Twilight felt herself briefly transported back to the past as the door opened, revealing the bustling bridge of the Maelstrom. It hadn’t been all that long ago―from her perspective―that she’d been on the command deck of a WarShip about to jump into a system where combat was expected. There was an unmistakable tension in the air during such times, which the uninitiated could be forgiven for overlooking. After all, the members of the ship’s crew didn’t look to be missing a beat as they prepared the vessel for the jump into the Peregrine System.

All four DropShips―the three belonging to the Disciples, as well as the Zathura―were attached to the WarShip’s docking collars. No doubt aboard those ships the crews were involved in a similar flurry of activity as they secured their BattleSteeds for imminent deployment. The alicorn would be one of the pilots involved and planned on teleporting to Squelch’s ship when the time to decouple came; but for now her place was onboard the Maelstrom, as she was technically the one in operational control of this mission.

While this was still General Mayhem’s ship, and she retained direct oversight of the Disciples, the fuschia unicorn mare had been willing acknowledge Twilight as the ‘rightful ruler’ of the Harmony Sphere; in spite of her technical abdication in favor of Flurry Heart. Mayhem cared very little for how the Dragon Clans were conducting their invasion and so had few qualms about renouncing the monarch who had tacitly authorized their conduct.

Besides, the general had pointed out, mutiny was pretty chaotic.

As was joining a coup; which Twilight supposed this whole endeavor could technically be classified as. Though the idea that the purple alicorn was leading an insurrection to take back the very throne she had voluntarily conceded only months ago to the mare she would be taking up arms against seemed like a rather convoluted set of circumstances. She was forced to agree that ‘chaotic’ might be a good way to describe them too.

The general also had nothing in the way of objections with regards to their choice of targets. The notorious Red Reivers pirate group had been causing no end of trouble for a great many creatures in this region of the Periphery for a long while. Few of the local governments had the resources to resist them, let alone dig them out of the fortified stronghold. Technically, even the Disciples lacked the weaponry needed to do the job. At least, if they were going to abide by the Aris Conventions and their moratorium on orbital bombardments. It was a point that the unicorn had brought up with Twilight as they’d been outlining the operational plan for the mission.

Twilight had reminded Mayhem that she’d not been a part of those conventions, and was under no legal obligation to abide by them.

The remark had simply been an off-the-fetlock quip uttered in the moment; but at the same time, the purple alicorn found herself wondering if, when the moment came, she might not be tempted to use the full range of options that the dreadnought’s armament availed to her. WarShips might no longer effectively exist in the Harmony Sphere or the Periphery, for all intents and purposes, but their reputation still persisted. If anything, the centuries that had elapsed between the destruction of the last great WarShip fleets and today had only allowed for the tales about their destructive potential to grow and evolve well past the reality.

While it was hypothetically possible that the Maelstrom, on its own, could completely wipe out the entire surface infrastructure of a whole planet; such a campaign would take months to carry out, and require several hundred resupplies of its armaments. Both were time, and munitions, which she and the Disciples did not have. It was Twilight’s hope that the mere presence of such a vessel in orbit―combined with the near-mythical awe its legend inspired among contemporary populations―would be enough to provoke the surrender of the Red Reivers without having to actually fight them.

But...what if they called her bluff?

Was it a bluff?

Twilight had never ordered an orbital bombardment before, but that didn’t necessarily mean that she was incapable of doing so. Did it?

The Reivers were raiders. They were murderers. They were scum. A great many in the galaxy might argue that getting pulverized by a barrage of one-ton explosive shells was the least that they deserve. That it was a fate which they’d earned. After what she’d personally witnessed, Twilight found that a part of her might even agree with that sentiment. Yet…

She could pull a trigger and end the life of a creature who was a clear and imminent threat to her and the lives of others. There was little moral ambiguity to be found there as far as even she was concerned. If anything, sitting idly and choosing not to act to save others when one possessed the means and ability to do so approached another form of villainy in her mind. Where the gray areas began to creep up was when the other side was clearly not a threat, or had ceased to any longer be a threat. Such as killing a wounded enemy who was no longer capable of fighting.

...Or targeting the cockpit of a disabled ‘Steed.

She’d done that, of course. She’d told herself that it had been because she’d been caught up in the heat of combat. Adrenaline was running high; she wasn’t thinking critically. Besides, they’d just been changelings. They were servants of Chrysalis and had been tormenting the creatures of the galaxy for centuries. They were evil, plain and simple.

Twilight had told herself those things for days in order to retroactively justify what she’d done.

Eventually, she’d had to finally acknowledge them for the lies that they were.

The reality was that she’d been mad. Enraged. At Chrysalis, at the changelings, at herself for not doing more to prevent the tragedies that had befallen the galaxy. She’d been angry, and she had taken out her rage on trapped, defenseless, ‘Steed pilots. They might not have been ‘innocent’ by any definition, but they had certainly been helpless in the moment. Thinking back on that day with a clearer head, Twilight wasn’t comfortable with what she had done.

Changeling or not, killing a being who wasn’t a threat to her or anycreature else couldn’t be something that she let herself think was okay. If for no other reason than because such an act was patently anathema to the Elements of Harmony.

She was supposed to have been better than that. It terrified her that she wasn’t. She was supposed to know better than anycreature how best to embody the Elements, and yet she’d managed to fall so short of that ideal so easily. It was little wonder that the rest of the galaxy hadn’t been able to hold out long the moment things ceased to be perfectly idyllic.

Twilight vowed to do better this time though. For the sake of her own sanity if nothing else.

“Attention on deck!” A mare called out as Twilight stepped into the bridge. All activity ceased in an instant. Everypony who was standing turned and bowed towards the entrance. All who were seated merely went rigid at their stations. Even the fuschia mare with the golden mane who commanded the Disciples was kneeling, her eyes cast to the deck.

It only occurred to the alicorn later that Mayhem had been the one who made the announcement, and that she had done so without actually looking in Twilight’s direction.

“As you were,” the purple alicorn instructed calmly, releasing the assembled bridge crew from the formality. She didn’t miss such deference, per se; but it was something familiar to her that helped to relieve some of the mounting stress that she was feeling. Twilight strode over to an unoccupied seat near the back of the bridge that was surrounded by a significant number of displays suspended from the ceiling. It was a common feature on vessels that were large enough to possibly host a ‘flag officer’ during fleet operations.

She made herself comfortable, her magic reaching out and manipulating the controls for those screens so that they displayed the information that she most wanted at her hooftips. Even after so long, it still felt like second-nature. Within moments, she had what she wanted, and was sitting comfortably in the chair.

“Status, General?” Twilight asked.

The pink unicorn stood before her liege, nodding her head, “DropShips secure. Chaos Drive primed and ready. The Maelstrom is cleared for action, Princess. Ready to jump on your order.”

The stark dichotomy of how well-regimented and orderly everypony was comporting themselves, while simultaneously dressed like they’d all managed to fail out of some sort of clown college was hard to overlook; but the alicorn was doing her best. The fact that Mayhem was actually wearing a red foam nose on the tip of her muzzle wasn’t helping. If anything, the general’s otherwise serious demeanor only served to heighten the ridiculousness of it all.

It prompted fond memories of Canterlot Castle’s otherwise straight-laced majordomo, Kibitz, and his determination to remain stoic in the face of all the zaniness that Pinkie Pie brought with her to the palace once Twilight formally took over rulership of Equestria. He’d actually worn the puffed up rainbow-colored clown wig rather well, in Twilight’s opinion.

The alicorn took in a deep breath to resettle her thoughts and suppress a smirk as she acknowledged the formal report. This would be the largest operation that either of them had overseen in quite a while. Not since the final confrontation with Tirek had Twilight given an order to conduct combat operations. And while she doubted very much that the Red Reivers would prove to be anywhere near as much of a threat as the centaur and his minions had, that was no reason to allow herself to give into the temptation to treat this as a frivolous exercise, “Take us out, General; the ship is yours.”

“Aye, Princess,” Mayhem turned from Twilight and headed for the front of the bridge, “Helm, prepare to receive jump coordinates,” the helmsmare nodded and leaned aside, permitting their commander an unobstructed view of the controls.

The fuschia mare stared at the console intently as she reached out with her magic. First she brought up some astrological information about the system they were heading for. Hoping for anything like an up to date chart would have been fruitless of course. Little more than the position of the star itself would have been available with any reliability, limiting pretty much any vessel looking to jump there with nothing but the typical zenith and nadir entry vectors.

However, the Maelstrom wasn’t just any vessel, and her commander wasn’t just anypony. She noted the inhabitable world that the raiders were based on, and the two moons that orbited it. She paid special attention to the nearer moon as her magic reached out for the controls, and the navigational input. Slowly and deliberately, she entered in a set of coordinates―precise to the meter―all the while seeming to pay far more attention to her tail than the terminal that she was typing at.

Once she was satisfied that the coordinates were correct, she nodded towards the helmsmare and then stepped away, heading for her own seat on the bridge, “Spin up the drive! Prepare for Jump!”

The lights on the bridge suddenly dimmed and turned blue. The speakers, both on the bridge and throughout the rest of the WarShip, issued a shrill tune before an automated recording informed the crew that a jump was imminent. The deck plates began to tremble with energy as the ship’s drive built up power. An almost imperceptible whine could be heard throughout the vessel.

“All system’s go, General,” the helmsmare called out from her station, “ready to Jump on your order.”

“Jump on my mark,” General Mayhem instructed, raising a hoof into the air, “Aaaaannnnnnd…” she drew out the word, waiting for some sign that Twilight couldn’t see, all the while her eyes were focused squarely on the tip of her muzzle.

Then, suddenly, she sniffed rather loudly just before calling out, “Mark!” with a rather nasally turn. Her body was immediately wracked by an unusually powerful sneeze just as the vessel’s Jump Drive was engaged and the massive WarShip vanished from Havoc.

There was a blinding flash of white light, and then the swirling visage of pink and purple void around them was replaced once more with the more familiar speckled starscape of normal space. In front of them, only a couple hundred thousand kilometers distant, hung the red-hued world which was their target.

General Mayhem didn’t miss a beat, wiping away at her nose and then launching into a series of commands for her bridge crew, “Helm: plot an orbital insertion; minimal inclination. Sensors: I want to know what’s in the skies that could pose a threat, then get me a fix on their JumpShip. Comms: get me a channel with whoever is in charge down there. Weapons: tell the gun crews to look sharp. Anything flying our way gets a NAC-40 reception, understood?”

A chorus of ‘Ayes!’ greeted the unicorn’s orders. Looking satisfied, the mare nodded and then turned to leave the bridge, “Colonel Klink, you have the con. I’m heading down to engineering in case we need to make a quick exit,” she paused only to issue a quick bow of her head in Twilight’s direction as she left the command deck. A charcoal gray earth pony sporting a monocle and a pink polka dot bowtie as large as his head stood up from the terminal that he’d been sitting at and assumed the seat that Mayhem had just vacated.

Twilight remained on the bridge. If the crew managed to make contact with anycreature on the planet, she wanted to be the one to negotiate with them and attempt to gain a nonviolent resolution. In absence of that, she wanted to be the one screening targets for potential bombardment.

Pummelling the surface with ordinance at will was out of the question. This wasn’t some forward base of operations, it was a stronghold. The next best thing to a ‘homeworld’ for these raiders, for all intents and purposes. That meant that the creatures down there weren’t all fighters. This world also served as their home, which meant that it held their families as well. There would be noncombatants down there―children. They needed to avoid hitting civilian assets at all costs.

In the same vein, they couldn’t just go all out and level the military targets that they found either. Part of their objective here, after all, was to seize material―especially DropShips―not destroy it. The alicorn suppressed a cringe as she tried to figure out what was left for them to bombard from orbit if they weren’t going to be striking civilian or military targets…

Then again, she was hoping to avoid a bombardment at all. Which led the purple princess to ponder exactly what it was she was supposed to bargain with when they managed to make contact with whoever was in charge down there? A demonstration strike or two might convince the Reiver’s leader that refusing Twilight’s demands was tantamount to suicide, but that was only if they could see their way towards a positive outcome for themselves. If Twilight insisted that the pirates submit themselves to incarceration with the Disciples so that they could be passed over to the proper authorities on nearby Periphery worlds, the Reivers might well prefer death here and now, insisting that Twilight blast them out.

Conversely, the thought of just giving all of the Reivers safe passage off world didn’t sit well with the alicorn either. The pirates would undoubtedly also insist on being allowed to take along sufficient weapons and material to ‘defend themselves’; which she had no doubt would be used to set themselves up on another world to begin raiding all over again. Which hardly solved the problem. If she refused that demand, they might then choose to fight, seeing nothing to be gained by leaving themselves at the mercy of their former victims when word inevitably got out that the Reivers didn’t have any of their bigger toys anymore.

How sweet was Twilight prepared to make the deal with these raiders in order to get everything that she wanted? Was it more important to her that she render them toothless now, at the risk of crippling her plan to fight Chrysalis? Or was she prepared to let other Periphery residents continue to suffer at the mercy of the Red Reivers until she ‘got around to them later’ after she brought the changelings’ control of the galaxy to an end? Knowing full well that it could potentially be years before help might make its way back out this far again.

Did she sacrifice a few―million―Periphery lives to save potentially more Sphere lives?

That was the ‘pragmatic’ solution, wasn’t it? The needs of the many, versus the needs of the few? It was sound. Logical. Quantifiable.

But that didn’t make it right. Not when those who would end up suffering had no way of consenting―or even knowing―that they were being put at risk.

It wasn’t Kind.

The alicorn allowed herself a sardonic mental snort at the perceived absurdity of trying to abide by the Elements while embroiled in a fight. She fully recognized how incompatible most of them were on the surface. War wasn’t kind. It certainly wasn’t funny. The only thing that most soldiers were generous with were bullets. Even loyalties seemed to be rather fickle these days.

In the face of all that, many would likely―and perhaps even rightly―argue that even contemplating applying the Elements to what was about to happen in this star system today was madness. They’d contend that Twilight needed to be colder. More calculating. More ruthless, maybe.

More like Chrysalis.

No!

She’d faltered before. She couldn’t―wouldn’t―outright abandon the values that she’d held so dear all her life. It would have been the height of lunacy to presume to restore Harmony to the galaxy by casting its principles aside whenever they proved to be ‘inconvenient’ in the moment. Especially in times like these, creatures would need an example to follow. As one of the few remaining beings in the galaxy who even remembered what the Elements truly were, Twilight felt it was her duty to uphold them. Especially when it was hardest to do so. She couldn’t allow herself to be dragged down to the level that Chrysalis had created. Sinking to the changeling queen’s level wasn’t how Twilight would win in the end. Not really.

She would deal with the Reivers in accordance with the spirit of Harmony.

“I’ve made contact with the surface, sir,” the communications officer announced, turning her head to look to the colonel, “A ‘General Triton’ is demanding to speak with whomever is in charge,” she went on, her eyes briefly darting between the earth pony officer sitting in the command chair and Twilight Sparkle, seeming unsure of who that would technically be in this case.

“‘Demanding’, huh?” Colonel Klink sneered, obviously none too impressed with the tone that their target was taking. The earth pony looked over to the alicorn, “It looks like somecreature hasn’t realized what the Maelstrom is yet,” he suggested, the stallion’s lips pulling into a viscous smile.

Twilight suppressed her unease with how eager the colonel seemed to be at the prospect of using the WarShip to its fullest extent. He was a warrior who had been fighting the changelings all his life. It was a natural reaction, she acknowledged. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too disillusioned with his princess in the next few minutes, “I’ll take the call, Colonel.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” he bowed his head briefly, before ordering the mare at the comm station to forward the call appropriately.

Seconds later, the vessel’s systems manifested the holographic visage of a hippogriff’s head. The face hovered in front of Twilight’s own, allowing her to converse eye-to-eye with the being on the other end. She noted the beaked stallion possessed a rather extensive burn scar across his right eye, which didn’t look to be functional any longer. Almost certainly a consequence of some past combat. His hard gaze seemed to drill into her. He clearly wasn’t the sort of ‘griff to be bullied, the alicorn noted.

“Trespassing vessel,” the stallion began, his gravelly voice a near growl through his sneering features, “you are instructed to withdraw from this system immediately! If you do not comply, we will dispatch fighters with orders to destroy your ship.”

“I wish he would,” Twilight heard Klink mutter from his seat, “the Maelstrom has the better part of two wings of fighters ready to deploy on your order, Princess.”

Twilight extended a wing in the earth pony’s direction to acknowledge the comment, but didn’t take her attention off of the hippogriff in front of her. She’d been paying considerably more attention to what the commander of the Reivers had not said. Specifically that he had made no demand for the surrender of the ship and its crew; but instead a demand that they leave. She doubted the colonel’s notion that this hippogriff didn’t know what the Maelstrom was. If he’d truly thought this was merely a JumpShip, he’d have pounced on them without a second thought, as such vessels were largely unarmed. Easy pickings for a group purporting to have squadrons of fighters ready to intercept them.

General Triton knew it was a WarShip that had popped suddenly into space around the Reiver’s world. He also had to know that there was nothing that they had which could repel it. Even without the Maelstrom’s organic fighter support, the ship was perfectly capable of standing off a couple squadrons of fighters on its own.

This was posturing. The affectation of strength so as to not come out of the gate negotiating from a position of acknowledged weakness. Hardly the oldest political tactic in the book, the alicorn noted.

It actually gave her hope. Whatever else this Triton might be, the hippogriff wasn’t a bloodthirsty moron. Perhaps Twilight might even be able to work with that, “General Triton, my name is Princess Twilight Sparkle, formerly of the Celestia League, presently of the Disciple of Discord, and in command of the Disciple Naval Ship Maelstrom.

“I have come to the Peregrine System for three reasons: The first is to seize from you enough JumpShips and DropShips to fulfill my needs; along with sufficient fuel, munitions, and materials to operate them,” she watched the image of the Reiver carefully for any subtle shifts in his expression as she listed her demands. He had an impeccable poker face, she decided. Assuming that he hadn’t merely frozen the feed on his end of things…

“Second: You will surrender over to us all BattleSteeds currently in your possession. What is of use to us, we will take for ourselves. What is not of use will be scrapped for parts or otherwise rendered inoperable.

“Third: You will cede an appropriate portion of your world to us for our use as a base of operations for as long as we require.

“Do you understand our demands as I have explained them to you?”

If any on the bridge of the Maelstrom were surprised by Twilight’s bluntness, they concealed their reactions well. The princess wasn’t particularly in the mood for ‘posturing’, quite frankly. She hadn’t much cared for the political games that had been a part of her Courtly Life in Canterlot during her rule, and she didn’t care for this chest-puffing now either. She was committed to settling things using Harmony if at all possible. Which meant that she was going to be Honest and upfront about what she wanted from the Reivers.

There was a brief moment of silence from the hippogriff, long enough that Twilight began to legitimately wonder if the broadcast had indeed frozen somehow. However, a response did come from the stoic genera. It wasn’t the one that the alicorn had been hoping for, of course, “I do. I summarily reject them all.”

The purple princess frowned now, “You recognize that the Maelstrom is a Manticore-class WarShip, correct?”

“I do.”

Her frown deepened now, “And you know that this vessel has the ability to utterly obliterate every structure on the surface of your planet with impunity?”

“I have no doubt that it could,” came his simple acknowledgement.

“You would choose death for yourselves over meeting my demands?”

The hippogriff’s good left eye narrowed at the mare, “To accept your demands would surely mean our eventual deaths anyway,” he insisted, “The Reivers have made no shortage of enemies over the decades. Once word gets out that we’ve been stripped of our ‘Steeds, they’ll come for us. They’ll come, and I doubt they’ll bother to call us first before slaughtering us.

“I’d see us die on our feet, thank you very much!”

“Nocreature has to die,” Twilight insisted, “You’ll be under my protection.”

That earned a few reactions of visible shock and surprise from the bridge crew, the alicorn noted, hiding a smirk. It was to be expected, she supposed. While the Disciples might still be loyal to the long-defunct League, that didn’t mean that they still weren’t as far removed from the Elements of Harmony as the Dragon Clans were. It wouldn’t have occurred to most of them to be Generous, even when dealing with those whom you might not believe to have earned it. However, that was what Harmony required: adhering to those values, even when it felt like those you were dealing with weren’t deserving of them.

Especially when they weren’t―initially―deserving.

Doubtlessly, more than a few creatures down there had engaged in the sort of wanton slaughter that Twilight had observed on Capensis. The Red Reivers had been raiding and killing for decades, at least. She internally shuddered to think of the body-count they’d amassed in that time. Conventional wisdom would certainly have dictated that she wipe out the lot of them.

Admittedly, the sorts of depravity committed by the Reivers hadn’t been a thing that Twilight had needed to contend with during her rule of the Celestia League, or Equestria before it. Those sorts of things just...hadn’t happened. So the concept of what punishment such transgressions ‘deserved’ wasn’t a matter that she’d had to give much thought to. She didn’t know what the ‘proper’ contrition should be for what those creatures had done.

All she knew was that, at this exact moment, they were helpless.

Killing the helpless wasn’t ‘justice’. It was ‘murder’. She wouldn’t forget that again, Twilight vowed. She would bring Harmony to the galaxy; not more Chaos.

The general cocked an eyebrow upon hearing the mare’s assurance, obviously more than a little surprised as well. This time he at least paused, considering her proposal. At least, it looked like he was. His response, once more, was less than Twilight had hoped for, “I cannot cede control of the Reivers to you,” the hippogriff insisted, “You’d have to kill me.”

Twilight’s features contorted themselves into a sneer and she opened her mouth to once more rebuke the stubborn hippogriff and assure him that there didn’t need to be any bloodshed if he merely surrendered. Then she drew herself up short as she processed the way that he’d phrased his response. ‘You’d have to kill me,’ he’d said. Singular. His life, specifically, would have to be taken. At least, she thought that was what he was implying.

Twilight might not have existed in this time for long, but she had managed to come across a few common practices during her research into how the galaxy had been shaped since Chrysalis took her place. This had included learning about how quarreling parties tended to solve disputes. Gone seemed the days of arbitration and compromise. While more common in the Clans, she’d learned, than the Sphere, there had emerged a practice widely recognized as the preferred means of overcoming otherwise irreconcilable differences: Trial by Combat.

General Triton had decided that he wouldn’t―or couldn’t―simply elect to cede control of the Red Reivers to her uncontested. However, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t still possible for him to lose control of them under the right circumstances. Assuming that the Reivers held the same immutable regard for that practice as the rest of the galaxy. Such a violent group could lean either way, Twilight supposed. Either reveling in the notion that the strongest and most lethal were deserving of leadership, or rejecting leaders they disliked in favor of trying to kill them themselves.

On the other hoof, an entirely anarchic group would not have lasted as long as the Red Reivers were purported to have, nor would they have become as effective a fighting force. They were indisputably organized, which suggested a code of conduct of some fashion or other. Rules that they would follow, and protocols that they would observe. It was entirely possible that, if Twilight challenged the general, and he accepted, that the rest of the Reivers would fall into step with her demands, with relatively little grumbling.

So long as she didn’t get too outrageous with her demands, at least.

Was that what Triton had been implying with his statement though? That there was a way to achieve a relatively bloodless resolution?

It was worth a shot, “If you insist, then I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, do hereby issue a formal challenge for the leadership of the Red Reivers. Do you accept?”

While it might have been the result of a simple distortion of the projected image, Twilight thought that she’d caught the briefest of smiles tugging at the corner of the general’s beak. However, it vanished just as quickly as it might have appeared. The hippogriff’s image nodded, “I do,” he glanced at something outside of the project’s field of view, “Meet me at these coordinates in six hours. Triton, out.”

The projection vanished.

The bridge was quiet. The command crew were far too professional to dare raise direct and unsolicited criticisms of their leader; but that didn’t mean that some of them weren’t doing a poor job of concealing their incredulity. A lot of eyes were darting in Colonel Klink’s direction, as the junior officers either wondered or were trying to will their senior to give voice to the questions that their propriety wouldn’t allow them to ask themselves. However, it seemed that even the stallion was feeling some reservations about critiquing the alicorn’s decisions.

Instead, he depressed a button on the console near the command couch, “General to the bridge please…”

She should have teleported to the Zathura, Twilight thought to herself several minutes later as she was striding briskly through the corridors of the WarShip towards the docking collars. It would have spared her from having to endure Mayhem’s far less circumspect criticisms of her course of action. Arguably, that would have been the coward’s way out; but it would also have been a quieter one.

“―nnot believe you’re going down there alone!” The fuschia unicorn mare was ranting from beside the alicorn, trotting along in order to keep up with the taller mare’s lankier stride, “What if it’s a trap? You can’t honestly trust that pirate to meet you one-on-one?!”

Twilight’s telekinesis thrust a data pad into the unicorn’s face as she continued to wind her way towards the waiting DropShip that would be carrying her to the surface, “General Triton―formally Commander Triton of the Hippogriff Combine’s 7th Pearl of Light Brigade until he was dismissed when the battalion he was leading was ambushed by Shadowbolt mercenaries and nearly wiped out to a ‘griff. He subsequently left the Sphere. Apparently, this is where he ended up.”

Mayhem missed a step as she took the pad into her own magic, peering at the displayed information critically until the unicorn mare realized that what she was looking at was one of the Disciple’s own compiled dossiers. While their mission in the Harmony Sphere was first and foremost to gather intelligence on the changelings, they also made sure to gather as much information as they could on anycreature of note that the changelings might use to further their own ends. This included most of the Sphere’s military and political leaders, as well as corporate executives. Anycreature that could be leveraged by Chrysalis to affect a change in the balance of power in the galaxy as needed.

At some point, it appeared that this Triton had been one such creature that her ponies had surveilled, Mayhem realized. Not that this information did much to change her opinion, of course, “And then he turned fucking pirate! Not surprising, given that half of the notable ‘battles’ his old command was involved in are listed as: ‘Such-and-Such Massacre’ and ‘Slaughter of So-and-So’!

“He’s a monster!” The general snapped, exasperated that she was even having to point this out to her new monarch. Hadn’t the princess read the file that she’d passed back?! “He was a monster then; he’s a monster now! You can’t trust him.”

“While it’s true that he’d never shied away from civilian casualties,” Twilight acknowledged in a level tone, clearly not approving of such tactics, “His file indicates that he also doesn’t ‘fight dirty’. No ambushes, few feints, and only a single accidental surprise attack that resulted when the defending unit apparently misread their own maps and patrolled the wrong ravine.

“It may be warped, but Triton seems to possess something that can charitably be described as approaching ‘honor’. He’ll abide by the terms of our duel,” The alicorn’s expression then soured significantly as a follow-up thought occurred to her, “Whether the rest of the Reivers do too remains to be seen…”

“Which brings me to my next point,” the general said, “Assuming that the Reivers do agree to acknowledge you as their new leader, then what? Do you really expect them to let us round them all up and cart them away to nearby Periphery powers so they can be tried and executed for piracy?” When the purple princess didn’t immediately respond to the question, the unicorn mare pressed a little harder for an answer, “We are going to hoof them over to the governments of their victims so they can face justice...right?”

Finally Twilight responded, “They will repay their debt to society, yes.”

“Through trial and execution…?” The general’s tone suggested that she wasn’t completely confident about that point any longer.

“By helping us take down Chrysalis.”

Mayhem balked again, incredulous, “We’re going to work with them?! Are you crazy?!” It was almost a solid three seconds before the fuschia unicorn seemed to recall to whom she was speaking, and hastily added a, “Your Highness,” To the end of her question.

“I’m being pragmatic,” Twilight defended, a little annoyed at being questioned this way by one of her officers. As much as a throwback to her Celestia League days as this little expedition had been up to this point, the alicorn didn’t recall any of the officers serving her back then ever questioning her like this. It had been mostly, “Yes, Your Highness!” and “Right away, Your Highness!” Without any of the back-talk that Mayhem was giving her now.

She missed that.

But, if justifying her actions was what it would take to gain her a little peace, then so be it, “Frankly, General, even with the Reiver DropShips down there, your Disciples don’t begin to have the ponypower to effectively crew them and put together the raiding teams that will be required to hit all of our targets,” The alicorn pointed out, “We need experienced pilots and techs. The Red Reivers have experienced pilots and techs. Recruiting them to our cause is more expedient than trying to track down creatures willing to go hoof-to-hoof with ComSpark.”

The last was said with a knowing glance back in Mayhem’s direction, and the unicorn was forced to concede the point on that front. Within the Harmony Sphere―and to an extent even in the Periphery―ComSpark was regarded with something that could very nearly be described as approaching reverence. After all, ComSpark’s HyperSpark Generators and the faster-than-light message traffic they conveyed was the glue that held the galaxy together. It allowed loved ones to keep in contact, trans-stellar corporations to function, and mercenaries to be contracted.

ComSpark was the cornerstone of the way of life for all creatures in the galaxy. Without it, society would effectively collapse. So, naturally, only a complete maniac would even dream of doing anything which might disrupt ComSpark’s ability to fulfill its mandate of facilitating communications across the stars. ‘Maniacs’ like the Disciples, who knew the truth behind ComSpark’s real masters and their sinister designs on the galaxy’s denizens.

No worthwhile mercenary company would avail themselves to Twilight or Mayhem and risk alienating the source of their livelihood. Neither would any of the significant military powers in the Periphery be willing to incur the wrath of the Sphere by assaulting its linchpin.

A group of unscrupulous pirates and brigands though...they might be willing. Especially if the offered compensation was complete amnesty for all of their prior transgressions.

None of which meant that Mayhem had to like the idea though; and she clearly didn’t, “Your Highness,” she began, doing her best to remain mindful of protocol; which was still something of a concept that all of them were getting used to after being away from the League-in-Exile for so long, “I agree that relying exclusively on our existing personnel would stretch things a bit thin,” she conceded, “But I’d much rather send our teams in understrength than flesh them out with creatures who are just as likely to shoot us as they are the enemy!”

“I do intend to screen the Reivers that are selected for the operation, General,” Twilight informed the commanding officer in an acrid tone, “Only those who are genuinely willing to make amends for their past actions will be augmented into your forces, I assure you.”

“And how can you possibly know which Reivers down there―if any,” the mare snorted derisively, “actually want to turn over a new leaf, and which ones are just feeding you a load of roadapples?”

“Did you already forget, General?” The purple princess smirked at the unicorn, “I have a changeling with me. They’re the best lie detectors in the galaxy.

“Slipshod will help us weed out the Reivers who’ll need more time to be reformed.”

“You make it sound like you don’t intend to punish any of the raiders down there.”

The pair of them finally reached the docking collar leading to the Zathura. Twilight paused at the airlock door and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. It was hardly like she hadn’t been wrestling with those same thoughts herself ever since she’d decided to come here. The notions of what constituted ‘justice’ in the modern Harmony Sphere were far removed from what they had been in the Celestia League―and even Equestria before it.

‘Capital punishment’ hadn’t been a thing. Not for a very―very―long time. Even long term imprisonment was only reserved for the most dangerous of criminals guilty of the most serious of crimes. A creature pretty much had to reach ‘supervillain’ status to earn confinement for anything longer than a few weeks. Most beings were simply treated to a Reform Spell and a stint of community service as recompense for whatever wrongs they’d committed against society.

Not anymore though. Along with the disappearance of the Elements of Harmony from the collective memory of the Sphere’s inhabitants, so too had gone the idea that rehabilitation was more important than mere punishment alone. Simple incarceration was resource-intensive and ultimately unproductive, but it had the benefit of appealing to a creature’s baser notion of ‘revenge’. If a creature wronged another, then clearly the most worthwhile response was to ‘wrong’ them in some fashion. Maintain ‘balance’ in that regard. As was only ‘fair’.

For the more egregious crimes though, simple confinement wasn’t enough to satisfy that need for balance. For those who took the lives of others, only the forfeiture of their life in return could appease society’s sensibilities. It was difficult to condemn that notion, Twilight was forced to admit. She’d experienced such great losses among the lives of her subjects when Tirek and the others broke free. The centaur had rebuked all her offers for surrender, sneered with contempt at the very notion that he might yet make recompense for the destruction that he’d caused.

In the end, Twilight had been forced to take his life in that final battle. The first life that she’d ever ended with her own hooves. At the time, the alicorn had taken no joy in the act. She’d felt no catharsis. Only a sense of dread that a new paradigm was taking shape. That a box had just been opened whose lid would not be so easily closed again.

She’d been right. Tirek’s was far from the last life to be taken in the waning years of the Celestia League. Thanks to Cozy Glow’s machinations, conflicts between various groups blossomed, and the creatures involved sought to resolve them in the same fashion that Twilight had with Tirek: with bloody conflict. Killing, it had been collectively decided, was more expedient than talking.

After all, if it wasn’t effective, then surely their very own Princess Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t have resorted to it when dealing with Tirek.

In so many ways, the state of the galaxy was her fault. The changelings might be the ones who perpetuated the strife and horrors suffered by the creatures who lived today, but she was the one who’d tipped the balance in the first place. She had been the first to falter. However understandable her decision might have been, she had killed Tirek in order to finally resolve things.

She’d done so from a place of love for her own ponies. Her desire to keep more of them from dying than already had. Seven of the noble BattleSteed pilots who’d followed her into battle that day had already lost their lives by the time she finally ended things. Even as her comrades were being cut down, the alicorn had been doing all she could to reason with him―to plead with the centaur―to get him to stand down.

He just...wouldn’t. So she’d killed him.

The citizens of the League had hailed their princess as a hero. She’d slain the greatest threat that the galaxy had known in a thousand years, forever ensuring that he’d no longer pose a threat to the galaxy. So when partisans began to creep up―the survivors of ravaged worlds who demanded to know why Twilight hadn’t killed the centaur sooner and perhaps spared them the suffering Tirek had caused―Twilight’s loyalist factions had emulated their sovereign...and killed them too.

Twilight hadn’t had the heart then to truly try and put a stop to things. How was she supposed to reprimand creatures who were doing nothing more than she herself had done to ensure ‘peace and tranquility’ in the League? So she’d remained quiet. In her shame, the Princess of Friendship had bit her tongue and merely prayed that sanity would break out and the killing would stop on its own once everycreature had satisfied their bloodlust. Then the healing could begin, and Harmony could be restored.

But it hadn’t stopped. It only grew worse.

In the present day killing was the norm. Even those who genuinely desired to espouse the noble ideal of Friendship, like General Mayhem, felt no qualms about taking the lives of other creatures that they saw as standing in the way of peace and Harmony. So long as the proper circumstances existed first.

Twilight had kept her silence then. Her own guilt and shame had stayed her hoof. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. The alicorn wouldn’t keep quiet and wait for Harmony to spontaneously break out. She’d teach it. Exemplify it. Demonstrate it.

She had to bring Harmony back to the galaxy. Otherwise, there was no point to any of this, “The Reivers will make amends for the wrongs that they have committed,” Twilight vowed to both the general and herself, “those who are willing, will work off their debt to society through service to it. Those who are not yet willing will first be taught the error of their ways until they become willing. However long that takes.”

General Mayhem’s features were creased by a deep, disapproving frown, “Some of those Reivers have killed countless innocents, Your Highness. You can’t just pardon them―”

“I’m not,” The alicorn interrupted, her tone far more stern now as she glared down at the unicorn, “They will pay for their crimes, but with service, not their lives. Turning them into rotting corpses won’t bring back those they’ve killed, will it?” She asked rhetorically, watching the fuschia mare wince at the rebuke, “Making orphans and widows out of whatever family they might have down there won’t make the galaxy a better place either.”

Twilight waited to see if the senior officer would make any further arguments against her monarch’s chosen course of action. It was clear from her expression that Mayhem still wasn’t happy about what Twilight intended to do, but she had apparently decided that she was going to hold her tongue on any additional qualms. While mere obedience might suffice in the meantime, the purple princess would certainly have preferred to have her senior military officer be in full agreement with her decision, and not simply reluctantly accept it.

The alicorn sighed, “Mayhem,” she began, dropping formality even as her tone descended into softer tones that Twilight had many times used when trying to teach others lessons on Friendship. Such a phase of her life had been eons ago, even from her own perspective, but the familiar routine came easily even after all this time. The unicorn looked up in mild surprise at the sudden shift in tenor, meeting Twilight’s pleading amethyst eyes, “Chrysalis’ ‘victory’ wasn’t in capturing the princesses and taking my place in Canterlot. Her real victory was making the creatures of the galaxy forget about the Elements of Harmony. By robbing creatures of the Elements, she ensured that no being would ever know peace, or true happiness.

“We can’t bring back Harmony by only adhering to the Elements when we feel like it, and applying them only to creatures that we believe are entitled to them. That’s not how the Elements work,” she explained, “Harmony―true Harmony―isn’t conditional. It can only exist so long as it always exists; not just when we find it convenient. That means that we always need to be applying the Elements; to everycreature.

“Elements which include Kindness and Generosity,” Twilight said, her lips spreading in a wan little smile. The unicorn averted her gaze now, finding herself conflicted by the notion of showing criminals mercy that she didn’t feel they’d earned, and yet unable to find a foundation upon which to build a rebuttal against her monarch’s words. Especially when her point was that other creatures didn’t specifically have to earn mercy from her; she was supposed to always be willing to give it out freely, “If we can’t do that, then all of this will have been pointless anyway,” The alicorn finished with a despondent sigh.

General Mayhem took her princess’ words to heart, mulling them over in her head. There was still some push-back from her own personal sensibilities. Likely because the ‘Elements’ that she’d grown up espousing weren’t the same ones that Twilight had been trying her best to teach to the Disciples these past few weeks since assuming the mantle of leadership. Changing the core values that you’d made a part of your life wasn’t a simple matter, even if it felt like some of those changes shouldn’t be all that significant.

Perhaps that was what made the change all the harder though, the unicorn reasoned. Maybe because some of the shifts in the definitions of the Elements seemed so minor, it felt like she shouldn’t have to be making such a drastic change to her mindset. Yet, that was what was going to be required of her, it seemed. It was going to be hard, Mayhem could see that already. Maybe that was the point too.

If it were easy, it would have happened centuries ago, wouldn’t it?

“Very well, Your Highness,” General Mayhem finally said, issuing the alicorn a stiff bow of her head, “I’ll try to bear that in mind,” There was a brief pause, followed by another unhappy frown, “I still don’t like the idea of you going down there alone though.”

The smile on Twilight’s face was more mirthful this time, “I’ll be taking Slipshod with me in the Cavalier,” she assure the general, “And I’m sure that both the Maelstrom’s and the Zathura’s gunners will be keeping a watchful eye on things.”

The princess wasn’t wrong about that, Mayhem thought to herself. Even now the gun crews of the WarShip had their weapons lined up on several of the Reiver’s larger bases and depots, ready to erase them from orbit if the forces within them so much as twitched in a way that she didn’t like. When it came to the safety of Princess Twilight, ‘Kindness’ could wait for the after-action report.

...Yeah, the unicorn could see the problem now.

Twilight suspected that she wasn’t the only creature with an overprotective subordinate as she gazed out through the cockpit viewport of her Rainbow Dash across the dried up basin which Triton had selected for the location of their duel. The Red Reiver general had not come alone either. However, much like the alicorn’s own escort, the hippogriff’s appeared to be content―if reluctantly so―to remain well out of effective weapon range of the pair of ‘Steeds which would be actively participating in the fight.

Though while the purple princess had only a singular escort in the form of the Crystal Cavalier and its changeling pilot, an entire additional lance of Reivers had accompanied Triton to the site. All of them were heavy and assault-class chassis as well. Mayhem was likely in the throes of a conniption fit, berating herself for allowing Twilight to proceed to this duel with anything less than an entire division of Disciples backing her up. Admittedly, Twilight herself was feeling just a smidge of apprehension as well, seeing those massive silhouettes in the distance. They might not be able to land any effective shots on her from where they were now, but they’d certainly be able to enter into range long before Squelch could arrange an extraction. Slipshod had to be quietly questioning how well he’d fare against them too if they violated the sanctity of this duel and attacked.

“So, to clarify: As your ‘second’ or whatever, I’m not actually expected to protect you if that other lance attacks, right? I can just hoof it out of here?”

...Or perhaps not so quietly, Twilight smirked to herself, “Yes, Bug,” The alicorn allowed in a tone that suggested she was far calmer than she actually felt at this moment, “You are free to bravely run away if any trouble starts.”

“Hey, now that Squelch and I are almost kinda officially back together again, I sorta maybe have a family to think about!” The changeling pointed out, “I can’t go throwing my life away in hopeless battles.”

“Fair point,” Twilight conceded, smiling a little more easily now.

Another mare’s voice crackled over their comm channel now, “For the record,” Squelch interjected in a matter-of-fact tone, “You never did remove me as your beneficiary―like I asked. So if you were to ‘bravely die’, it’d help me out quite a bit financially! When this is all over, I plan to have boat payments.”

“You hate the water.”

“But I like boats.”

“Isn’t the payout your money anyway?” The changeling pilot countered after another brief moment’s thought.

“It’s the company’s money,” The sage green unicorn mare corrected simply, “It’d be embezzlement if I just unilaterally took company money for personal use.”

“...Can you embezzle from your own company?”

“Technically you can,” Twilight chimed in now, her features creased in thought as her hoof rubbed at her chin while she contemplated the matter, “From a taxable corporation and personal income perspective anyway. At least, that was true under Celestia League tax law. I don’t know how it’d work today,” She admitted, “Where are the Rayleigh’s Irregulars incorporated out of at the moment―?”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” The deeper voice of the hippogriff general announced over her helmet’s headset, reminding the alicorn of why she was even out here in the first place. On the bright side, at least the tension that she’d been feeling had dissipated for the moment, “I would like to thank you for agreeing to meet me under these circumstances.”

Twilight frowned slightly as she keyed her comm over to the frequency being used by the Reiver and away from Slipshod and Squelch’s quivel over finances, “I’m the one who offered the challenge,” She pointed out, “Shouldn’t I be the one thanking you?”

She could just barely hear the soft chuckle over the frequency, almost lost in the static, “You didn’t have to challenge me at all. Your WarShip could have pounded the lot of us to ashes from orbit. A lot of them are going to get to live because you’re doing this. That’s what I’m thanking you for.”

The alicorn’s frown deepened now, “If that’s the case, why did you refuse to surrender earlier? Why make me challenge you to a duel?”

“If I’d outright surrendered, no matter how stacked against us the odds were, I’d have lost the respect of the Reivers,” the hippogriff explained, “They wouldn’t have accepted anything I told them after that, and they would have resisted; even to their own deaths. By accepting this duel, even if I lose, my senior officers will honor the terms I’ve set and follow the victor.

“Whoever that may be.”

“You’re sacrificing yourself to save them,” Twilight said, feeling a grudging respect for the hippogriff.

This time the bark of laughter that Triton let loose was quite audible, “Ha! You haven’t won yet, princess! And this old ‘griff isn’t about to just roll over for you. Now show me what you’ve got!”

The sensors on Twilight’s ‘Steed registered an energy spike coming from her opponent. Reflexively, she put her hooves to the controls and jumped into action herself. Her Rainbow Dash remained one of the most powerful BattleSteeds ever developed up until the time of her disappearance. It was also the only ‘Steed whose design she had been personally involved in―which may or may not have been responsible for it being said pinnacle of combat prowess.

However, it would have been a gross mischaracterization to say that BattleSteed development had also plateaued during her time as well. While ‘Steed technology had quite clearly regressed by the present from where it had once been during her reign, the alicorn had come to learn through her studies of the intervening time that there had been a brief period after Chrysalis seized control where combat and ‘Steed technological development had actually advanced; declining only as a result of the awesome destruction those newer and more destructive ‘Steeds and weapons wreaked upon the galaxy.

So while the Rainbow Dash might have stood head and withers above all of its peers once upon a time―and indeed in the present time―that wasn’t necessarily the case where all BattleSteeds ever developed were the case.

One such example was charging at her right now: the King Grover.

Twilight was pulling up every last byte of data that her updated targeting computer had on that ‘Steed, and she was finding herself not caring at all for what she was learning. Apparently, this ‘Steed had been designed to effectively be an answer to the Celestia League’s Big Mac when the griffons began making their plans to withdraw from the League, anticipating that their secession might lead to military consequences. While it lacked the versatility, and arguably the range that a Big Mac enjoyed, the King Grover’s dual super-heavy autocannons certainly packed enough punch to take out pretty much every ‘Steed ever designed in just two hits, at most.

A direct strike with both of those cannons would certainly destroy her Rainbow Dash with only a single salvo. Provided that she let Triton get close enough to land such a hit with those close-range artillery pieces.

An alert warning her about an acquired missile lock reminded the alicorn that the opposing ‘Steed possessed weapons which could tag her at range as well. Twilight watched the spray of long range missiles leaping from the fifteen-count rack sequestered on the King Grover’s back as the smoke trail arced towards her. She jerked her control yokes hard to the side even as she engaged her ‘Steed’s jump jets. The seventy-tons of BattleSteed she piloted lifted a few meters off the ground and strafed hard to the right. The missile’s guidance systems tried to adjust the trajectories of the ordinance they controlled and maintain their lock, but ultimately failed to bank hard enough to catch her, impacting harmlessly on the ground along the Rainbow Dash’s path.

Two plumes of smoke from either side of the other ‘Steed announced the use of its main weapon. At this range, it would have been nearly impossible for Triton to score a hit with them though. However, Twilight wasn’t quite willing to leave that up to chance. Even a glancing blow from one of those shells would cause significant damage wherever it struck. She once more juked her ‘Steed along a different trajectory.

The ground fifty meters ahead of her erupted in massive, BattleSteed-high plumes of dirt and smoke as the shells impacted the surface, leaving behind a crater deep enough to conceal a Breezy from sensors. Twilight grimaced at the thought of what those weapons might have done if they’d stuck anywhere in the vicinity of an actual breezy, given how susceptible the diminutive creatures were to shifting air currents.

The alicorn finally responded with a volley of her own now, unleashing a hailstorm of missiles back at the King Grover. The larger assault-class ‘Steed was much slower than she was, and its bulk was ill-suited to evasive maneuvering. Not all of her missiles managed to find their target, but quite a few did, sending rippling explosions all along the back and stubby winglets of the opposing ‘Steed. Not that Triton seemed to mind the hit in the slightest, barely seeming to even miss a step as he pushed his BattleSteed forward.

Twilight frowned even as she throttled back and reversed her Rainbow Dash’s course, maintaining the comfortable half-kilometer gap between the two of them. Her ‘Steed was very nearly as fast going in reverse as the King Grover was at its maximum forward velocity. She had total control of the range of the fight, and nearly all of her primary weapons were effective at a full kilometer out. Given those facts, it was actually debatable whether or not this duel was actually classifiable as a ‘fight’.

She snapped off a shot with one of her prismatic projector cannons. The corkscrew beam of chromatic light struck home, staggering the King Grover as it stripped away ablative armor along the left side of its chest. The other ‘Steed recovered quickly though, and resumed its charge towards her. However, the brief lag in stride had allowed Twilight to open up the range even further to nearly six hundred meters.

The hippogriff responded in kind with the large laser strapped to his ‘Steed’s belly, but the coherent beam of blue light had dissipated so much over the vast distance that it barely even scorched the paint on her shoulder. Another volley of missiles followed, and once more Twilight skipped to the side along purple bouts of magical fire from her jump jets.

“You can’t win,” Twilight said, feeling like she was pointing out the obvious to the other pilot.

“Winning isn’t the point,” Triton responded in a surprisingly calm tone.

“Then just surrender!” The purple mare snarled even as she lazily kept away from another salvo of ineffective autocannon shells.

“My surrender doesn’t get either of us what we want.”

Twilight fired both her PPCs this time, aiming specifically for one of the King Grover’s legs in an attempt to disable the other ‘Steed and force an end to the duel that way. Armor evaporated, exposing the vulnerable myomer musculature and structural supports beneath. Again the massive steel behemoth staggered, but it recovered and stubbornly pressed on.

“And throwing your life away does?” Twilight retorted, deftly avoiding another missile barrage, “Just stand down! You don’t have to die,” She insisted.

“You know, for somepony pretending to be the Queen, you’re nowhere near as ruthless as she is,” The hippogriff informed her through an amused chuckle, “You’re going to want to change that. Otherwise you’re going to spend the next few weeks being constantly challenged by other Reivers.

“So you can either kill me here and now, or you can worry about having to kill a bunch of them later.”

Twilight grimaced at the prospect of the latter. Was that really what she’d have to look forward to if she demonstrated ‘weakness’ during this fight? Her gaze briefly darted to the Red Reiver ‘Steeds spectating the duel. No doubt those were being piloted by Triton’s top lieutenants. Creatures who would doubtlessly have been anticipating that one of them would have been the next to assume the role of leader of the band upon the general’s inevitable demise. Of course, now they were watching somepony in the process of robbing them of that opportunity.

There would have been resentment enough there, without the alicorn also making it look like she was reluctant to fight for what she wanted. Especially when it was patently obvious to any ‘Steed pilot that no skill was required to win this fight. Her victory would be easily―and even rightfully―attributed to a fortuitous imbalance in loadout ranges and chassis speeds. A complete novice could have taken this fight from her position; and no amount of skill would have been able to help Triton.

If she went in and ruthlessly cut him down, she could yet avert having to fight anycreature else later in order to confirm her martial prowess. Killing him might save others later.

Of course, given how imbalanced this bout was, it would be difficult to justify Triton as having a ‘fair chance’, or that he and his ‘Steed actually did pose a genuine threat to her life. Ending him wouldn’t be ‘self defense’ under any reasonable definition.

She’d be murdering him.

Twilight couldn’t do that, “I’m not going to kill you,” She insisted, “But I will end this fight.”

The purple alicorn snapped off another shot with her recharged PPCs, cleanly severing the previously damaged limb. The King Grover didn’t collapse outright, but the massive BattleSteed was forced to reorient its limbs, forced to now move about in a much slower loping fashion. It had been reduced in speed to about half of what it had been able to achieve previously. Now there was no question at all that this fight was a foregone conclusion, as Twilight’s Rainbow Dash could just leisurely trot out of the effective range of the general’s machine.

The larger ‘Steed soon came to a full stop, no longer making a vain attempt to close with the faster opponent. Twilight’s headset crackled, “I’m telling you right now, Princess; you need to finish this fight the right way.”

“This is the ‘right way’, General,” Twilight insisted, “Now concede the duel.”

For several long seconds, there was no response. The alicorn was lining up a shot on another of the King Grover’s legs in order to force the issue when one finally came, “So be it,” the resigned voice of the hippogriff stallion said over her headset. The next words sounded slightly less distorted as he swapped over from the private, encrypted, channel that he had been using to speak with her privately, and began broadcasting on an open one, “I yield.”

His King Grover came to a halt. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and allowed herself to relax her hold on the controls of her ‘Steed. The fight was over. Now it was time to figure out how best to approach dealing with the Reivers, and getting them adjusted to the idea of following her commands―

On the face of things, gauss rounds don’t strike the uninitiated civilian as being all that big of a threat. After all, they don’t possess the explosive warhead that missiles or standard autocannon rounds do. Nor are they capable of potentially slicing through large swatches of area like a sustained beam from an energy cannon. Looking at the unassuming metal ‘pellets’ that the weapons use as ammunition gives the impression that they just hurl slightly enlarged hoofballs at an opponent. Of course, those ‘hoofballs’ are traveling at hypersonic speeds, which allows them to impart a great deal of kinetic energy upon impact.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a tradeoff of sorts where gauss rifles are concerned. While the speeds that the rounds are traveling at grants them a stupendous amount of penetration power that basically no rational amount of armor can hope to protect against, the fact is that they don’t have explosive warheads either. That means that, while they’ll always punch through to the internals of a target, they also have to be lined up perfectly with any critical systems, otherwise there’s a significant chance the round will simply punch through the other side of the target ‘Steed or vehicle without doing much actual damage. Many larger BattleSteeds have a significant amount of ‘dead space’ inside of them that a gauss round can easily pass through without impacting their battlefield performance.

This means that pilots have to line up their shots with gauss rifles with much more care than might otherwise be required with an autocannon if they want to be sure the shot isn’t a wasted effort. A task which is rather difficult to accomplish at range with a target that is galloping around the battlefield.

Against a stationary one though…

Twilight didn’t see the shot itself. All that she noticed at first was the sudden appearance of the cavitation wave in the air beside her cockpit as the round passed her by. Initially, the alicorn thought that one of the Reiver’s spectating the fight had taken exception to her victory and sought to assassinate her outright. However, that soon proved itself to be an erroneous assumption. It turned out that she hadn’t been the target at all, in fact.

The purple princess’ eyes widened in horror as she caught sight of the hole in the King Grover’s cockpit. Her ‘Steed’s enhanced optics allowed for her HUD to punch in on the point of impact for a closer look, allowing her to see that the round had punched cleanly through where the pilot would have been sat. She wasn’t the least bit surprised by the lack of remains. At the speeds involved, an organic body would have been effectively vaporized by the force of the hit.

No longer connected to a pilot, the massive assault ‘Steed lost its already precarious balance and slumped over onto its side, collapsing into a heap of inert steel.

“Death before dishonor!”

Twilight didn’t recognize the female voice which yelled across the same open frequency that Triton had used, but it hardly seemed pertinent anyway. The purple mare saw three of the Reiver ‘Steeds charging out into the duel field now. Her Rainbow Dash was alerting her to multiple tracking locks and the launches of several salvos of missiles. There was no longer any time to ponder how everything had managed to go so spectacularly wrong.

“Maelstrom, Zathura,” She yelled into her mic on a direct line to the WarShip, even as she threw herself back to her ‘Steed’s controls, “we need fire support, now!” Twilight paid little attention to the acknowledgments by the commanders of the respective vessels as she deftly flipped over to the channel she shared with Slipshod, “Cover me while I pull back!”

“Covering,” The changeling pilot replied grimly. Coils of rainbow light arced across the field, passing by Twilight and her ‘Steed, impacting near the advancing enemies.

The alicorn throttled her Rainbow Dash up to a full run even as she spun it around. The pinions of her wings flicked out and danced across the consoles in her cockpit, deftly adjusting the power and angles of her ‘Steed’s jump jets so that she’d be able to get the most efficient use out of them. Her ‘Steed juked and dodged, almost seeming to glide along the ground at times as she feathered the jump jets integrated into the limbs of the Rainbow Dash. All around her, Twilight could hear the muffled sounds of explosions as waves of long-range missiles tried to connect with her.

Some did, of course. While it had been easy enough to avoid being hit by the salvos launched by the lone King Grover, it was largely futile to hope to be able to escape unsinged from multiple salvos of missiles coming at her ‘Steed along multiple vectors simultaneously. The same went for energy blasts and autocannon rounds. Her ‘Steed shuddered as enemy munitions managed to make contact with its armor despite all of her efforts. Indicators on her console flashed warnings, alerting the alicorn to the mounting damage being done.

Grinding her teeth in an annoyed snarl, Twilight deftly spun her Rainbow Dash around with its jump jets, settling down for just a moment facing the oncoming Reivers. She’s oriented her ‘Steed so that it was aligned almost perfectly with the Wendigo leading the charge. A massive and imposing BattleSteed that sat at the upper end of the assault class tonnage range, it was an old enough design that it tended to possess a rather underwhelming armament for its weight when compared to later designs. Strictly speaking, Slipshod’s former Wild Bronco had been almost as well armed as most Wendigo variants.

The one facing her was no exception, appearing to be armed with only a singular type-twenty autocannon. However, what it lacked in weaponry, the massive BattleSteed made up for with armor. Both of Twilight’s PPCs and all forty of her long range missiles had little trouble striking their target head-on; but the Reiver pilot pushed through the hits with seemingly little trouble. The alicorn’s own sensors showed that only moderate damage seemed to have been done to the ablative plating as well. It would take another couple of hits like that to finally start hitting anything vital beneath its protection, Twilight realized with a frustrated grunt.

Because of the range still involved, it was not the Wendigo, but instead the Radical on its left flank which responded with successive shots from all three of its own PPCs to Twilight’s attack. The alicorn managed to dance out of the path of two of those helical beams, but was glanced by the third along her right side. The missile-armed JagerSteed coming up on the right flank was unleashing yet more volleys of missiles, the pair of light autocannons mounted in its shoulders firing off a near-constant barrage of explosive shells.

Twilight was forced to concede more ground briefly as the three ‘Steeds charged at her. The weapons of her Rainbow Dash were firing as the heat buildup in the reactor allowed, chewing away slowly at the armor plating of her attackers. The shots passing to her side from Slipshod were growing more accurate as the changeling pilot continued to close the distance with their attackers. Though even his strikes were having little effect at the extreme ranges, it seemed that he proved enough of an annoyance to draw the Radical’s attention off of Twilight.

Her headset buzzed with a brief crackle of static, followed by Mayhem’s voice in her ear, “Princess, we’re in position to engage, but without a clear firing solution, we can’t provide effective support without placing you at risk.”

The purple princess frowned upon receiving the message. It was a fair reservation, she knew. Given the distance involved, and her own proximity to the enemy ‘Steeds, the angle of the Maelstrom’s turret declinations had to be accurate to within hundredths―if not thousandths―of a degree, lest she and Slipshod be wiped out in the same bombardment meant to hit the enemy ‘Steeds. Unfortunately, Twilight didn’t have any means of interfacing with the WarShip’s targeting systems from down here. Her own sensor suite and targeting computer wasn’t precise enough for the task at hoof. It was, after all, designed to engage targets less than a kilometer out, and not from low orbit.

Nor could the WarShip enter the atmosphere in an effort to gain line-of-sight on the other BattleSteeds.

“Firing solution incoming,” Another mare announced over the same frequency. A second later, Twilight was aware of the boxy silhouette of the Zathura soaring overhead as Squelch finally arrived on the scene. Unlike the orbiting WarShip, her DropShip was perfectly at home in an atmosphere; and it’s computers were tuned to engaging targets in space if the situation called for it, meaning that they were programed with the same narrow tolerances that the Maelstrom’s were, “The two of you might want to get some distance, if you can,” The sage green unicorn warned the pair of ground-bound ‘Steed pilots.

Twilight felt her lips pull tightly into a grimace. Not because that would be particularly difficult, but rather because the alicorn was perfectly well aware of how crucial abiding by that warning was. The naval-class autocannons aboard the WarShip fired shells packed with over a kiloton of high-explosive, designed to be able to breach the thick hulls of other WarShips. The effects of their impacts with all but the most fortified of targets on the ground were… “significant”.

“Shots away,” Mayhem announced over Twilight’s comm, “Impact in...ninety seconds.”

The alicorn was forced to bite back an incredulous retort upon hearing the announcements, remembering the distances involved. The Maelstrom was hundreds of kilometers above them in orbit around the planet. Even though the shells that it had fired were traveling at many times the speed of sound, it was still going to take them a considerable amount of time to reach the surface.

Twilight’s HUD populated a second later with updated telemetry provided to her by the Zathura, and she spotted the predicted points of impact for no fewer than four of the oversized autocannon rounds heading their way. A hashmarked ring around each navpoint indicated the expected lethal range of each shell. For the moment, those overlapping rings of death all quite generously surrounded the three Red Reiver BattleSteeds that they were fighting. However, if those ‘Steeds continued to pursue Twilight for a minute and a half, they would be well outside of the effective point of impact when the ordinance finally arrived.

Which meant that she and SlipShod were going to have to stick around and play with their new ‘friends’ for a bit longer.

As the purple pilot pondered how best to keep their opponents corralled, the occupant of the JagerSteed apparently took exception to the intrusion of the DropShip. The heavy BattleSteed spun around and reared up, its left hind hoof sliding back slightly to help it remain balanced. The maneuver had the effect of greatly elevating its autocannons, allowing it to target the hovering Zathura. Both barrels began to pour out a stream of explosive shells, peppering the DropShip’s hull.

“Taking fire,” Squelch’s voice confirmed over Twilight’s headset. There was no immediate concern in the unicorn’s tone, but she didn’t sound very pleased either. While the JagerSteed’s autocannons were certainly of a quite small caliber that was unlikely to pose any immediate threat to a vessel the size of a DropShip, there was no mistaking that the Zathura possessed many features which weren’t armored. Such as its thrusters. Enough hits sustained to its propulsion system could see the craft being effectively taken out of the sky.

“Pull back,” Twilight said, even as she throttled her ‘Steed forward, charging the Reivers and taking aim specifically at the JagerSteed which had turned its back on her, “We’ll keep them planted,” She let loose with a barrage of missiles which proceeded to pepper the target. The myriad of explosions unbalanced the ‘Steed and forced it back down onto all four hooves, ending its assault on the DropShip.

“Roger; pulling back.”

Twilight spared only a fleeting glance out her cockpit viewport towards the boxy vessel as it jetted towards the horizon and out of range of the Reiver BattleSteeds. Then her attention returned fully to the trio of ‘Steeds that she and Slipshod were engaged with, “We need to draw them back the other way,” The alicorn noted as she saw that they were approaching the boundary of the expected kill-zone for the incoming orbital strike, “You break right, I’ll break left.”

“Moving,” The changeling pilot acknowledged. On Twilight’s sensor display, she saw that the blue dot of the Crystal Cavalier was indeed veering off to the right, circling around the far side of the enemy formation from her, all the while snapping off beams of indigo light and the occasional PPC blast to keep the enemy from ignoring him.

She was moving and firing in a similar fashion, scoring hits when she could, but mostly working to keep the Reivers chasing her in the appropriate direction. As Twilight watched the trio of Red Reiver ‘Steeds move, she felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a wan smile. The opposing pilots were actually rather competent, she realized.

At the moment they were faced with diverging opponents that were almost too far apart from each other to provide effective support for one another. An inexperienced pilot in a ‘Steed that outclassed their unsupported opposition would almost certainly have decided to charge off on their own in an effort to run down the ‘vulnerable’ target and get the kill. It took an experienced pilot to realize that splitting the lance was almost never a good idea; especially when there was the potential for DropShip to descend from the heavens at any moment and deposit enemy reinforcements at a moment’s notice. As long as the trio stayed together, they could support each other and keep from getting cut off from one another.

That was the conventional wisdom, of course.

However, modern ‘conventional wisdom’ didn’t tend to account for orbital bombardments, since those weren’t much of a ‘thing’ in the present day. No DropShip mounted the sort of armament that could strike the surface from orbit with the level of destructive power necessary to make the effort worthwhile. Thus there was no reason to operate as though such a risk existed.

They couldn’t have known that staying so close to one another was the worst decision that they could have made. Well, that and mistaking her herding efforts for a desperate attempt to outflank their lance, the alicorn supposed.

Twilight punched up the Reiver’s frequency with her pinions. Her eyes didn’t leave the HUD, and the numbers above the projected impact points which were counting down to zero, as she spoke into her mic, “This is your only chance to surrender,” She informed the enemy pilots coolly, even as her Rainbow Dash quivered from another glancing blow from a PPC, “Break off and proceed on a vector of two-one-four at full speed; or you will die.”

She didn’t honestly think that any of those pilots would take her up on the offer. If they’d been inclined to suborn themselves to her, they wouldn’t have attacked in the first place. However, Twilight had to give them the chance to live. Whether or not they took the offer was on them.

The amuse cackle that she received in response suggested the answer that Twilight’s offer of mercy was going to receive, and the words of the mare that followed confirmed those suspicions, “Surrender, eh? We already scared off your ride out of here, bitch,” The Reiver sneered, “Power down now and maybe we won’t pop your cockpit. Maybe.”

Twilight let out a resigned sigh as she watched the countdown reach single digits. She’d tried, “I’ll never understand why creatures these days always seem to choose fighting over talking,” She breathed into her mic over that same channel, her words colored with frustration, “It’s such a damn waste.”

The countdown reached zero before the Reiver pilot could respond.

Nopony actually saw the shells hit the ground. They’d left the barrels of the Maelstrom’s heavy autocannons at a velocity of several hundred meters per second, and had proceeded to pick up more and more speed since that moment as the planet’s gravity took hold and pulled them down towards the surface. By the time they reached their targets, they were traveling so fast that their explosive warheads barely contributed at all to the size of the explosions that were produced. The vast majority of the destructive energy was imparted from the raw kinetic energy that their stupendous velocity had accumulated during their descent from space.

Four veritable meteors struck the little valley that had been selected for the duel, almost perfectly framing the trio of Reiver BattleSteeds, landing with the force of small fusion warheads. Even in their rawest form, the explosive shells of NAC-40s would have been overkill for dealing with assault-weight BattleSteeds. Such weapons were designed to penetrate the multiple-meter thick armored hulls of other WarShips. The paltry hooful of centimeters of ablative plating which ‘Steeds possessed would have stood up about as well as a soggy tissue.

Even just the pressure wave of the impact was enough to rattle Twilight and her heavy ‘Steed, nearly knocking the Rainbow Dash over entirely, despite her being several hundred meters away from the edge of the predicted lethal blast area. As it was, the alicorn was forced to drive her ‘Steed down to its belly in order to weather first the shock front of the blast wave, and then the sudden reversal of the hurricane-force winds that arrived a few seconds later as air sought to return to the epicenter of the bombardment site.

When things finally settled down again, Twilight rose her ‘Steed back up onto its hooves and surveyed the extent of the damage. The sight chilled her to her bones. There simply wasn’t anything left. At least, nothing that was recognizable as belonging to a ‘Steed. Just four overlapping craters strewn with rocks and debris. Not since her fight with Tirek had the alicorn seen such awesome devastation.

Twilight wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she became aware of the sound of an anxious General Mayhem in her ear trying to ascertain whether or not she’d just killed her new princess, “I’m fine, General,” the alicorn assured her, “Just scuffed the paint a little, is all. Thank you for the support.”

“Oh yeah, no, we’re fine,” Slipshod chimed in over the channel, sounding more than a little sarcastic as he did so. The purple princess discovered why he was out of sorts a second later when she caught sight of his fallen Cavalier. Obviously, he had not been able to properly brace for the blast wave like she had, “Let Mig know I’m going to need a winch. And also I’m gonna need new eyes; because I don’t think that these spots are ever going to go away,” He groused.

“You really shouldn’t have been looking directly at the impact zone,” Twilight informed the changeling, acknowledging that this was likely advice that was coming too late to do him much good.

“Well I wouldn’t have if I’d known the Maelstrom was going to be dropping nukes!”

“Nothing nuclear about it,” Mayhem corrected, “Just a conventional shell going really fast. Physics is a bitch. For any who might still be wondering: That right there is why the Aris Conventions are a thing.”

Twilight was about to further clarify the science at work behind the concept of kinetic kill vehicles when she became aware of the sound of clapping talons on another channel. It was only then that the alicorn realized several things simultaneously.

The first realization was that she had watched General Triton’s King Grover get taken out by a clean shot to the cockpit with a gauss rifle round; yet none of the ‘Steeds which had attacked her had been armed with such a weapon. The second realization which crossed her mind on the hocks of that thought was that a total of five Red Reiver BattleSteeds had shown up to the dueling area. The destruction of only four of which had thus far been accounted for.

The alicorn pilot wheeled her ‘Steed around to face the remaining Reiver: A Great Helm. Twilight’s hooves and wings instinctively tensed on the controls of her Rainbow Dash, ready to take on the fearsome ‘Steed, only to realize a moment later that it had not moved from its position at all during the earlier fight, nor contributed to it in any way. She was about to question the unknown Reiver pilot when an impossibly familiar voice crackled over her headset.

“That was quite the spectacle, ‘Princess Twilight’,” General Triton chuckled with amusement, “I’d read about such things, of course―even seen a historical vid or two―but none of that quite does the real thing justice, does it?” He mused, “I guess that really is a WarShip up there then, and not a disguised JumpShip. Fascinating!

“I wonder what else is the real thing…?”

Twilight was grateful that the comm system in her ‘Steed hadn’t allowed Triton to see her shocked expression when the ‘dead’ hippogriff had started speaking. She managed to get over her shock quickly enough that there was little sign of it left when she finally spoke, “You weren’t in the King Grover,” She realized.

“No, I was not,” the general admitted freely, “To be quite honest, I never particularly cared for that design. As you saw, it’s not very good in a fight with most other ‘Steeds. Of course, few groups around here field chassis that can pose a threat to it, especially when properly supported by competent lancemates.

“That King Grover was being controlled via a remote interface,” Triton explained, “A lesser ‘griff might be tempted to lay the blame for such a clear defeat on input lag; but I freely admit I chose a poor loadout for the duel. Though, in my defense, I hardly expected to find myself pitted against a dead design…

“A mare shows up claiming to be Princess―not Queen―Twilight, commanding a class of vessel that can’t exist, and a BattleSteed design that also can’t exist…” the hippogriff almost purred as he mulled over the statement, “It makes one start to wonder if he shouldn’t have spent part of the last few hours practicing his curtsey.”

“Why? Why fake your death if you were just going to reveal yourself to me now?”

“Oh, that little bit of misdirection wasn’t for your benefit, Princess, I assure you,” There was a pause as the hippogriff seemed to reconsider his prior statement, “Or, rather, I suppose it was for your ‘benefit’; but it certainly wasn’t you I was out to deceive.

“I wasn’t lying before, Princess: an offer of outright surrender on my part would not have been viewed favorably by many of my lieutenants. They’d have been motivated to get up to all sorts of mischief. Which was why I made such that each of those ‘problem’ lieutenants was here with me now.

“And thanks to you and that little display, they will no longer be a problem. For that I thank you.”

Twilight was frowning rather deeply now, “You used me,” She growled at the hippogriff.

“I removed the only real obstacles between yourself and effective control of the Red Reivers; which was exactly what you wanted,” Triton countered evenly, “My remaining officers have enough functioning brain cells rattling around inside their skulls to actually recognize that your conquest of this system was effectively a fait accompli the moment you brought a WarShip into orbit.

“Congratulations, Princess; you’re now a pirate lord!”

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