Star Captain Snagg couldn’t have kept the smug expression off of his scaly snout even if he’d wanted to. It was impossible not to feel sheer elated joy at the knowledge that he and his trinary of fifteen heavy and assault BattleSteeds would be one of the first Clan forces to make landfall on the treasure world of Buckwheat. Which meant that they also stood a better than even chance of securing the vast hoard of wealth that lay hidden somewhere upon it. If that happened, he and the rest of his trinary knew perfectly well that everycreature else in the orbiting fleets would be forced to rely on their account of exactly how much treasure was actually found.

How much they skimmed for themselves, nocreature would ever know…

“Two minutes to drop,” the mare announced over his helmet’s headset.

Snagg felt himself nodding, his lips still pulled back in a stupidly hungry grin. All that lay between them and the Greed-Induced Bigness which that mountain of gathered wealth would provide were a few paltry ComGuard divisions. The dragon had little regard for changelings. Their shape-shifting abilities wouldn’t prove to be any benefit to them from inside the cockpit of a ‘Steed. Furthermore, all of their intelligence suggested that ComSpark had left their most advanced and capable BattleSteeds back on Equus, and were electing to resist the Clans with units comparable to what the rest of the Harmony Sphere was fielding. To say nothing of the fact that, for all the ComGuard might be able to boast having the ‘best training’ available in the Sphere, they possessed next to nothing in terms of actual battlefield experience.

Meanwhile the forces under Clans had been winning one battle after the next in a nearly nonstop parade of victories. Their units were well-drilled, battle-tested, and at the controls of the most advanced technology ever developed by sentient beings. As far as Snagg was concerned, that all meant that their victory here was a foregone conclusion. Buckwheat would be theirs within the week, and a giant mountain of gold and gems would soon be his not long after that.

The Princess-class DropShip soon touched down. It’s massive doors opened up, disgorging the fifteen ‘Steeds and dozen combat vehicles that it had carried to the target site. Approximately ten kilometers to their west lay a ComGuard firebase. It was Snagg’s task to wipe it from existence and secure the area. All over the region, other DropShips were deploying similar strike units tasked with eliminating other firebases which formed a loose perimeter around a much larger ComGuard base in the mountains. It was a fairly likely location for at least part of the cache of wealth in the star captain’s opinion.

The rust-hued dragon began snapping orders the moment his forces disembarked, “Apple Star, flank north across the bridge. Hold position there to cut off their line of retreat and intercept any reinforcements. Bronco Star, travel south and hit them from the top of that ridgeline. It should let you fire down almost on top of them. Cider Star and all Dog elements, follow me in. We’re going to steamroll these bastards.”

Snagg was already throttling his Orthus to its maximum speed even before he’d received acknowledgements from his subordinates. It wasn’t as though the gargantuan hundred-ton BattleSteed was at risk of outpacing the rest of his command. While far from the slowest ‘Steed ever built, it wasn’t any faster than an older model Big Mac. It did, however, mount a considerably more extensive weapons loadout. Its four heavy magical energy cannons, augmented to fire at longer ranges than any comparable weapon in use in the Harmony Sphere could, were backed up by a pair of type-five rapid-firing ultra-autocannons. The devastation that those two systems were capable of almost made his ‘Steed’s ten-count LRM launcher an afterthought.

The dragon suspected that an enemy wouldn’t even get close enough for him to need his lighter medium pulse cannons.

As he’d expected, the other four pilots in his star of five BattleSteeds were easily able to keep pace with him in their―relatively―speedier heavy frames. The tracked missile launch platforms in their wake found little to slow their progress as they followed behind the massive BattleSteeds lumbering their way through brush and forests. Snagg didn’t anticipate using those artillery units much in today’s ‘fight’. He’d conserve their missile payloads for the siege of the larger ComGuard fortress that they’d be hitting tomorrow.

A few picketing units appeared on their radar along their approach, but none of them survived long after their profiles drew the attention of a Clan ‘Steed’s fire control system. Snagg felt himself smirking anew as he thought about how surprised those ComGuard changelings crewing them must have been when they learned that they weren’t ‘safely out of range’ of the superior Clan weapons after all? The dragon had to wonder if the changelings had really made any serious technological progress since his own ancestors left the Harmony Sphere. After all, surely they would have at least been exercising tactics that would at least be effective when going up against what their own ComSpark engineers were capable of building.

Perhaps invading Equus wasn’t going to be as difficult as some of the Khans had been worrying about. Snagg suspected that Khan Smolder had had the right idea after all. It was a good thing that Princess Flurry Heart had seen the wisdom in her invasion plan.

The dragon found his musings interrupted by the appearance of a column of smoke to his north. It seemed that Apple Star had encountered some minor resistance as well. Perhaps they’d even caught some sort of vanguard element that was on its way to relieve the firebase after the DropShip had been detected making its approach. It would hardly have taken a tactical genius to deduce that the contents of a Princess-class DropShip could easily overwhelm a firebase’s garrison. Snagg could have easily accomplished this part of the operation with a trinary of light ‘Steeds backed up by infantry.

Whatever Apple had met with, it must have been something considerably larger than the scattered scouts that his own star had stumbled into thus far, given how much smoke he was seeing. Large enough that he would have expected Star Commander Citrine to radio him with at least a cursory update on what they’d found. Frowning in mild annoyance, Snagg toggled over to their proprietary frequency, “Apple Lead, this is Trinary Lead; report.”

Only static greeted his request. The dragon commander’s frown deepened into a scowl as he repeated the request for an update two more times. Still not receiving a response, Snagg toggled over to one of the pilots in his own formation, “Cider Five, divert north and make contact with Apple Star. Find out why Citrine’s giving me the cold shoulder,” he growled.

“Acknowledged lead,” came the voice of the dragoness pilot at the rear of his star, “Moving out,” On his tactical map, Snagg saw the little blue dot shifting out of formation and heading towards its top edge.

His attention then swapped over to Bronco Star, “Bronco Lead, report status,” Hopefully at least one of his junior officers was paying attention to him.

“Bronco Star is one thousand meters out from designated nav point. We’ll be in position in moments,” Snagg heard the scratchy baritone voice of his other star leader respond almost instantly, “I can already tell that we’ll have nearly total line-of-sight on the objective. They’re more exposed than a freshly-hatched whelp!”

The star captain let out an amused snort, “Copy that, Bronco Lead. Fire on anything that looks particularly ‘explody’ when you’re in position. Weapons free,” He wasn’t going to deny his officers a little fun, especially if the enemy was going to be so obliging as to leave themselves so vulnerable to an attack like that.

“Copy weapons free.”

It was becoming progressively more clear to the dragon commander that these changelings had grown more than a little complacent after spending so many centuries dealing with the low-hanging fruit that were the typical inhabitants of the Harmony Sphere. They’d set up not a single phase line of resistance leading into their firebases, they’d apparently built their outpost just below a ridgeline, leaving them exposed to plunging fire from above, and they’d even left themselves only the single bridge over which to retreat through. A bridge that would be so easily secured by even just a single heavy BattleSteed, if Snagg had been inclined to be so stingy.

This base was practically asking to be overrun!

A red blip briefly turned up on his HUD. Another light recon hovercraft that had peaked above the crest of a hill to try and get a bearing on his star. Snagg snapped a shot off with one of his heavy energy cannons, snuffing out the barely-armored vehicle from over a kilometer away. He couldn’t tell if he was more amused by the ease of this mission, or disgusted with how pathetic of a challenge this was all going to turn out to be. In his opinion, most of the Periphery worlds they’d invaded had put up a more worthwhile resistance.

Less than a minute later, Snagg heard an update from the officer commanding Bronco Star, “Bronco Lead, reporting star in position. Beginning our bombardment of the―HOLY FU―!”

The shear cliff that Bronco Star had been dispatched to perch on was clearly visible off to Snagg’s left side. At about the same moment that the transmission from his subordinate cut out, the star captain saw what appeared to be a series of extremely potent missile impacts along the cliff, just a few meters below the precipice. The detonations destabilized the entire cliff, causing several kilometers of the rocky precipice to come apart and begin to slide down. It was just barely possible to make out the five brightly colored BattleSteeds that were tumbling down along with the rest of the avalanche of rock. They were easily dwarfed by most of the boulders around them.

Snagg lost sight of Bronco Star about halfway down, as a massive cloud of dust rose up into the air at the base of the cliff and obscured any sign of them. The star captain let out a string of curses directed at the changelings in the firebase who must have spotted the BattleSteeds and launched missiles at the cliff face in order to bury them, rather than try to futilely batter at the thick armor of the ‘Steeds with their pathetically small missile salvos.

However, after a few moment’s thought, Snagg realized that the explosions that he’d seen had been far too large to have been caused by typical LRMs. Furthermore, there was no sign of any sort of smoke trail suggesting that any missiles of any sort had flown in from anywhere.

It hadn’t been a barrage of missiles at all. The star captain’s jaw grew slack with shock as the realization of what must have actually happened began to sink in: Bronco Star had been caught in a trap!

If it wasn’t missiles which had caused those explosions, then it could only have been purposely planted explosives. However, setting up planted charges like that with the intent of reshaping a whole fucking mountain wasn’t something that could be accomplished to such devastating affect in an hour or less. There was no way that ComGuard could have set up those bombs in direct response to Bronco Star’s observed maneuvers. That landslide had been planned for days, maybe even weeks in advance of his trinary’s arrival here.

The changelings hadn’t set their firebase down at the base of a cliff which would provide an attacking enemy with a perfect vantage point out of ignorance, Snagg realized. They’d done so deliberately, in an attempt to sucker him into sending units specifically to that point so that they could be buried in one fell swoop. And it had managed to work out perfectly...for them.

The dragon’s teeth ground against each other. He wasn’t certain whether or not he was more infuriated at the changelings for destroying an entire star of his BattleSteeds―which he knew he was most certainly going to detest recounting in his after-action report later―or himself for getting suckered the way that he had.

His rage still had a firm hold of him when Snagg received an incoming radio message from Apple Five, “Da fuck do you want?!” The star captain almost immediately cringed once he realized that he was about to receive a report which he had specifically requested from his dutiful starmate. While it wouldn’t do for him to apologize and risking losing face, it would still be appropriate for him to make it clear that the ‘Steed pilot in question hadn’t been wrong to call in, “It had better be news about Apple Star,” he added in a much more controlled tone―though he certainly wasn’t any less frustrated with the current situation.

“They’re gone, sir,” the dragoness reported, sounding a little shaken by the news, even as she delivered it.

“What do you mean ‘they’re gone’?! ‘Gone’ where?” Snagg was having trouble even contemplating what the pilot could be talking about. He initially assumed that Star Commander Citrine must have actually bypassed her objective entirely and continued to push deeper into enemy-controlled territory in an effort to beat the rest of the trinary to ComSpark’s main fortress in the area and procure the choicest pieces of loot for themselves.

However, it was soon revealed that this was not the case. Snagg found himself privately wishing that it had been, “ComGuard took out the bridge while Apple Star was crossing it,” the pilot reported. “They fell into the gorge below. I can’t raise any of them on comms,” It was clear that the dragoness harbored little suspicion that any of them had actually survived the fall. She was probably correct, Snagg thought privately. The reported depth of the gorge, according to their orbital surveys of the area, was over a hundred meters. Even with jump jets, maneuvering around in such tight confines so unexpectedly would have been effectively impossible.

Two of his stars were out of action, and his trinary had yet to fire off even a single shot at the firebase. He heard the sound of cracking plastic and looked over in time to see that his claws had been etching grooves into the control yokes of his Orthus. Snagg released the controls and spent several seconds methodically clenching his fingers into fists and relaxing them in an attempt to relieve some of his mounting frustrations before he ended up breaking something important. Two thirds of his BattleSteeds were out of action, and he was definitely going to get chewed up one side and down the other by his superiors when this was all over; but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still salvage this operation―and hopefully, by extension, his career―by accomplishing his objective: eliminating the firebase. His mix of five assault and heavy BattleSteeds, along with their support elements, would be more than sufficient for that task, and they were only a couple kilometers away.

There were no bridges or cliffs along the way for the changelings to rig with explosives either. So unless ComGuard had―

Snagg’s HUD flickered for a brief moment. There was a crimson blip which appeared on his sensors, but it seemed impossibly close to be some sort of combat vehicle that had managed to approach them. It was also fairly weak in his estimation. Whatever it was, it wasn’t far. In fact, the star captain suspected that he’d be able to see it from where he was.

He canted his head to try and catch a glimpse, and found himself quirking a brow in confusion. It wasn’t a vehicle at all, he quickly realized, but instead appeared to be some sort of relay tower. Strictly speaking, such a thing shouldn’t have pinged his ‘Steed’s sensor suit unless it was putting out some sort of active radar or a considerable amount of electromagnetic radiation. There was no reason for a tower like that to be doing so either, given the ranges involved. If it was some sort of ‘hidden’ early warning post, even a low-power radio transmission would have reached the firebase.

The dragon felt himself flinch with a brief shot of panic down his spine and quickly snapped his weapons over to dust the tower with a burst of fire from his autocannons. It had almost certainly been some sort of target designator for missiles located at the firebase. Snagg toggled his radio to reach the remainder of his severely truncated ‘trinary’, “Keep alert for hostile target painters. I think they’re trying to sight us in for some sort of artillery,” he warned, “Make for the firebase at best speed,” He received the dutiful acknowledgements and began to once more throttle his own BattleSteed into a run.

He had made it less than a hundred meters before the ground itself lashed out at him.

Snagg was thrown hard against his harness as the cockpit lurched suddenly to the left. He was nearly deafened by the thunderous explosion which had rocked his Orthus. His clawed hand reached out and flailed wildly at the controls to silence the alarms, as he considered himself to be firmly aware that something rather serious had happened to his ‘Steed, and found the shrieking klaxon more than a little redundant. It did, however, take him a few seconds to figure out exactly what it was which had gone wrong. The dragon at first thought that his instrument panel was misinforming him; because it was reporting that his ‘Steed’s right front leg was missing.

The star captain was fairly confident that it had been there a moment ago.

Before his rattled brain could entirely parse out what had happened, Snagg heard a second cacophonous explosion off to his left. He looked out of his cockpit’s viewport in time to see Cider Two’s Cragadile lose both of its left legs and plow snout-first into the ground. Another explosion felt like it had rocked him from behind and to the right, followed almost immediately by another from the same direction. On his tactical map, Cider Three’s blip vanished entirely.

His headset was a din of alarmed voices all shouting at once in near panic.

“―der Two is down! Both left legs gone! Cannot―”

“I’m hit! Going down; will try to right myself once I―ZZZT!”

“―is Four reporting Cider Three KIA! Fuck me, they got blown to―”

“Cider Five requesting SITREP; are you okay? I’m seeing multiple detonations all around your loca―”

“Dog Lead going full stop! Requesting instructions!”

“Everycreature shut the fuck up!” Snagg roared over his mic in an effort to finally bring silence to overlapping message traffic. The moment he heard silence, he began to try and restore some semblance of order to his unit, “Dog Lead, did you see what hit us?”

“Negative, commander. No sign of incoming.”

The dragon felt himself scowl. He had a pretty good idea of what happened, given what had been befallen the rest of his unit so far, “Minefield,” he informed the rest of his operational units tersely, “Has to be. All units stay put. Dog Lead, send up those hovercraft of yours to scout us a path out of here,” Snagg glanced over at his console and reviewed the damage that his Orthus had sustained, as well as contemplating the other two ‘Steeds in his star which had been removed from play as well. Cider Two was at least alive, and it was possible that both ‘Steeds could be salvaged later. So there was that.

All of which was likely to come as cold comfort to what he was sure would soon be merely ‘SteedWarrior Snagg by the end of the day. At least he’d be alive, and perhaps he’d someday have the opportunity to regain some of his lost rank in the coming campaigns. Better demoted than dead, at any rate. A mere warrior might not get as big a share of the treasure, but at least it would be a share.

It was still going to be one tartarus of a bitter pill to swallow acknowledging that the ComGuard had managed to get the drop on his whole command like this. The dragon wondered if he should be hoping the other assault teams were having better or worse luck than he was. While it certainly felt a little uncomfortable to desire other units in the Smoke Jabberwocks to suffer a catastrophic number of casualties, as he had; it would at least provide a glimmer of hope for his own future if it turned out that he’d somehow managed to come out of this fiasco as the most intact trinary of the day.

Neither prospect left a particularly good taste in Snagg’s mouth.

General Charon stood on the observation deck of one of the fortress’ upper tiers. Her talons clutched a pair of computerized binoculars, holding them up to her eyes. Griffons were possessed of superb visual acuity, but even they couldn’t make out details at over twenty kilometers away unassisted. The changeling senior officer had watched with satisfaction as the initial phase of the ground war progressed along in accordance with the expectations calculated by Brigadier General Scythe’s top strategists.

As had been anticipated, the Clanners had elected for their usual ‘Shock-and-Awe’ approach to ground wars. To their credit―as loath as she was to give them any―Charon supposed that she had to concede that such direct actions had worked out well for them thus far. There was little reason to have believed the same strategies which had benefited them so well in the past few months would suddenly turn around and bite them in the flanks now.

But bite them it had, the general thought to herself with a whicker sneer as she scanned over the crumpled wrecks of over a dozen massive BattleSteeds which had been approaching the eastern perimeter. Each of its elements had split off exactly as predicted―indeed, exactly as would have been prudent! Had Charon been the one tasked with leading a similar assault, she very likely would have been of a mind to deploy her forces in a nearly identical fashion. However, she liked to believe that she would have been at least a bit more aware of the possibility that if an opportunity looked too good to be true, then it probably was.

In any case, she supposed that it was time to finish off the remnants of that little offensive of theirs. The griffon lowered her binoculars and glanced over her shoulder at her aide, “Inform Major Poppler that he may commence with his bombardment. Sectors one-three thru one-five should suffice.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the changeling immediately keyed in their comlink to speak with the commander of the base’s heavy artillery.

Meanwhile, Charon directed her gaze down to the lower terraces of the mountain stronghold, and the massive Big Tom Mobile Artillery pieces that had been staged upon them. In her estimation, ‘mobile’ was something of a misleading term. While it was true that the gargantuan tracked platforms could be moved from one location to another, it wasn’t as a single unit. Capable of launching metric ton shells at targets dozens of kilometers away, Big Toms were far too large for any singular vehicle to hope to be able to move around. So it was that each ‘individual’ artillery piece was broken up into six different components, each with their own independent drivetrain.

The six components would assemble themselves at their designated location and only then become a functional artillery piece.

What Big Toms lacked in swiftness of movement and brevity of deployment, they did more than make up for in destructive power, in Charon’s opinion. Her faith in their capabilities were why she had ensured that this fortress was built with terraces spacious enough to fit at least one Big Tom each. It had taken days to get each of them in place and erected. Now they were about to see if that effort had indeed been worth it.

Cannon barrels ten meters long began to move, appearing almost sluggish as the multi-ton tubes slowly and deliberately elevated and turned. General Charon could physically see four of the weapon platforms from her perch, and she looked on as those barrels directed themselves nearly simultaneously. Soon they were all oriented towards their distant targets. Then they began firing.

The concussive force of the bombardment shook General Charon almost painfully to her bones, but it was a sensation that she relished all the same. For she knew that, in a matter of minutes, there would be nothing left of the group of BattleSteeds which had been pressing in on their position from the east. Which meant that she could devote her attention to the attacks which the Clans had launched along other avenues of approach.

Once more she spoke to her aide, raising her voice considerably in order to be heard above the din of the artillery barrage, “Have we received any further reports from Brigadier Pilum?”

“Yes, general,” her subordinate replied, consulting their datalink, “He reported that he’s currently withdrawing to Phase Line Rodeo, in accordance with the approved battle plan. The Clan forces are estimated to have suffered approximately twenty-five percent casualties, however he has lost over a third of his own forces,” There was a brief pause, then, “He is unable to guarantee that he can hold at Rodeo.”

Charon didn’t take her eyes off of the thundering artillery as she issued her orders for her aide to relay, “Pilum will hold his position,” she said simply, “Further withdrawal is prohibited. Then contact the commanders of the three-oh-third and two-fifteenth mechanized and order them to redeploy along the access roads linking Phase Line Palomino to Rodeo. They are to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.”

She awaited the acknowledgement from the other changeling, but when she didn’t hear one immediately, she turned to look at her aide, prepared to repeat her orders if it turned out that he hadn’t heard her over the roar of the Big Toms. However, when she saw the changeling’s expression, it was clear to her that he, in fact, had heard her orders, and was simply hesitant to relay them. Her critical expression invited an explanation for his hesitance.

“...Ma’am, the enemy pressing in on Brigadier Pilum are heavy and assault-weight BattleSteeds,” he said, as though under the impression that this was information that General Charon were hearing for the first time, “Mere mechanized infantry units are―”

“Equipped with anti-armor ordinance,” the griffon-changeling finished sharply, glaring at the aide.

“Ma’am, those weapons are intended to repel only lightly armored vehicles―”

It again sounded as though the subordinate changeling was under the impression his commanding officer was somehow ignorant of this information. General Charon found this to be...vexing. All the same, she kept her voice cool and calm as she once more cut off his misgivings, “But they are perfectly capable of damaging even a BattleSteed’s ablative armor. They’ll just need to hit them a few more times.

“I expect they will take heavy casualties in the effort,” Charon conceded, “but they should still be able to degrade the enemy force enough for Pilum to be able to hold off whatever eventually makes it to his new position at Rodeo.

“Now pass on the order,” she concluded in a far icier tone, leering at the other changeling.

The aide visibly swallowed, “Y-yes, general,” he stammered out before keying in his comlink and passing on her orders.

Charon continued to glare at the other changeling for several more seconds before she received an urgent alert on her own datalink. It turned out to be a message from Colonel Lumen informing her about additional incoming DropShips from orbit. The general’s brows rose in mild surprise when she noticed that the message went on to divulge that these DropShips were not from Smoke Jabberwock’s fleets, but rather from Jade Roc’s. It seemed that the dragons were, in fact, not going to ‘take turns’ as she had originally suspected.

The way the Clan fleets had arranged themselves upon entering Buckwheat space had suggested that they would be assaulting in waves, one Clan after the other. However, if this report was accurate, then it looked as though the dragons were far less patient than she’d thought. Whatever was on this planet, they were ready to trample over even each other to get at it.

Fascinating…

It was also somewhat troubling. Her strategies for this operation had revolved around fending off singular waves from one invasion force at a time. It was known to the changelings that the Clans were not a truly ‘unified force’ and were actually more analogous to a loose coalition with similar goals. They had never been observed coordinating multiple Clans against a single target. Cooperating with each other was not something they were going to do any time soon.

Which was why she hadn’t expected something like this. It was tactical lunacy to conduct multiple invasions with multiple, independent, uncoordinated forces. That was just asking for incidents of ‘friendly fire’ and other battlefield chaos. Charon idly wondered if the Clans were really willing to risk ending up firing on each other just to be the first to take Buckwheat?

Tactically unsound it may be, it was still going to cause her forces trouble in the short term. The fact was that she didn’t have the forces in place to hold off multiple Clan invasions simultaneously. Not with the technology imbalance that she was being forced to operate under.

Worse, the Jade Roc force seemed to have learned from Jabberwock’s missteps and showed little interest in landing their forces away from her fortress and walking them in. Those DropShips were headed almost directly for her position, and she possessed neither the troops on hoof to repel a direct assault, nor the static defenses to keep such DroShips at bay.

She looked over at her aide once more, “Major Domo? You will take personal command of Fourth AeroWing and intercept the incoming DropShip group.”

The changeling blanched visibly, “...I beg pardon, ma’am?”

“You’ve been checked out on most aerofighter designs,” Charon pointed out simply, “So I’m ordering you to take personal command of the Fourth and intercept those Princess-class DropShips headed our way,” she now narrowed her eyes at the other changeling, “Now.”

The major’s jaw worked silently for several seconds as he frantically scanned through the information that he’d also received from Colonel Lumen. Somehow, the changeling turned even paler in appearance without the need for transformation magic, “ma’am, those DropShips are being escorted in by a massive fighter screen; the Fourth AeroWing will be outnumbered three-to-one! It won’t be able to fight off that many opposing fighters on its own!”

“I’m not asking you to engage their escorts,” Charon countered in a nonplussed tone, “I’m directing you to intercept the DropShips.”

“If we simply ignore their fighter screen, our own pilots will be cut down in minutes!”

Still the general didn’t look particularly concerned, “That sounds like more than enough time to reach the DropShips and deal with them.”

“If they were Friendship-class DropShips, perhaps,” the major agreed, though he still looked quite pale at the thought of even that, “But the armor on Princess-class DropShips is―”

“Is no match for a forty-five ton aerospace fighter slamming into their engine pylons at supersonic speeds,” Charon finished simply, her proposal stunning the other changeling into silence, “There are only slightly more than a dozen Jade Roc DropShips flying in,” She continued, conversationally, as though the prospect of outright ordering suicide attacks against the enemy hadn’t bothered her in the least.

Which was because it hadn’t. Their Queen had ordered the Clans halted here at Buckwheat ‘at all costs’. Charon was keen to follow those orders. Strictly speaking, exchanging a few dozen fighters and their pilots in exchange for the DropShips, their crews, and the defenseless BattleSteeds nestled in the stalls of those vessels, along with their hapless pilots, was a more than equitable trade, in the general’s opinion, “I predict only two successful impacts would be needed against each vessel to take out sufficient thrusters to put them into freefall. As long as half of Fourth AeroWing survives the screening fighters to reach the DropShips, there will be plenty of craft left to take out the required number of engine pylons.

“And I want you leading them to ensure that my orders are carried out,” That chilling note was back in the general’s voice once again, “Am I clear, Major Domo?”

For a brief moment, the other changeling saw the changeling-griffon’s eyes dart past him. Without turning around, he knew what she had glanced at. Even if he had somehow been unaware of her briefly diverted gaze, the sound of armored hooves unslinging rifles would have left no doubt in his mind that failure to comply with the orders he had been given would be dealt with...harshly. The major took a deep, steadying, breath and forced himself to snap to the position of attention, rendering a salute to General Charon.

“Yes, ma’am,” His throat was perceptibly dry as he spoke, but the changeling officer continued on regardless, “Permission to report to the hangar, general?”

Charon returned the salute with one of her clawed hands, wearing a satisfied smirk, “Dismissed, major; and good luck.”

As Major Domo turned to leave, he could hear the general speaking into her comlink, “―oing to need a new aide. Do try and find me one that is more ‘agreeable’ this time, hm?”

Star Admiral Cinder stood in the Rockhoof’s Combat Information Center, her eyes staring at the tactical plot projected in front of her. All around her was a buzzing din of voices as other officers relayed reports and coordinated the attacks of the various ground forces assaulting Buckwheat on behalf of Clan Timberwolf. While they possessed no direct operational control over the armies of the other Clans, they were still patched into the tactical networks of those forces, and thus could track their progress. The dragoness suppressed a cringe as she reminded herself once more that this had not been a courtesy afforded to the other Clans by one another in order to better coordinate their efforts in securing the planet, but rather as a means of ‘bragging’ to one another about how much progress their specific Clan was making in the attempt.

At least, that had been the initial intent. The cobalt dragoness very much doubted that the commanding officers of any of the other Clans were going to be in a position to do any bragging any time soon. Certainly not Clan Jade Roc, whose last DropShip from their initial spearhead just winked out of existence a few seconds ago as it plummeted to the ground at terminal velocity, just like all of its fellows before it. Cinder knew that those DropShips had been carrying the bulk of Jade Roc’s heavy and assault tonnage BattleSteeds. They would be reduced now to fielding their lighter chassis, and depositing them using much lighter DropShip frames as well. For all intents and purposes, this setback had largely taken their entire Clan out of contention, in Cinder’s opinion. Given the troubles that Smoke Jabberwock and Ghost Ursa were having pushing their forces in on their objectives even with their heavy units, it was highly unlikely that light and medium ‘Steed frames would fare any better.

Clan Timberwolf’s forces were encountering slightly fewer outright catastrophes, but it wouldn’t be at all accurate to say that their own assaults were going ‘well’. The dragoness admiral’s gaze once more flickered towards the status board, and the disheartening quantity of blacked out unit IDs upon it. Cinder was forced to once more bite back hard on her desire to order a full withdrawal from the surface. It tore at something visceral, deep down within her, to sit back and ‘allow’ this slaughter of the soldiers and pilots under her command to continue; but at the same time, she also knew that it had to happen.

There were several reasons for that too. Not the least of which was because, at this point, she wasn’t really in effective command of her own military anymore. Oh, she was still the ranking senior officer, and nothing approaching even an unofficial memorandum from home had suggested anything to the contrary of that. However, the technicalities and trivialities of such ambiguous notions like ‘rank’ and ‘protocol’ and ‘discipline’ had all been whisked away like a puff of smoke in a strong breeze once word had permeated the Clans that stupendous quantities of treasure were interred on Buckwheat.

That notion had only been further cemented in the minds of her soldiers when they’d arrived to find that none other than ComSpark themselves had taken it upon themselves to fortify the planet. Even Cinder found herself at a loss to explain away the implication there. She’d been prepared to as well, laying the groundwork for convincing her forces at least to back off from the assault by exposing the discrepancies that she’d found in their gathered ‘intelligence’. However, once it had been confirmed that ComGuard troops were garrisoned on Buckwheat, all of her findings had been overwhelmingly discounted.

Obviously the reason why Cinder had found such errors was because ComSpark had doctored the records to try and hide the fact that they’d gathered the galaxy’s valuables on this planet by planting evidence that those ships couldn’t have hidden it. It was a stupendous act of subversion that the cobalt dragoness couldn’t hope to reason out of existence.

Besides, if there wasn’t treasure here, then why was ComGuard here? It simply made too much sense that the military arm of ComSpark, whom everycreature ‘knew’ to be impartial, would be the only group that could be genuinely trusted to safekeep the valuables of so many different worlds and organizations. It wasn’t like Hippogriff Combine forces could be counted on to return any of the treasure taken there from Pony Commonwealth worlds. Similarly, with so many different groups storing valuables there, who was supposed to be the one solely responsible for contracting out mercenary protection? It certainly wouldn’t have been feasible to organize hundreds of smaller, individual, protection contracts.

ComSpark only made sense as the party to whom responsibility guarding a consolidated treasure trove could reasonably fall to. And here they were, dug into an otherwise worthless planet they had no business being on.

Unless they were here to guard a massive horde of gold and jewels.

At least, that was the mindset and rationale of nearly every one of her subordinate commanders. As well as nearly the entire officer corps of the other three Clans as well. Not that Cinder was aware of any of the other senior commanders for Jabberwock, Roc, or Ursa, entertaining the sort of doubts that Cinder herself had. They were as firmly invested in the idea of an unfathomable treasure being on that planet as their soldiers and pilots were.

Cinder was firmly of the mindset that, if she’d declined to participate in the invasion, that she’d have faced an outright mutiny. At least by paying lip service to the invasion, she could keep herself in a position to maintain order if―when―Timberwolf found themselves pruned back to the point of near disbandment. She was also in a position to exercise at least some degree of tactical control that would allow her to―hopefully―keep her forces from being as thoroughly gutted as Jade Rocs had just been.

Though even that looked like it was only going to be a near thing, the dragoness thought to herself with a sneer as she stared at the tactical plot. With an irritated snort, the dragoness reached out and snapped her clawed fingers at a nearby griffon star captain. Once she had the hen’s attention, she jabbed a claw at one of their ‘Steed binaries on the map, “Get that commander on the comm right now and redirect them to this route,” the star admiral furiously traced out a nearby highlighted pathway, “They’re too close to that woodline,” Cinder explained, “It just screams ‘ambush’!”

The griffon officer looked over the plot and then consulted something on her tablet, “That’s the One-Oh-Fifth under Star Captain Trunnion. He requested a redirect in order to cut off what he identified as an isolated ComGuard force trying to retreat. Star Colonel Redwing gave him the okay,” she explained, as though it was supposed to placate the dragoness.

Cinder stared at the griffon with a deadpan expression, “...Did it not actually occur to anycreature that an ‘isolated unit’ heading in the direction of an ideal ambush location might―just possibly―be a trap?”

Somehow this revelation didn’t actually seem to trouble the griffon all that much, “All other contacts in that region have been light combat vehicles and mechanized infantry groups, ma’am. Star Colonel Redwing doesn’t think anything ComGuard might have could threaten the One-Oh-Fifth. They’re a heavy-medium mixed binary,” the hen added, as though the star admiral was somehow unaware of that fact.

The dragoness was in the middle of taking a deep preparatory breath when the tactical plot updated and showed a collection of previously undiscovered ComGuard contacts along the woodline that Cinder’s claw was still hovering over. Almost simultaneously, three of the ten beacons for the BattleSteed binary winked out. Notations next to the newly appeared hostile signals indicated that sensors on site had classified them as ‘heavy combat vehicles’. Likely designs specifically intended to combat heavier ‘Steeds.

The retreating ‘isolated force’ had also made the decision to double-back at almost the same moment. They were no longer very ‘isolated’ either. It seemed that the rest of their comrades had been waiting in a powered-down state just beyond a hill. Almost as though they had anticipated their ‘retreating’ fellows to be in need of imminent aid.

To her credit, after only a couple seconds of staring at the plot with slack-jawed shock, the griffon immediately dashed off to get on the comms with whoever it was that she thought she might be able to get ahold of to relieve the One-Oh-Fifth, and hopefully manage to save at least some of those pilots and their ‘Steeds.

Cinder, for her part, merely shook her head and let out a long-suffering sigh for several long seconds. She knew for a fact that she’d trained her pilots better than this. She’d selected her officers to be more competent than this too. At least, she’d thought she had. However, it seemed that months spent effectively steamrolling anything put in front of them had made her forces more than a little complacent and overconfident. That sense of―admittedly earned―superiority, combined with the sense-clouding prospect of obtaining enormous personal wealth, was proving to be a fatal combination.

What none of her commanders were appearing to grasp was that ComGuard was a completely different animal than the defenders that they’d encountered up to this point on the worlds that they’d conquered. And she wasn’t just talking about the fact that these were changelings either. They were possessed of an entirely different tactical and philosophical doctrine. ComSpark’s commitment to the defense of Buckwheat, and the temperament of their forces, were simply fundamentally different from anything that they’d faced up to this moment, and nocreature―aside from herself―seemed to consider that significant. Assuming that anycreature had actually even recognized that difference in the first place.

On every other world that they’d invaded thus far, they had come up against one of two kinds of defenders: locals and mercenaries. The latter fought for money and prestige, neither of which was of any particular value to the dead. Thus they would only fight right up until the point where defeat looked probable. As soon as it was clear how outmatched they were, mercenary units would make every effort to withdraw and conserve whatever personnel and material they had left. They almost never fought to the last creature. Even if escape became clearly impossible, they’d typically just surrender or eject and scuttle their ‘Steeds.

It wasn’t quite so different for the former either. A few of them would fight to the death, simply because they’d bought into the rumors that Clanners didn’t take prisoners. However, Clan Timberwolf had managed to eventually convince their target worlds that surrender was a viable option. At which point it rarely took more than a few decisive military victories to compel capitulation. Such victories also didn’t always take a lot of effort either. Most of the opening volleys of their more advanced assault-weight BattleSteeds were so terrifying to troops on the ground that a couple of salvos were usually all that were needed to convince the survivors that resistance was useless.

Watching half of your company go down as the result of a single alpha-strike from the enemy force would dissolve the morale of anycreature.

Besides, all of those soldiers had families or loved-ones that they hoped to see again. They had something to go back to if they lived, and were assured that those same loved ones would live. At that point, there was little else that remained for them to fight for.

None of this was the case with ComGuard. They weren’t fighting for money or fame. They weren’t fighting to protect their families. They were here because their Queen had commanded it. Because disobedience to her would not be countenanced; and would be punished with equal parts expediency and brutality. They could either face the possibility or near certainty of death here, or the absolute certainty of death if they refused.

Which was why the Clans were consistently seeing things on Buckwheat that they had rarely ever encountered before: large scale suicide attacks. Entire brigades of troops fighting against overwhelming odds without retreating back no matter how many losses they took―to the point of being wiped out completely in more than a few cases. The losses that the Clan forces were taking were bad, yes, but Cinder noted that the ComGuard were absorbing many more losses.

However, it was clear that ComSpark was perfectly prepared to pay whatever blood price was asked of them in order to defang the Clans here and now. Even if they had to sacrifice ten of their own to kill even a single Clanner, it was clear that the changelings would absorb those casualties. It was what their Queen had commanded, after all. Service to her was their entire purpose in life; so what value would their lives have if they didn’t agree to die at her whim?

Meanwhile, the Clan armies had no such fatalistic convictions. They would obviously risk a great deal for a chance of stupendous riches, but they would absolutely not allow themselves to be ground into dust merely on the orders of their superiors. As soon as they realized―however reluctantly they might do so―that they couldn’t break ComGuard’s resolve, they would break instead. They’d fume, and they’d grouse, and there would be a gnashing of teeth as the Clans had never known, but―eventually―the Clans would withdraw from Buckwheat and recede back into their conquered territories while they rebuilt their forces for another attempt.

Such a rebuilding would take years, Cinder knew. Each of the four invading Clans had stripped every one of their planetary garrisons down to the bone in preparation for this assault. They’d pulled forward their heaviest units and their most outstanding fighters for this endeavour. Every exemplary officer and decorated BattleSteed pilot who had disguised themselves in action during the invasion was here on Buckwheat right now. More than half of them likely dead at this moment, the star admiral supposed.

While the ‘Steeds and materials would be easy enough to replace with their stores back in Clan space, the same could not be said for their experienced soldiers. The warriors themselves could be reconstituted easily enough―the Clans had been vat-growing their soldiers for a while now―but effectively leadership and battlefield experience were both things that took time, and lots of it. It would be decades before they’d manage to rebuild back the well of experience that they’d lost here. More than enough time for the galaxy to be ready for their second attempt at galactic conquest.

Cinder predicted that, by the time the Clans felt themselves ‘ready’ for another offensive, they would actually find themselves fighting on the defensive as the galaxy sought to take back what had been stolen from them. To that end, the star admiral was confident that the Clans would be able to mostly hold what they had―their WarShips gave them a decidedly significant advantage in repelling DropShip fleets after all. However, it would be folly to think that they could set aside enough forces to orchestrate a push deeper into Sphere territory while also holding off the sort of combined force which ComSpark could organize against them.

No. This was as far as the Clans would ever get, the dragoness thought to herself with a resigned sigh. Not even two hundred lightyears from Equus. A pathetic showing, if Cinder were asked to give her honest opinion.

She doubted that she ever would be though.

The star admiral waved over another of her surrounding officers, a young pegasus, “Would you mind getting Redwing on the comm for me? I have a new assignment for the star commander…”

Spike’s gaze lay fixed on some distant point in the sky as he lay reclined in idle contemplation on a chaise lounge overlooking the grounds of the Dragon Lord’s palatial estate. An as of yet untouched glass of brandy sat on a serving tray next to him near its nearly full decanter. The pair of ice cubes had long since melted away in the summer heat, leaving the beverage in a watered-down state which would doubtlessly have offended the sensibilities of any respectable lover of alcohol had they been present to bear witness. Fortunately, no such individual was present, meaning that the consort to the Dragon Lord was permitted to conduct his listless staring in near-perfect silence.

Whether or not that lack of distraction was of a genuine benefit to himself, the purple dragon wasn’t entirely certain. While it certainly produced a far more peaceful atmosphere, it also meant that there was nothing to distract him from his thoughts.

Thoughts such as how their daughter was faring. How the invasion was progressing. Whether Twilight was still alright…

...Whether she was ever going to forgive him.

Of the latter, Spike was confident that his dear friend would forgive him his failures―in the fullness of time. After all, there had been no malice involved in what he and Ember had done. Indeed, it had all come from a place of good intentions. From where they’d been sitting at the time, ‘adjusting’ the Elements of Harmony had felt like the surest way to keep the dragons from abandoning the Harmony Sphere entirely.

After Chrysalis’ usurpation of the Celestia League and its subsequent collapse, there had been more than a few rumblings from among the ranking leadership of the dragons. The members of his species were possessed of extremely long life, which brought along with it long memories to match. A great many of the older and more respected dragons recalled what their lives had been like, not simply before the League’s fall, but before the existence of the League itself―even the existence of a unified Equus.

They remembered Greed-Induced Bigness. They remembered the elation that they’d felt while in possession of such size and power. In the darker recesses of his own mind, Spike too recalled what it had felt like during his own brief encounter with the phenomenon. The immense satisfaction that had come with growing his horde. The feeling of invulnerability that his colossal size had filled him with. The desire to make everything in the world his…

Spike flexed claws and forced himself to take a deep breath, dispelling those ancient memories. They could still burn strong if he allowed them to, and he’d only known that feeling for less than an hour over a thousand years ago.

There were dragon khans today who’d known that feeling for centuries before being ‘requested’ to give it up by the Dragon Lord and embrace Friendship instead. The purple dragon could imagine what they found themselves feeling when they were left alone with their thoughts.

Fortunately, as potently as they might recall what GIB was like, they were equally mindful of the respect and obedience that was due to their Dragon Lord. Their own sense of pride in acting as a dragon ‘should’ when the holder of the Dragon Lord’s Staff made demands of them had thus far kept them in line. Spike found it more than a little ironic that it was the older and more stubborn of their race which had elected to remain behind and not participate in the invasion of the Harmony Sphere. While Ember had specifically not forbidden the invasion, the Dragon Lord had ‘asked’ that the khans not take any rash action. The elder khans had interpreted this as a tacit ‘order’ from their Dragon Lord and acquiesced.

It had been the younger khans, like Smolder and Garble, who had pointedly ‘declined’ to sit on their claws and wait for Ember and Princess Flurry Heart to give the explicit order for the ‘official’ invasion to commence. Dragons who, while they had lived their lives only ever hearing stories about GIB, and never actually experiencing it for themselves, also had not grown up under the rule of a firm-clawed Dragon Lord like Ember’s father had been. Former Dragon Lord Torch had not been a cruel tyrant by any stretch―his choice to voluntarily cede power once he felt he’d held his title for long enough proved that―but he had certainly ensured that the other dragons knew who it was that held power and, more importantly, that they obeyed that source of power.

No dragon who’d grown up under Torch’s rule would have―for even a moment―entertained the notion of declining any request made of them by their Dragon Lord.

By contrast, Ember’s tenure as Dragon Lord had been conducted with a much softer approach, temperance by the Elements of Harmony and Friendship. She had never invoked the staff’s ability to dominate the free will of her subjects, and so none who’d grown to maturity under her rule had ever experienced the utter horror of having their desires forcibly supplanted in favor of the whims of another. Smolder had never known what it was like to feel fear at the mere thought of upsetting a being who could dominate her will on a whim, like so many of her elders did.

For better or worse, she and the other dragons of her generation―Spike himself included―had been predominantly raised to know Friendship, and to do what was best for the whole of society, not because it was demanded of them, but because they wanted to be of help to their friends whenever they could. It had always been a choice. A choice that they’d always accepted…

...Until now.

Now they’d seen Friendship and Harmony fail. At least, that was what it felt like to them. Spike hadn’t seen it as a failure; it was just another brief setback, like so many that he’d known before growing up. The purple dragon acknowledged that he was very probably playing fast and loose with the definition of the word ‘brief’ in this instance. However, he was resolute in his view that―eventually―Chrysalis’ reign of terror would end and peace would be restored once more. He knew that Harmony would always win out in the end―as it always had before―because nothing could ever truly destroy it. Not really.

Spike had kept faith that Twilight could lead them to victory again. He always would. ‘Galaxy’s Best Assistants’ always kept faith in their friends, after all.

However, he admitted that he had slightly less faith in himself. Or Flurry Heart, for that matter. He found it difficult to truly fault her decline, considering what she’d been forced to witness. Not that Spike himself hadn’t had nearly identical experiences at the same time that she did. Twilight might not be a blood relation, but the alicorn was undeniably as much family to him as Cadance had been to Flurry Heart. Each of them had lost somepony extremely important to them back then.

However, whereas Spike had thrown himself into his other close relationships, as he had done with Ember, Flurry Heart had walled herself off from others. She’d turned inwards...and bitter. Spike had tried to help as best he could, but the Princess of the League-in-Exile hadn’t exactly seen him as an ‘innocent’ party in all that had happened.

After all, he’d realized relatively early on that something had been wrong with ‘Twilight’, and yet he hadn’t come forward and outed Chrysalis immediately. In Flurry Heart’s mind, he’d ‘let’ the changeling queen win.

Spike had thought along those same lines for many years after their exodus from the Sphere. He’d doubled, tripled, and quadruple-thought himself up one side and down the other. Wondering if he’d made the right calls. Maybe he even hadn’t. There might have been better choices that he could have made. Certainly, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, he’d even identified a few things that he could have done differently. Of course, he hadn’t had that same information back then. All that he’d known for sure was that the smallest misstep could have undone everything.

His latitude of movement and action early on after Chrysalis had replaced Twilight had only been because the changeling believed that Spike wasn’t aware of the deception. Maintaining that charade had been his only hope to avoid being replaced earlier than she initially intended. Which meant feigning ignorance about her true identity and not revealing it to anycreature who might already have been replaced with one of her agents. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and had greatly limited the creatures that he was willing to risk contact with.

For better or worse, he’d chosen to say nothing to the other alicorns. In his mind, those would have been Chrysalis’ first targets upon returning to Equus. Spike specifically avoided them as much as he could based on that assumption, in order to protect himself.

It was possible that he’d been wrong, of course. Celestia, Luna, and Cadance, might have all been themselves and not changeling agents. That was entirely possible. Had he gone to them immediately, they might have been able to take out Chrysalis before she grew too powerful.

Maybe.

Five hundred years later Spike still wondered about that. Wondered if all of this was his fault because he’d been too scared back then. One word to Celestia might have averted all of this.

Spike downed his drink.

No point in those thoughts now. Going back wasn’t an option; there was only moving forward.

The purple dragon was vaguely aware of movement behind him before a cyan hand reached out and grasped the neck of the decanter. He turned in time to see his wife and Dragon Lord chugging down nearly the entirety of the contents in a series of long and uninterrupted gulps. Spike looked on in stunned silence as the amber fluid steadily vanished from the crystal vessel.

Finally, Ember looked to have had her fill and slammed the bottle none-too-gently back on the table. She then threw herself upon another nearby chaise lounge, burying her head in one of the pillows and letting out a very poorly muffled long-suffering scream of frustration.

“...I see the meeting with the khans went well,” Spike quipped cautiously as he checked the decanter for cracks before pouring himself another glass before Ember decided to finish off the rest of the bottle.

Ember raised her head just far enough above the pillow to glare at her husband out of the corner of her eye. Then she let out an exhausted sigh and rolled over onto her back, “The reports from the invasion front keep coming in, and they’re so damn overwhelmingly positive that it’s making it really hard to keep the rest of the khans in check.” The cyan dragoness hadn’t―quite―whined.

“Ah.”

“I mean,” the Dragon Lord continued in her exasperation, “back when it looked like fighting the whole Sphere might be an actual fucking challenge, it was easier to convince most of the khans that it might not be a great idea to risk all of our armies on such a longshot invasion plan. I could remind them of the ‘bigger picture’ and make them question how much of their militaries they were willing to sacrifice for some ‘hypothetical’ amount of treasure. But now…” she trailed off, shrugging helplessly.

“Now the receipts are coming in and it turns out the Sphere is a lot easier to conquer than we thought,” Spike finished for her, flashing his wife a lopsided smile.

“Yup,” Ember acknowledged. “Now the rest of them want in too,” she glanced over at Spike, her own expression a matching wan smile, “and that ‘appeasing’ stunt of yours is blowing up right in our snouts.”

Spike let out his own sigh and allowed himself an acknowledging nod. Sending his own clan in, despite the Dragon Lord’s caution to the khans to hold off and wait for Twilight Sparkle’s signal, had been a risky move to make. On the one claw, neither of them wanted it to look like the Dragon Lord’s will was actually being defied―because no ‘true’ Dragon Lord would have allowed that. The tacit support by Spike with the inclusion of Clan Timberwolf in the invasion had made it clear that the Dragon Lord was not explicitly barring any khan from participating, if even her own consort was a part of it.

It had also been intended as a means to―hopefully―curtail the worst of the possible atrocities that the invading Clans might commit. At the very least, Spike and Ember would have a proxy in the Sphere that could act as they needed them to if something came up, rather than having all of their forces trapped months away from responding.

Now though, given the lightning-fast pace of the invasion’s advance, and the stupendous number of systems which had been conquered so swiftly with so few casualties, it was probably looking to the khans who’d remained―at Ember’s behest―like the Dragon Lord had been trying to specifically keep out too much more competition while she let her consort amass a horde on her behalf.

Exploiting other dragons for personal benefit wasn’t exactly something that was traditionally unheard of for a Dragon Lord to do, but it was also hardly the optic that either of them wanted to present. Truth be told, a part of Spike had hoped to be able to present the high casualty rates of his clan’s forces as evidence that Twilight had been right to wait. Even he’d been caught off guard by how woefully outclassed the militaries of the Sphere were compared to the might of the Dragon Clans.

Which wasn’t to say that he still didn’t think that an outright invasion of the whole Sphere could ultimately succeed. Because he didn’t. As one of the overall commanders of the Celestia League Defense Force’s fleets prior to the exodus, Spike was well aware of how many WarShips had been left behind in the Sphere when he’d left; and he couldn’t imagine that Chrysalis would have let many of those precious vessels go to waste in the intervening centuries. Similarly, he very much doubted that ComSpark had exactly none of the more advanced BattleSteed chassis on hand that had been developed during the fight against Tirek.

It honestly wasn’t particularly surprising that the changeling queen wasn’t using any of her more powerful assets to protect the ‘lesser’ beings of the Harmony Sphere. What did Chrysalis care about the Dragon Clans killing ponies and hippogriffs? Why would she be inclined to stick her neck out for them?

Spike and Ember had always known that the real fight would be over the skies of Equus. WarShip would meet WarShip for the first time in centuries. Tens of thousands of the most advanced BattleSteeds ever conceived of would clash on the planet’s surface in a campaign that would make the fight against Tirek look like a spat between toddlers. Chrysalis had lost too many times before not to take the possibility of another defeat deathly serious. She’d be dug in like a quarry eel, surrounded by as many ships and ‘Steeds as she could pack into the Faust System. It would take everything that the Clans had amassed since leaving to dig her out.

Which was why wasting any of that precious warfighting material on campaigns like Smolder’s was a horrible idea.

Worse though, would be the Clans turning in on themselves if they found out the Staff of the Dragon Lord was little more than a pretty stick.

“It’s only a matter of time before more khans take their fleets in to carve out a little slice of the Sphere for themselves,” Ember finally said, sounding almost resigned to the notion that their grand plans for taking back the galaxy from Chrysalis was doomed before it could even begin, “When that happens…” The Dragon Lord shrugged.

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Spike insisted.

His wife’s laugh wasn’t―quite―derisive, “What? You have a way to keep the khans in line that I don’t know about?”

“Not at the moment,” the purple dragon admitted, “But I know we’ll come up with something before it’s too late.”

Ember narrowed her eyes at her consort, “...I’m still not sure if I find your unflappable optimism endearing or annoying.”

“I prefer the term: ‘ambiguously charming’,” He replied, flashing a broad grin in the dragoness’ direction, earning himself a snort and an eyeroll in response. Spike took a moment to enjoy the brief moment of levity that the two of them were experiencing before his own expression sobered once more under the weight of their predicament.

“We can’t just give up. Everycreature is counting on us. We’ll think of something.”

Ember let out a bark of mirthless laughter, “But will it be something that’ll work?”

Spike couldn’t keep a sardonic smirk from sneaking onto his own snout as he acknowledged the point. Coming up with a plan would be easy. Coming up with a good plan, however…

“I wish Twilight was here,” the purple dragon sighed, “She was the ‘planner’. If anypony could come up with a way to beat Chrysalis with what we have, it’d be her―”

The pair had their attention diverted by Ember’s comlink chirping. Looking annoyed at the interruption, the Dragon Lord nonetheless elected to receive the incoming message traffic. After all, it wasn’t like anycreature would have been willing to bother the Dragon Lord herself with anything that wasn’t incredibly important, “What is it?”

She’d keyed the comlink’s speaker so that the response was easily heard by the both of them. After all, whatever it was that she was about to be told was something that she’d have just repeated to Spike a few seconds later anyway, “A WarShip made an unscheduled jump into the system an hour ago,” the voice on the other end of the line announced, prompting the pair of dragons to exchange intrigued expressions. Ships never made unscheduled appearances in Clan space, “It’s the Maelstrom. Twilight Sparkle wishes to speak with you, Your Lordship.”

Spike and Ember shared a mirrored shocked expression, glancing between each other and the comlink. Finally, Spike cast his gaze upward, “...I wish for a bajillion rubies!” After several seconds of looking around in silence, and seemingly without receiving the reaction from the universe that he’d been hoping for, the purple dragon shrugged, “Eh, it was worth a shot.”

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