!” High Gain announced across the comlink, “Doppler’s confident it’s weapons fire. We don’t know who’s shooting at who, but it looks like that’s your cue. Twelve kilometers out on heading two-oh-seven. Transmitting nav data now.

“Good luck, Gallop Lance!”

Slipshod’s hooves were flying across his console as he initiated the start-up sequence the moment High Gain had gotten out the first two words. His weapons were charging up by the time she’d finished, “Good copy, High-G; moving out. Lance, report status?”

“Twiggie ready,” Twilight responded.

“Xanax primed and ready, Bug! Let’s rescue some terrorists!”

“They’re not ‘terrorists’,” the alicorn protested.

“One mare’s ‘terrorist’ is another mare’s ‘freedom fighter’,” the changeling stallion quipped as he throttled up his Chrystal Cavalier into a full run. A brief glance at his sensors informed him that the other two members of his lance were keeping pace, holding their positions in their simple delta formation. Locked in front of him on his HUD was the hovering beacon of Nav Apple, and the fight that they needed to get to before it was over.

It would take them the better part of ten minutes to reach the location of the fight. Which was a lot of time for a battle between ‘Steeds and ground vehicles. Slipshod briefly considered whether or not to send Twilight on ahead in her Rainbow Dash. It was capable of moving significantly quicker than his Cavalier, which was definitely the slowest of their trio. The alicorn would almost be able to cut the rendezvous time in half.

That would leave her fighting a one-on-four, but the alicorn had proven that she was a more than capable pilot. Besides, it was possible that the appearance of even just her single heavy ‘Steed would be enough to scare off the Silent Knights lance.

“Twiggie, move ahead,” he instructed, “you’re the fastest ‘Steed here. You’re ‘Steed’s probably the only one that can make contact with the Disciples too,” the changeling pointed out.

“Roger. Throttle to full.”

The massive cerulean BattleSteed lurched ahead of the rest of the lance in short order, outpacing his Cavalier by at least half its own top speed; and that was before he saw her ignite it’s jump jets, giving her an additional momentary burst of forward momentum. In less than a minute, she was a kilometer ahead of him and Xanadu.

“That design seems really unbalanced,” the striped pilot muttered over the comm channel.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Three minutes later, and five kilometers ahead, Slipshod’s HUD displayed sensor contacts for the Silent Knights lance. As he’d suspected, it was a light unit composed of a SneakyShy, Breezy, an Eyeder, and with a RoyalGuard riding herd on the rest. Even on her own, it shouldn’t have been too much for Twilight to deal with if things turned sour. Hopefully that wouldn’t have to be the case though.

It wasn’t just the mercenary BattleSteeds that Slipshod was seeing through Twilight’s sensors though. Her Rainbow Dash was picking up readings on several vehicles in the vicinity. Even as he surveyed the readings, one of them winked out. Something told him it wasn’t because it had managed to evade the alicorn’s sensor suite either. The changeling frowned. He and Xanadu were still minutes away. A lot more Disciples would end up dying before they got there if he couldn’t convince the attacking mercenaries to break contact.

“Twiggie, you try and get on the comm with the Disciples; you’re the only one they even might respond to. High Gain, patch me through her comm suite to the Silent Knights.”

“Understood,” the Zathura’s communications officer replied. A moment later she followed up with, “Ready, Bug!”

Here went nothing, “Silent Knights lance: this is Captain Slipshod of Rayleigh’s Irregulars. You are directed to break off contact with Disciples forces and withdraw. You have ten seconds to comply. If you fail to do so, we will open fire on your lance,” and by ‘we’, he meant Twilight. For the moment, anyway. Hopefully she would be okay with him speaking on her behalf.

At least he very quickly received confirmation that his message had been heard as a rather irate sounding stallion made his presence on the frequency known, “Captain Slipshod, this is Lieutenant Reine, commanding officer of Silent Knights Lance Gamma. You are interfering with a ComSpark-directed counter-terrorism effort. Any interference with our mission will be reported to ComSpark for disciplinary action against your company.

“With all due respect, Captain,” odd that the other stallion’s tone didn’t sound particularly ‘respectful’ in that moment, “it is you who are directed to withdraw.”

This Lieutenant Reine was a professional, Slipshod gave him that much. Strictly speaking, the repercussions that he’d outlined would normally have been enough to convince a respectable mercenary unit to back off. Getting too many black marks from ComSpark meant never working another contract in the Sphere after all. Unfortunately for the good lieutenant here, Rayleigh’s Irregulars weren’t particularly concerned with their Mercenary Review Board rating these days.

“Roger that, lieutenant,” the changeling stallion sighed into his helmet mic, “just remember: I gave you an out. Twiggie? Lame his ‘Steed.”

“Wing or drumstick?”

“I am many things; but first and foremost, I am a leg stallion,” he grinned.

“If you first on us you’ll―” the rest of his threat was lost in a burst of static as his ‘Steed’s electronic systems were presumably briefly scrambled by a strike from Twilight’s Prismatic Projector Cannons. When he was finally audible again, Slipshod could hear him addressing the rest of his lance, rather than Slipshod, “All Gamma units withdraw!
“But don’t for a moment think this is over, Captain!”

Slipshod didn’t rise to the bait. There was little point in making any sort of retort. The Silent Knights were leaving, and the battle was over. Now all that was left was to make contact with the Disciples and figure out if there was going to be any possibility of moving on to the next phase of his new plan to bring down Chrysalis, or if the Irregulars really would be emigrating out to the Periphery by this time tomorrow.

Slipshod finished powering down his Chrystal Cavalier and removed his helmet. He spent another moment simply peering out of the cockpit viewport to familiarize himself with their new surroundings before he actually egressed his ‘Steed. The changeling had seen his share of militant encampments in his time. They tended to follow a very form-factor layout, even between various groups. At the end of the day, several thousand years of experience in setting up camps had resulted in the establishment of quite a few immutable ‘laws’ of camping.

Things such as: keeping food preparation at a higher elevation than the latrines. Reserving the upstream of a potable water source for drinking and the downstream for any other activity. Establishing command and control elements near the center of the encampment. The sorts of things that resulted in a lot of these temporary bases very strongly resembling each other. Strictly speaking, if you learned your way around one military camp, you could figure out any other in hardly any time at all.

Even civilian refugee camps followed a lot of those well-established rules.

Rules which, by all appearances, the Disciples of Discord had somehow managed to not only disregard, but seemed to actually be actively thwarting. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to any of what he was seeing out there. It was as though some colossal being had vomited a collection of tents into the base of the ravine and all of these creatures had come across the mess and simply made themselves at home.

It was the most unruly, disorganized, and chaotic mess of a camp that the stallion had ever seen.

Considering that much of Slipshod’s new plan relied heavily on the Disciples being able to flawlessly organize and execute a coordinated strike on several hundred fortified installations simultaneously...well, suffice it to say that the changeling found himself idly wondering if he should enquire of Xanadu regarding Farasian language lessons. Just in case.

With a final fortifying sigh, the stallion opened the hatch of his ‘Steed and heaved himself outside. Through the benefit of her teleportation magic, Twilight Sparkle was already out and conversing with a trio of Disciples. It was difficult to discern if they occupied any sort of leadership position within their organization, as nothing they wore seemed to indicate rank of any sort. Indeed, most of their garments would barely pass for anything approaching a ‘uniform’ of any kind. It was as though they had all dressed themselves by blindly reaching into a sack full of donated clothing and donning whatever they came away with.

Slipshod had a barebones knowledge of who and what Discord had once been. Even when he’d been ‘evil’, Chrysalis had regarded the draconequus as the antithesis of her own aspirations and ideals. She desired a world ordered to her tastes, over which she might exert her control. Discord, on the other hoof, desired chaos to amuse himself with.

By all appearances, these Disciples looked like they were going out of their way to embrace as much chaos as they could. Which was odd, as Slipshod was given to understand that these ponies were essentially operating as observers for the League-in-Exile, while simultaneously using the crest of an ancient military unit as their emblem. The military was the polar opposite of chaos. It was a contradiction that the changeling stallion would very much have appreciated being given an explanation for.

“Can you believe this place?” a stallion’s voice inquired from nearby. Slipshod turned to see Xanadu making his way closer to the changeling, while his gaze remained mostly fixed on the encampment nearby, “I’m not the only one who sees tie-dyed tents, right?”

There were indeed several tents that looked to have been dyed a multitude of bright, nearly neon, colors. If there was a single canvas structure in the entire ravine that was anything close to an ‘acceptable camouflage color’, Slipshod was certain that it would have simply been the result of an oversight on the part of the Disciples.

“This whole thing may have been a mistake,” the changeling muttered as he and the striped pilot began making their way over to the purple alicorn and the conference that she seemed to be having with the group of Disciples. As they neared, Twilight noticed their approach and briskly motioned for them to join in on the conversation.

“Took you two long enough,” Twilight said. It piqued Slipshod’s interest that, even after having actually spoken with some of the Disciples, the alicorn wasn’t giving off any feelings of annoyance, or frustration, or disappointment. If anything, she was...relieved. For the first time in a long time, “I was just explaining to Colonel Citron here,” she gestured to a dull yellow earth pony stallion wearing a pleated tartan miniskirt and a black leather trench coat, “about your plan to turn the Harmony Sphere against Chrysalis.”

The stallion that Slipshod presumed was in charge of the entire contingent of Disciples on Kiso turned to regard the ‘Steed pilot. It was honestly difficult for him to take the other pony seriously in that outfit, but it helped that he felt no hint of frivolity from the senior officer. Colonel Citron seemed to actually be taking the proposal quite seriously, “It’s a bold plan, to be sure. However, as I was just about to explain to Her Highness,” he nodded briefly towards the alicorn, “we don’t have nearly the numbers on hoof to pull off something like that.

“At most, we could take maybe a dozen at a time,” he went on, sounding almost apologetic, “But the whole network?” He shook his head, “We can’t do it. Even if we spent the whole next year boosting our numbers as much as possible; it can’t be done.”

Slipshod could already feel himself deflating. He’d had no way of knowing the actual strength of the Disciples of Discord prior to developing his new plan. He’d simply assumed that they had to have a rather extensive membership, given that their cells seemed to pop up all over the Harmony Sphere. Apparently, it was a much smaller organization than he would have thought. Capturing or destroying a dozen sites at a time wouldn’t come anywhere close to achieving what they needed to in order to turn the Successor States against Chrysalis. They had to take down all―or at least very nearly all―the HyperSpark generators, or it wouldn’t have the desired effect of plunging the galaxy into turmoil.

“Actually,” Twilight spoke up, “I was afraid that might be the case, given how many generators there are in the galaxy, and I think I might have come up with a solution to that problem. We might be able to get by with just taking control of a few of the facilities.”

All eyes were on the alicorn now. Slipshod was particularly intrigued, as she hadn’t made mention of this new idea of hers to him, “how so?”

“You forget: HyperSpark technology was my invention,” Twilight declared, her lips pulled up in a smug little smile as she took a moment to bask in the obvious genius of her ancient invention and all it had made possible for civilization, “and something tells me that Chrysalis won’t have fiddled with the fundamentals of how it works too much since, if she breaks it, she won’t know how to fix it again.

“I can write a ‘kill code’ that’ll take the whole network offline. If we can get that code into one facility, I can upload it to the whole network and shut the whole thing down.”

Despite his desire to want to breathe a sigh of relief at Twilight coming up with a solution to the hitch in his plan, he had to wonder if her’s had a hitch or two as well, “And you’re sure that you ‘kill code’ won’t be detected or scrubbed by any sort of antivirus that’s in the system?”

“Not if I make it part of the network’s periodic tracking update,” She replied with a dismissive wave of her hoof. Upon seeing a few confused expressions from the other equines around her, the alicorn explained further, “Despite what most creatures think, the stars are always in motion. And they’re actually moving pretty fast, all things considered. Jump Ships are routinely updating one-another’s jump coordinates with positional data. The HSGs do the same thing. Every month or so, a mass update goes out that updates the whole network with all of the current positions of every other generator relative to one another.

“Because of how important this update is to the functionality of the network, it's mandatory, and executes no matter what. All I have to do is write a piece of code that’ll take the generator offline immediately after the next update completes, and make it a part of that update.”

“And that’ll affect Chrysalis’ secondary network as well?” Slipshod asked.

“They have to be getting the same positional data update as the Primary Circuit,” the alicorn reasoned, “or it would have stopped working within a few months of going online.”

Twilight’s certainty was enough to sway Slipshod towards believing the basic premise of the method was sound. However, that did still leave one hurdle they would need to overcome, “as we’ve recently learned the hard way, taking one of their installations intact is a lot easier said than done,” he said grimly.

The colonel was nodding along now, “you’re not wrong there. We’ve mostly given up trying to capture their facilities during our raids. It’s enough of a disruption for our purposes to either blow them up ourselves or push them to the point where the ‘lings push the button for us.

“There’s simply no way to reach the command center in time to make a clean capture.”

Well, that was certainly disheartening, Slipshod thought to himself. It was also an insight that he wished he’d had a month ago. HSG operations simply hadn’t been a focus of his training on Equus. He knew very little about the contingencies their staff had in place in the event of an assault. In any case, it was sounding as though they’d hit another snag that grounded their operation before it could even really start.

Then Twilight spoke up after a few more moment’s thought, “what if we had a pony on the inside?”

Slipshod instantly knew where the former princess was going with her train of thought, and he didn’t particularly care for it. While it might sound simple enough in concept to use a changeling to infiltrate a changeling base, there were significant nuances regarding the practice of competent infiltration that Twilight was either overlooking or flat out ignorant about. He couldn’t simply walk up to a HSG―either covert or overt―and expect to be welcomed in with open hooves just because he flashed a little chitin. There were protocols, and transfer orders, and command notifications―changelings just didn’t ‘do’ spontaneous assignments of personnel.

In order for him to have a chance of getting in the door, Slipshod would need to go in disguised as one of the changelings who already worked there. Counter-intuitively enough, that process would actually be easier if he was trying to infiltrate one of the ‘secret’ HSG facilities located on some planets. The Primary Circuit facilities were public access for the most part. Every changeling in them had a publicly known identity―which had been stolen from the HSG tech candidates who traveled to Equus to learn how to operate such devices. Which meant that, if he were going to pose as one of the ponies working at a Primary Circuit generator for any length of time without raising suspicion, he’d need to learn both the habits of the individual changeling he was pretending to be, as well as the habits of their cover identity.

Both were tasks that would normally take many years―plural―to even become passable at without raising suspicion in those around him. If all he had to do was get in and out, then maybe he could make it work, but that would still necessitate executing a clean capture of a changeling agent who worked in one of the facilities. That was not an easy thing to do against a creature which possessed the innate ability to sense the motives of those around it. If the changeling in question got even a whiff of hostile intent from whoever was assigned to abduct them, then the whole operation could turn out to be a wash.

On the other hoof...it wasn’t like they had a whole lot of options. Him getting inside to upload Twilight’s snippet of lethal code into the central computer would be the most likely method to succeed. Even if the consequences for failure could turn out to be catastrophic―and not just for him, either. If the mission went south hard enough, the changelings could end up with the code in their possession, and they might be able to use it to devise a defense against any subsequent attempts to use it.

Big risk; big reward, right?

Sure, if things went wrong, then he and a lot of other creatures would die. But, if things went right...he’d finally have his vengeance!

“An inside mare would be great,” Colonel Citron mused, clearly skeptical of the likelihood of getting such assistance from any of Chrysalis’ drones, “but I seriously doubt that that’s ever going to―”

Slipshod caught the alicorn eyeing him and instantly felt her intentions. With a resigned sigh and a sincere hope that her expression indicated that she was prepared to deal with the fallout, Slipshod allowed his disguise to lapse. In fairness, lessons of the past had certainly suggested that this was a revelation that was best done as early into the ‘relationship’ as possible.

Though he did note that the promptness of the revelation had not seemed to have much of an effect on the number of weapons that were brought to bear. Fortunately for him and any potential collateral targets like Xanadu, it did turn out that Twilight was adequately prepared to subvert any violent inclinations. Just as quickly as any Disciple within line of sight produced a weapon, the alicorn’s magic collected them into a depressingly large ball of levitating firearms of various sizes and types that hovered high above her head.

Their slovenly dress and haphazard approach to tent organization aside, Slipshod did give the Disciples full marks for their dedication to their duty. Even after confiscating their weapons, Twilight found herself having to also magically restrain quite a few of the garishly-attired ponies in order to keep them from trying to pummel Slipshod to death with their bare hooves.

“Colonel,” the magically potent purple pony said, with the barest hint of strain audible in her voice as her horn blazed brightly in evidence of the not-insignificant arcane power she was manifesting at the moment, “this is Slipshod. Our ‘mare on the inside’,” she sucked in a slow, strained, breath as she cast her gaze around the scores of ponies who had gathered to see what the commotion had been about―many of whom were encased in an amethyst aurora of telekinetic magic, “if you would be so kind as to command your forces to stand down, I feel we can adequately explain his presence here.

“...Or I can simply teleport the three of us back into our ‘Steeds and we can take our leave of you,” she continued in a dour tone, her gaze now looked on the restrained colonel, “but I would take it as a kindness if you chose the former; as I’m contracting quite the migraine at the moment.”

The dull yellow earth pony glanced between Twilight, his unit, and their confiscated weapons. Slipshod could sense his apprehension as his near-instinctive fear of changelings warred with his sense of duty. Twilight Sparkle might not technically be the ‘princess’ of the League-in-Exile anymore, but his organization was descended from those who had given their lives protecting her. Part of their mandate had perhaps even been to seek out and recover her. They’d certainly learned of her existence quickly enough that they had to have been keeping an ear open for even the faintest whisper about her existence among the changelings they were spying on.

Clearly Twilight was no changeling in disguise as well. No ‘ling short of Chrysalis herself would be capable of performing the sort of magical feat that the alicorn was putting on display right now. To the point where Slipshod found himself wondering if that hadn’t been part of Twilight’s intent in her prompting him to reveal his true nature so brazenly. In a more controlled environment, where there wouldn’t have been an opportunity for the alicorn mare to put her hallmark magical potency on display, it would have been a perfectly understandable conclusion for the Disciples to have made that both of them were in fact changelings.

Xanadu would probably have been rounded up too, for good measure.

As it was, Slipshod was greatly relieved to first feel, and then see, the Disciple commander relent and order his ponies to stand down. Twilight waited several seconds longer, carefully eyeing all of her captives until she was satisfied that they would abide by the orders of their senior officer. Finally, the purple mare let out her own subdued gasp of relief as she ceased restraining the Disciples. Their weapons she held onto for a while longer though, floating them far out of immediate reach.

After a few moments of uneasy silence, Slipshod noticed that quite a few suspicious looks were being cast Xanadu’s way. Eventually, the striped stallion realized that he was the focus of some not entirely flattering attention, and eventually realized the reason for it a few more moments after that, “Oh! No, I’m one-hundred percent bona fide zebra. Slip here’s the only changeling on the ship.

“...Any more,” he added through an uncomfortable cough a second later. He then forced an uneasy smile, “But we’ve checked everypony else for real now. Twice, in fact!” The zebra’s lips twisted into a frown as a thought occurred to him, “though, they do say that it’s the third time that’s the char―”

“Xanax,” Slipshod said sternly, glaring at the striped stallion.

“Sorry.”

“As I was saying,” Twilight began, seizing back control of the conversation now that the worst of everypony’s apprehension seemed to have passed, “Slipshod here is a changeling, and has a bone or two to pick with Chrysalis. He has been helping us―quite reliably, I might add―for some time now. He’s the reason that I was not immediately passed over to Chrysalis upon my revival.

“I trust him with my life.”

“With respect, Your Highness,” the yellow stallion began, his tone deferential, yet reserved, “you’re choosing to trust him with all our lives,” he pointed out. Several other Disciples started muttering their accord with their leader.

It wasn’t as though the colonel’s fears were baseless. A changeling working in opposition to Queen Chrysalis was hardly something that the Disciples had encountered before. Though, how much of that was due to their tendency to vivisect any ‘lings they captured, the changeling stallion wisely chose not to remark on out loud. Tensions were riding high enough as it was all around. He could feel the colonel waiting for him to utter some cliche platitude that he’d be able to easily discard as an obvious line.

Fortunately for Slipshod, he’d recently acquired something far more effective than trite appeals to the emotions of others. He’d learned the value of being honest with others, “I’m not here to help liberate the galaxy from Chrysalis’ control,” he informed the Disciples bluntly, noting the stark surprise from more than a few of them, “my grudge with her is personal.

“However, my goals and yours happen to align on one matter: we both want Chrysalis gone. You to free the Harmony Sphere from the control of herself and my race. But I just want to see her lose everything she holds dear. Her power, her control, her hive. Even her life if that’s an option.

“Once she’s gone…” he shrugged, “I could honestly care less what you all decide to do with the Sphere. Restore the Celestia League, host the bloodiest succession war the galaxy’s ever seen, whatever you want to do; I’m probably not going to be a part of it.

“I’ll have had my revenge, and that’s good enough for me.”

Citron still wasn’t wholly convinced yet though, “‘lings don’t just turn on Chrysalis,” he stated, “What makes you so different?”

“Unlike every other changeling in the galaxy, I ended up stumbling across the chance to actually hurt her,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the violet mare, “trust me; if Twilight wasn’t in the picture, I’d still be keeping my head low playing the part of the good little capstone changeling who’s keeping out of the way of ‘Out Glorious Queen’s’ master plan…”

“Just like that?”

Slipshod snorted, “buddy, I have spent years resenting what Chrysalis did to me. Nothing about what I feel for my former queen happened ‘just like that’.”

“As I have said,” Twilight interjected, not entirely thrilled about her companion’s self-serving motives, “he has assisted us faithfully since I awoke. He will help us stop Chrysalis, and has even come up with a workable plan to do so.

“However, it is a plan that will require the assistance of the Disciples. That’s why we’re here: to enlist your aid. The Dragon Clans have abandoned our initial plan, and Flurry Heart…” a heavy sigh escaped the mare’s lips as she shook her head, “She...isn’t the pony I used to know anymore.”

Citron frowned, “what do you need us for exactly?” he inquired critically, “You know how to write the ‘kill code’, and he can get it to where it needs to go,” he added, gesturing at the changeling standing in front of him, “Where exactly do we factor in?”

“We require the use of your intelligence network so that we know when the best time is to strike,” Twilight replied, “and we will need safe harbor. Chrysalis knows we’re after her, and tracking our DropShip is of little issue for her.”

“...What makes you think we can help hide you?” The colonel asked cautiously.

“Your organization has evaded destruction at the hooves of the changelings for over five hundred years,” Twilight pointed out, casting a knowing smile at the senior officer, “that’s no simple task. Nor is it feasible without some sort of hideout that has managed to evade detection for all this time. Whether that’s because it lies beyond the Periphery in uncharted space, or because it’s mobile, I couldn’t say.

“But I know that we’ll be safe there and―much more importantly―unobservable by Chrysalis’ agents.”

Colonel Citron eyed the alicorn for several long moments before turning his attention to one of the two ponies next to him, an orange earth pony mare wearing an evening gown and a flak vest. After a hushed exchange in which it wasn’t entirely clear even to Slipshod who was advocating one way or the other, the senior officer finally turned back to address the trio of ‘Steed pilots.

“Frankly, Your Highness, I don’t have the clearance to make that call one way or the other,” he admitted, “The General is the final word on who does and does not gain access to our, um, ‘hideout’,” he finished after noticeably struggling a moment for the word; which was not lost on Slipshod.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to be contacting this ‘General’ of yours anytime soon?” Twilight asked.

“Impossible at the moment, I’m afraid,” the stallion insisted, shaking his head, “Complete comms blackout for the next five days. After that, I’ll be more than happy to get her guidance.”

“I see,” the alicorn frowned. It wasn’t the best news that they could have hoped for, but it was far from the worst as well. They’d apparently managed to get the colonel more or less in their corner. It shouldn’t prove too much harder to convince this commanding general of their that helping them was in the galaxy’s best interests, “And who is this general of yours?”

“General Mayhem, Your Highness.”

Xanadu’s brows quirked, “‘Mayhem’? What kind of mare gets a name like ‘Mayhem’?”

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