Twilight Sparkle filled her wine glass again. The bottle that she was levitating didn’t contain wine however. She’d finished off the last of that an hour ago and had been forced to move on to liquor. Admittedly, even after having been given a thousand years to do so, she had never felt compelled to learn to make the distinction between the various types of distilled spirits. They’d never been her preferred drink. They still weren’t, truth be told. She found them bitter and aggressive; almost genuinely painful to swallow down. There was simply no comparing a whiskey or even a rum to a nice, sweet, Yakyakistan Muskoxo or an Olenian Zinfandoe, in Twilight’s personal opinion at least.

Unfortunately for the purple alicorn, those particular varieties of wine had long since been imbibed to the point of extinction that evening, leaving her with scant few other options where alcoholic beverages were concerned; and she was far from through with drinking for the evening. Word had yet to reach her regarding whether or not their efforts to sabotage the HyperSpark Generators in the Harmony Sphere had been a success. Strictly speaking of course, if it had been successful, she wouldn’t hear about it any time soon. Making interstellar communication the next best thing to impossible had largely been the point, after all.

In a roundabout way it was creating a counter-intuitive amount of stress. The more time that passed without Twilight hearing any news regarding that operation, the more likely it was that it had succeeded. Yet it was that same exaggerated length of silence which was causing her to worry about whether or not it had worked out. So, here she was, drowning that stress with drink until she received a definitive answer; knowing that hearing that answer too soon would likely mean that their efforts had failed. Which would only lead to the alicorn drinking more as she bemoaned the loss of yet another avenue for victory over the changelings.

Nerves weren’t the only reason that Twilight had for wanting to ‘take the edge off’ with a bit of not-so-light drinking. Though she was certainly more than a little nervous about learning whether or not the linchpin for their plan to unite the Sphere against Chrysalis was in place or not. As vitally important as it was, it wasn’t what had been causing Twilight the most stress for the past couple of months since dispatching the DropShips full of Disciples on their mission to dismantle the Sphere’s primary means of interstellar communication.

Oddly enough, the alicorn was significantly less bothered about the virus she’d developed to tear down the vital information superhighway through the star that she had personally established nearly thirteen hundred years ago, than she was about the message that had been tacked on at the end. It had been the part of this whole plan that she’d wrestled the most with since it had been proposed.

That was because, no matter how much time she spent rationalizing the ‘necessity’ of it, how vital it was that the creatures of the Harmony Sphere saw ‘Queen Twilight’ for the tyrant that she truly was inside, the fact remained that, in the end, when all was said and done: She’d lied to them.

The message had been a lie. More than that, it had been a lie of the worst kind: one meant to manipulate. Honesty wasn’t immutable. Twilight had long known that. There were exceptions to every rule. Telling your aunt that you appreciated the ugly sweater that she’d given you for Hearth’s Warming even though you knew full well that you’d never actually come to like the horrid thing, wasn’t honest―in the strictest sense of the definition―but neither would doing so have been a violation of the spirit of the Element of Honesty. ‘Misrepresentations’ intended to protect and nurture the feelings of love you had for friends and family weren’t anathema to Harmony. They helped to nurture it, in fact.

However, that was not the case with lies which were specifically designed to deceive and manipulate others into doing things that you wanted them to do. Which was exactly the kind of lie which Twilight had crafted with the creation of that message which her virus had propagated throughout the Harmony Sphere, each HSG distributing it to the planetary servers of every world in range prior to burning themselves out and reducing their vital internal mechanisms to little more than melted silicon and shattered gemstones.

No matter how she looked at it, Twilight could not dismiss the fact that she was tricking the creatures of the Sphere into doing what she wanted them to do. She could try and soothe her conscience by reminding herself that she was doing it ‘for their own good’, but that was cold comfort. It was similar to Starlight Glimmer’s excuse for ridding ponies of their cutie marks. Cozy Glow’s motivation to remove magic from Equestria.

It was the rationale of a tyrant.

After all, if it really was in their best interests, then Twilight should have been able to simply come right out and tell that to everycreature concerned, right? She should have been able to travel to the capitals of every major power and get the leaders to agree that uniting together and defeating Chrysalis was the correct course of action.

She could have done that. It would have been the ‘right’ way to do things. The Harmony way. The fact that it would almost certainly have led to her capture by Chrysalis, and the subversion of any plans that she and the leadership of the Successor States by changeling spies was beside the point. At least, it was in her mind. She had the choice to be open and honest with others about what they were getting into and why. Instead she’d lied to them about who and what they were fighting, and why they were doing it.

Ultimately, it could even lead to bigger problems down the road. How was she supposed to lead once the changelings were defeated if everycreature was convinced that ‘Twilight’ was the leader of the changelings? Even if they learned the truth about who and what ‘Queen Twilight’ really was, how could she expect them to trust her after it came to light that she’d manipulated them into working for her like that? What kind of precedent was she setting for her return to rulership?

...Should she rule again? Had she forfeited that privilege?

Nocreature was perfect, not even an alicorn. It wasn’t as though Celestia herself hadn’t hit a snag or two during her thousand year reign. Her own sister had fomented an insurrection against her! At least Twilight could say that neither Shining Armor nor Cadance had bucked her own rule through rebellion…

However, there was no denying that mistakes had indeed been made during Twilight’s time on the throne. Errors aplenty, if the current state of the galaxy was any indication. The alicorn found herself wondering exactly how long it had taken for the Harmony Sphere to forget about the Elements of Harmony. Had Friendship always held such a fragile and tentative grasp on the hearts of creatures that even the briefest of hardships could snuff it out like a struggling candle flame? Or had it been something that required generations for Chrysalis’ ceaseless toiling to finally erode away?

Would the latter really have made her feel any better, given that the end result was effectively the same?

Likely not, the purple mare thought as she tipped back the glass of brandy.

“Just got a message from Ember,” Spike’s voice disrupted the alicorn’s reverie as he returned to the lounge. The dragon paused in the doorway, his green eyes observing the diminished contents of the bottles collected on the table next to Twilight’s settee. He frowned, but all the same obliged his friend by diverting to a nearby cabinet and fetching a full decanter of more brandy, which he deposited by Twilight’s side before making himself comfortable on a nearby couch, “Flurry Heart and the Clans will meet with you in the morning to hear what you have to say.”

She nodded slowly, refilling her glass from the fresh decanter, “They need to do more than ‘hear’. They need to help,” the alicorn insisted.

“They want to help, Twilight,” Spike assured her, “we all do. It’s just...it’s complicated right now. The Clans that agreed to stay back aren’t very happy right now with how well things seem to be going for Smolder and the others. They’re feeling cheated. If we send them into the Sphere, they’re just as likely to get ‘distracted’ trying to amass hordes of their own―”

“Smolder’s army is gone.” The blunt statement drew Spike up short. The purple dragon gaped at the mare in stunned silence, wondering if he’d perhaps misheard her. Twilight tossed back another swallow of liquor to give herself the courage to give the solemn report that wouldn’t have had time to make it back through the Clan’s own HyperSpark Generator network. Not being part of the Primary Circuit―of the secret secondary one the changelings used for their operatives―the ship-mounted HSGs that the invading Clan fleets used to coordinate would not have been affected by Twilight’s virus, and would still be functional. However, it would still have taken them a week or more to get a message back to Clan space.

The Maelstrom’s ability to jump from Havoc to any position in the galaxy, however, meant that the alicorn would have beaten that message back here. She was going to be the first to deliver this news: “The Clans were stopped at Buckwheat,” Twilight said softly, her gaze locked on the gently swirling amber liquid in front of her. She was unable to bring herself to look at her friend quite yet, “The Disciples helped me lure them into a trap...so that the changelings could destroy them.”

The silence was deafening.

“I probably shouldn’t open with that during the meeting tomorrow, huh?”

Spike looked appropriately horrified, “...Cinder...is she―?”

“She’s fine,” Twilight assured him, though the shrug which followed up her statement did less to put the dragon at ease, “at least she was as of two days ago. Chrysalis wouldn’t have sent WarShips,” the alicorn reasoned, “As long as Cinder stayed on the Rockhoof, she’d be out of harm’s way.

“Whatever troops she sent to the planet, on the other hoof…”

Twilight finished off the rest of her brandy. She contemplated topping off the glass again, but thought better of it. Her telekinesis lowered the glass to the table. She still wasn’t looking at the dragon next to her. The mare knew she couldn’t have tolerated facing the judgement waiting in his eyes. Not yet. She was barely able to face her own rather low opinion of herself.

Cinder might be alive, yes; but many thousands―tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands―of Clan warriors would have perished in the fighting. At least as many changelings as well, if not more. Twilight felt for those losses too. Perhaps the better part of a million lives lost in a battle that she specifically arranged. It was all for the ‘greater good’, of course, but that did surprisingly little to lift her burden. The millions dying to the invasion of the Clans had been a far higher cost, yes, but Twilight had not orchestrated those deaths.

What happened on Buckwheat had been her doing―her design.

Her Plan.

Nor were they the only losses which were going to weigh heavy on her conscience for the rest of the alicorn’s eternal life, “The Primary Circuit is gone too―or, it should be anyway. Hopefully,” Twilight went on, tossing back more brandy. Spike managed to look even more shocked, somehow, “The Sphere should be plunged into a communications blackout right about now. They’ll think Chrysalis did it―well,” the alicorn rolled her eyes, “They’ll think that ‘Queen Twilight Sparkle’ did it,” she amended drolly, flicking her hooves in the air limply to frame the quotations audible in her tone.

“Everycreature is probably doing what they can to mobilize for an invasion of Equus as we speak. It’ll take them a long while though, without the HSGs. They’ll have to coordinate ‘pegasus express’-style, carrying messages physically via couriers. With hundreds of lightyears to cover, it’ll probably be a year or more before their armies are consolidated and in motion.”

Twilight’s face darkened, “...The fighting on Equus is going to make what happened on Buckwheat look like a lover’s tiff.”

Spike didn’t say anything for a good while in response to the news which Twilight had just dumped on him. He took up the alicorn’s discarded glass and the decanter of brandy in his hands. The dragon stopped short of pouring himself out a measure of the liquor though. His gaze shifted from the mostly full decanter and the empty glass which looked much smaller in his claws than he remembered.

He began to drink straight from the decanter.

Eventually, the purple dragon set down the nearly empty vessel of brandy, letting out a discrete burp which created a small gout of flame, much to his embarrassment. He took a deep breath to help settle what the brandy hadn’t, and let it out slowly, “...You’ve certainly been busy.” Twilight’s smile was a sad, wispy, little thing; and gone a heartbeat later. Spike did his best to rekindle it by trying to muster up a smirk of his own. Yet even the dragon’s was a pale imitation of anything approaching actual mirth, “You found a way to unite the Harmony Sphere though. That’s something.”

“It’s only ‘something’ if it lasts past the defeat of Chrysalis,” Twilight pointed out.

“It will,” Spike assured her, broadening his smile a little more. There was even a glint of genuine hope in his eyes now, “You’ll find a way to make it last.”

Twilight had been keeping her gaze focused straight ahead before, not looking at the dragon; but now she actively curled away from him.

Spike’s nigh-unflappable optimism had always been like a beacon of hope for the alicorn. The dragon had stood resolutely by her side through every adversity that she’d ever faced in her life, and risen to meet every challenge thrown their way. He was always the last to despair, if he ever even did. His faith in her, and in their perseverance, had always been a source of strength.

But now it just hurt. She just finished telling him how she’d maneuvered hundreds of thousands of Clan warriors―his own subjects―to their doom. By all rights he should be condemning her―resenting her. Certainly not trying to comfort her. She didn’t feel like she deserved the reassurances the dragon was providing her.

Almost like he could sense her thoughts, Spike began to speak in a softer tone, “You’re reminding me of myself a lot right now. How I was about a month out of the Sphere when I was leading what I’d managed to gather of the CLDF away from Chrysalis.”

The admission prompted Twilight to look back towards her former assistant, finding the purple drake wearing a wan expression of his own now, his eyes unfocused as he relived the memories in his head, “I felt like such a failure. I’d just abandoned my friends―not to mention trillions of other creatures―to the changelings. I kept thinking it was my fault for not realizing sooner what Chrysalis had done. I felt like a coward for running.”

The alicorn’s expression instantly softened and she rolled off the settee, coming closer to the dragon, “Oh, Spike...no. You didn’t ‘fail’ at anything!” She insisted, placing a comforting wing around her dear friend as she took him up in a reassuring hug that she soon realized they both needed right about now, “You acted very prudently,” Twilight stated firmly, “If Chrysalis had realized that you were onto her too soon, she would have stopped you from getting any of the CLDF or the Dragon Clans away. Then where would we be now?

“It must have been the hardest thing in the galaxy to leave our friends behind like that,” she acknowledged, accenting her words with a firm reassuring squeeze of her hooves, “But I know that none of them fault you for it. It wasn’t cowardly, or selfish, or anything like that. Even if it felt like you were being ‘disloyal’, you weren’t. You made a difficult decision because you believed it was what you needed to do in order to save everycreature later.”

Spike leaned into the alicorn’s embrace, encircling her with his own clawed hands, “Thanks, Twilight. I guess you’re right: it’s not just about what we do, but also why we’re doing it that matters; and that we have noble intentions.”

Twilight’s lips curled into a frown as she processed what the dragon had just said, pulling back slightly to gaze at her friend’s expression. She found that Spike was doing a less-than-successful job stifling a grin as he regarded her. The alicorn’s frown instantly morphed into a smirk, “Did you really just…? You’re a lot sneakier than I remember you being,” she said with an amused snort as she released her hold on her friend.

“A thousand years as your Ambassador of Friendship might have taught me one or two things about how to cheer up my friends,” Spike said with a shrug, now letting his satisfied grin beam unfettered.

“I suppose it did,” Twilight acknowledged, nodding, “I’m not a hundred percent convinced that what we did was comparable,” she qualified, waggling a pinion at the dragon, “And I still think it was very wrong of me to lie like I did. I’ll be doing my best to make up for it later,” she promised herself.

“But you’re right: I only did it because I want to help everycreature to live a better life, and not for some other selfish reason. That doesn’t make what I did right,” she insisted, exchanging a pointed look with the dragon until she received an acknowledging nod from him, “But I guess it doesn’t make me quite as horrible of a pony as I thought a moment ago.”

The purple mare wasn’t entirely convinced regarding that point. She felt that Starlight Glimmer might have had a thing or two to say to her regarding the value of telling lies to others in order to ‘help’ them. Honesty wasn’t an explicitly rigid concept, no; but there were certainly limits to how far one could bend around those caveats. Time would tell if she’d crossed the line, the alicorn supposed.

“...Do you really think that we can rebuild the League?” Twilight asked of the dragon after several seconds of silence from the pair of them.

To this, Spike didn’t immediately respond, electing to choose his words with some care, “I don’t know about the ‘Celestia League’ specifically,” he qualified, “But I do think the galaxy will find Harmony again. In time.”

Twilight permitted that distinction with an internal sigh. I very well might have been a little much to hope that things could go back entirely to how they’d been before. After centuries of conflict, the galaxy bore many wounds. While they might heal with time, there would doubtlessly be quite a few scars which might never go away; even if she spent another thousand years trying, “I wish I had your optimism,” the alicorn offered, along with a wan smile.

“It’s not ‘optimism’,” Spike insisted, “it’s history,” he smirked at the puzzled expression on his friend’s face and deigned to elaborate, “Harmony has always seemed to...waiver from time to time,” the dragon pointed out, “But then it comes back stronger

“The three ancient pony tribes maintained an uneasy alliance for centuries; but then that peace fractured and the wendigos chased them from their ancestral homes,” Spike pointed out, giving a much abbreviated retelling of the well known story of the first Hearth’s Warming, “In the end, the tribes grew closer than ever before, forming a unified Equestria.

“But then something drove them apart again, scattering the tribes all over the continent and plaguing them with monsters. Stygius, Starswirl, and the other Pillars drove away the monsters and formed the Elements, bringing the land together in harmony once more and galvanizing it under the rule of Celeista and Luna.

“Nightmare Moon broke up that Harmony again and depleted the Elements, until we came along, restored them, and unified all the creatures of Equus. We went on to build the whole League.”

His expression waned slightly now, “Sure, the League fractured and fell...but whatever gets built back,” Spike favored Twilight with a hopeful expression, “it’s going to be something even grander than what came before. Just like every other time.”

Twilight wasn’t able to keep the dragon’s contagious smile from touching her own lips, though she wasn’t feeling quite as optimistic as he was about their future, “Maybe,” she allowed, “but only if we can figure out where things went wrong before. I know it didn’t happen overnight, but I still don’t like how everycreature managed to forget about Friendship like they did, even with ‘me’ there to manipulate everything.”

“Come on, Twilight; can you really blame creatures for not realizing how important Friendship was after all that time?” At the alicorn’s shocked expression, the drake elaborated, “It’d been a thousand years since the last time anycreaure had experienced anything even approaching ‘hard times’,” Spike pointed out, earning a conceding nod from the mare.

“Nocreature could even conceive of what a ‘bad day’ was like! Let alone how horrifying open warfare was going to be. Sure, they’d heard the stories of the wendigos, and the Pillars, and Nightmare Moon, and The Knights of Harmony; but that’s all those were to everycreature: ‘stories’. No more believable to them than Nightmare Moon was to everypony when we were young.

“At a certain point, history can come to be regarded as myth and legend. More allegory than reality. Especially when there’s no context. Can you honestly say that you understood how difficult life must have been for the Pillars when you were growing up? Before wielding the Elements and confronting monsters of our own? Did you really understand what it meant to fight a hydra or confront a hostile army?”

Spike paused now, awaiting a response from the alicorn. Twilight frowned, slowly shaking her head, “No, I guess I didn’t really. I mean, I believed the stories―most of the stories,” she amended, recalling that while she’d firmly believed that Nightmare Moon was real while most thought her a story; she had been skeptical regarding the ‘Pony of Shadows’ from stories she’d heard as a foal. Yet Stygius had turned out to be just as real as Luna, “But I didn’t know how perilous things could get. Not until I faced them myself.”

Time and literary flourishes had made the adventures of the Pillars somehow seem too fantastical to her, in spite of knowing that the ponies themselves had existed. Their deeds had simply sounded too embellished to have been entirely factual. Thinking back now on the exploits of herself and her own friends, Twilight was forced to concede that it was entirely forgivable that the average citizen of the Sphere had thought the same of them.

The purple dragon nodded, “And I think it was the same way with everycreature in the League: they didn’t have the context that some of us had. You, me, the other Princesses, some of the older dragons, we knew how good everycreature in the League really had it, and how bad things could get if we let Friendship slip away...but the others couldn’t have. To them, our early lives were little more than tall tales.

“What that means though, I think, is that when the galaxy does build back from this―and I believe we will build back―the creatures of this galaxy will do so knowing exactly what not having Friendship and Harmony will cost them,” Spike affirmed with a nod of his head and a knowing look at the alicorn, “They’ll remember the death and the destruction. They’ll remember the suffering of trillions of beings.

“They’ll know―better than any of us ever did―how bad things can really get without Friendship; and they’ll create something even more grand than the Celestia League ever was in order to keep Harmony thriving in the galaxy for as long as they possibly can.”

Twilight was smiling at the dragon as his speech wrapped up. Centuries serving as her Ambassador of Friendship had done wonders for his orator abilities, she thought to herself. He’d certainly gotten her believing in his vision of the future. Though there was one part of it that she had picked up on, “I noticed you didn’t say that ‘we’ would be the ones rebuilding the Sphere…?” She said, prompting him to elaborate.

The dragon offered a wan little shrug, “Well...I figure it won’t really be up to us this next time around,” he said, sounding rather resigned to the notion, “Like how Celestia stepped down to let you unite Equus, it’s probably up to somecreature else to unite―truly unite―the galaxy. I mean, can you honestly say you know what a better version of the Celestia League would look like?”

“I suppose I’d have already created it if I had,” Twilight conceded, acknowledging the point, “Maybe a thousand years is enough time at the reins anyway,” The purple mare paused in thought for a moment, before casting a glance at the drake, “I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to who we’re supposed to be grooming for leadership this next time around?”

Spike grinned again, “I’ve been brainstorming a few ideas…”

Nacht Belle sat at one end of the overly large―in his opinion―conference table aboard the Princess-class DropShip Wyrm. Arrayed behind him, standing alert and glaring around with suspicious, slit-pupil eyes, were a collection of batponies serving as some of the First Prince’s senior advisors and military commanders. At the opposite end sat his counterpart for these talks: Deputy Thera Novo, and her own entourage of generals and politicos. Seated between the pair was Timberjack, the leader of the Timberwolf’s Dragoons mercenary company, who would be serving as something of a mediator for what the earth pony hoped would be a truly fruitful negotiation.

Of course, ‘talking’ couldn’t have been further from what both of these two potent heads of state had come to the system of Foggy Bottom to do. Both groups had been intent on open warfare―the first of its kind in hundreds of years. Technically, anyway. The machinations of Chrysalis’ agents had always been able to avert direct confrontation between the militaries of any two Successor States in the past; instead getting them to rely on mercenary companies like his own to undertake any hostilities and provide a politically convenient layer of ‘deniability’ that made official declarations of war ‘impolotique’ and largely maintained a static balance of power in the galaxy.

That sort of intervention wasn’t happening now though. Chrysalis’ agents had had their pocked hooves full of late dealing with other more immediate crises. On top of that, a couple of weeks ago, a particularly frightening event had transpired: The HyperSpark Generator in this system had ceased operations. It wasn’t alone either, according to reports from other JumpShips which had traversed the system since then. Every other HSG in the surrounding inhabited systems had also gone dark, with no explanation from the ComSpark staff at those facilities other than: ‘we’re simply performing a maintenance cycle which has gone overlong’.

It was the story being passed out to the general public, but everycreature in this room right now knew that it was a lie. They’d seen the transmission. Presumably the last transmission which had been made by the HSG in this system. Nacht suspected that the transmission had been broadcast to every planetary server and vessel of significance in any given star system. Given the contents of the message, he could understand why various planetary and regional governments might not be eager to openly contradict ComSpark’s ‘official’ narrative regarding maintenance.

After all, if word got out that ComSpark was deliberately halting all interstellar communications because Queen Twilight Sparkle―or, rather, Queen Chrysalis, as Timberjack had revealed to them not long ago―was in a bit of a snit, there’d be general revolts across pretty much every planet in the Harmony Sphere.

Revolts of the sort that were being discussed in this very room, as a matter of fact. For as much animosity as the batpony and the hippogriff might have for each other and their respective Houses, neither of them were quite so consumed by their hostility as to not recognize there was a much greater threat to the galaxy: ComSpark.

With little more than a wave of her hoof, this ‘changeling’ leader had crippled the whole of the Harmony Sphere, throwing entire stellar economies into turmoil. Nacht shuddered to think of the panic besetting various commodities and exchange markets this week. To say nothing of what was doubtlessly happening with the Mercenary Review Board and mercenary companies in general.

While every nation’s economy was―ostensibly―held aloft by their own internal currencies, there was little denying that it was the ComSpark C-Bit which set the standard for market rates across the whole of the Harmony Sphere. After all, HSG communication was the cornerstone of every facet of life in the galaxy, and ComSpark accepted C-Bits exclusively to send that traffic. The values of the Sphere’s various House Bits were inextricably tied to the C-Bit as a result. It was also the only currency that the MRB would use for its contracting services.

However, because the only ‘real’ use C-Bits have for the overwhelming majority of creatures in the Sphere is to pay for sending messages using the HSG network, and that network was now completely inoperable for an unspecified amount of time, it meant that the perceived value of the C-Bit had subsequently crashed right through the deck plating.

Mercenary contracts were now effectively worthless―not that contracts could even be shared, officially accepted, or even redeemed for payment, without access to ComSpark’s HyperSpark Generators. Local currency exchanges were going absolutely mad with speculative trading as various groups effectively ‘placed bets’ on which of the other currencies would become the new ‘gold standard’ for galactic trade. A process made more difficult―and volatile―by the fact that these speculations were going on largely independent of one another on thousands of worlds throughout the Harmony Sphere.

A galaxy-wide economic depression was inevitable at this point. What could yet be avoided―though was still alarmingly likely―were outright collapses of entire regional economies as the trans-stellars which effectively supported them found themselves unable to operate on the scale they had been for hundreds of years and fell into insolvency and bankruptcy.

Enterprising JumpShip captains had already begun filling the new economic niche which had emerged, becoming a modern day ‘pegasus express’; but their rates were criminally high compared to what it had cost with ComSpark. In Nacht’s opinion, they were unsustainable. Yet he also saw little hope of lowering them significantly. The cold fact was that JumpShips were expensive to operate, costing tens of thousands of C-Bits―now several billion given its freefall devaluation in the last two weeks―in terms of fuel, crews, and material, to move between systems.

Simple letters to family members which had once cost the average individual only a single C-Bit or two were now valued at hundreds of local House Bits apiece. This effectively priced the common creature out of the ability to communicate off-world reliably. An imposition that the citizenry was unlikely to tolerate for very long.

At the moment, those denizens were currently―and correctly, in Nacht’s opinion―directing their understandable ire at ComSpark directly. However, it was only a matter of time before they began to look to their local planetary leadership to ‘fix’ the problem and let them speak with their loved ones or engage in business again. Those local governments would naturally turn to the Great Houses who ruled over them for guidance and assistance. Which meant that, sooner or later, this was going to become something which the leadership of the Successor States was going to have to address.

And while the citizenry might be under the impression that resolving the problem should only take a little political pressure being exerted by their governments on ComSpark, Nacht Belle and Thera Novo both knew that it wasn’t going to be nearly that simple. They’d heard the message. They’d heard ‘Queen Twilight’s’ ultimatum. Even if Timberjack hadn’t revealed the truth of her identity to them, their response would have been the same:

“Nuts!”

Even if all of them had been willing to bend the fetlock to ComSpark, Nacht didn’t believe that it was a sustainable relationship. The Queen held too much power. Even within the Federated Moons, First Prince Nacht Belle didn’t rule by diktat like some completely unrestrained despot. Any new law or measure that he might propose had to be submitted for approval by both his small Privy Council, and then submitted for ratification by the High Council, which was made up of representatives from all of the Federation’s member worlds. This meant that a majority of both the nobility and the commoner citizens had to agree on new legislation before it could take effect; and there was little that Nacht could do which might coerce those two bodies into passing measures they disagreed with.

Not without risking a rebellion, at any rate.

The other four Successor States employed some manner of populous representation in their governments as well, in one form or another, which acted as a check on otherwise unrestrained power. This was viewed as a necessary litmus test by the Great Houses to periodically gage how well they were regarded by their subjects. With each House possessing at least two hostile adversaries on their borders at any given moment, none of them could really risk a widespread rebellion fomenting within.

However, ComSpark wouldn’t have to worry about whether the Successor States or the Great Houses approved of any measure that she took, because she’d have the ability to coerce them into agreeing with whatever they wanted by simply threatening to turn off the HSGs of whatever region displease the queen until the resulting economic hardships compelled them to acquiesce. There’d be nothing that they could do about it either. Even if the Great Houses seized the HSGs for themselves, none of them possessed the knowledge of how to even use them. That technical know-how had been reserved for ComSpark employees exclusively. Now that Nacht and Thera knew that all members of ComSpark were changelings, they were pretty sure that it would be the next best thing to impossible to sway them to oppose their queen. Not in numbers that would matter anyway.

If they gave in, Nacht knew that Chrysalis would be able to rule the galaxy with an iron hoof, and nothing would be able to stop her. Mostly as a result of her many changeling spies saturated throughout their respective governments. That had been a rather disturbing thing for the batpony prince to learn. He’d seen the evidence though―and lost three of his closest advisors to the revelation as well. Paranoia was running high through his remaining command staff, and likely was for Thera as well, for whom it was revealed that four of her own confidants were actually changeling agents. In a galaxy with active HyperSpark Generator arrays, those spies would be able to report any plots right back to Chrysalis almost immediately.

However, with the HSGs currently inoperative, there wasn’t any way for changeling spies to report any plots against their queen before it was too late. It would take months to get word back to Equus about anything that was learned by a changeling operative in their ranks, and that was only if a dedicated courier could be found to deliver that message in the first place. If they were going to make any moves against Chrysalis, now was the only chance that they’d have.

Which wasn’t to say that being ‘possible’ was the same thing as being ‘easy’. They did have one thing working for them though, as Thera pointed out.

“Equus is just one world,” the hippogriff noted, “Even if it is heavily fortified, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of divisions to take the whole planet. We could probably do it with what the two of us have with us here,” the hen gestured vaguely around them, her tone dismissive.

It was Timberjack who spoke up this time, “This invasion would be like no other,” the stoic earth pony warned, casting a level gaze at the hippogriff, “Equus does not have a ‘civilian population’ as you know it. It is not a target where the citizens will sit by idly while a few brigades of BattleSteeds buck it out with each other, indifferent to the fighting going on.

“Equus is inhabited by several billion changeling drones. Each of whom will be an active participant in the battle. The meager divisions present here would be overwhelmed within an hour.”

Silence hung in the chamber for several long seconds as both Nacht and Thera contemplated the stallion’s words. It was a novel concept for both leaders. For centuries, ‘warfare’ had consisted of little more than capturing a few key strategic locations until it became logistically difficult for one side or the other to maintain their supply lines; at which point the loser would concede and withdraw.

‘Total war’ like Timberjack was describing wasn’t, and had never before been, a thing. The populations of worlds didn’t take up arms and become partisans fending off invaders. By and large, they tried their best to keep their heads down and wait until the mercenary companies and Great House militaries had settled their latest squabble. Who was collecting their taxes mattered very little to the common creature, after all. It was exceedingly rare that an invading force had to worry about the general populace posing much of a threat.

The idea that any invasion they launched on Equus could be met by billions of armed resistance fighters was...concerning, to say the least. If that was the case, then their troops present here were most definitely not going to be anywhere near sufficient. Indeed, the deployable forces of both of their entire standing armies might not be up to a task like that.

As the pair of dignitaries sat silently processing the revelation, Timberjack wrestled with whether or not he should bring up the presence of the WarShips which Chrysalis had under her control. On the one hoof, it was a threat which could not simply be discounted. It didn’t matter how big of an invasion the Great Houses put together, Chrysalis’ WarShip fleets would eviscerate them long before those DropShips reached Equus. The real Twilight Sparkle was currently―hopefully―in talks to negotiate for the use of the WarShips of the Dragon Clans for the invasion.

If she succeeded, then there was no point in bringing up the matter with Nacht and Thera and giving them a point to needlessly worry over. The changeling WarShips wouldn’t be something which they needed to be concerned with and they could instead focus on the ground campaign. On the other hoof, if Twilight wasn’t able to get the necessary WarShip fleet that they would all need, then this whole discussion became academic anyway because there’d be no point in even attempting to invade Equus. Which meant that there was nothing to gain by mentioning the presence of the WarShips in the Faust System.

Timberjack remained quiet on that point, and continued with their discussion about gathering the forces needed for the invasion itself, “We will need other forces, in addition to your Houses,” the stallion informed them.

“Victoria will certainly join in,” Nacht pointed out, somewhat encouraged by the nod of agreement he received from the earth pony, “So that’s three Great Houses.”

“We can reach out to Stellar Nova as well―”

“The Our Worlds League won’t help,” Timberjack cut in, earning a look of surprise from the other two, “The real Stellar Nova died in a bombing years ago. The creature currently leading the League in his place is a changeling. Informing the League of our intentions will prompt him to reinforce Chrysalis’ armies.”

“Well...that’s concerning,” the batpony prince murmured, cringing at the thought that any one of them could have just as easily been replaced by a changeling as well, “What of the Confederacy?”

“To the best of my knowledge, House Vernal isn’t a puppet of the changelings,” Timberjack said, “I’ll have a courier sent to make contact and ask for their assistance.”

“It occurs to me that we can also put out a general call to action to any and all mercenary outfits we come across,” Nacht pointed out, “With the MRB down, they can’t be any happier about ComSpark pulling the rug out from under them than we are. Probably, they’re actually a lot more pissed off than we are. If that’s possible.”

“Good point,” Thera agreed, nodding her head, “Unlike C-Bits right now, at least our own House Bits are worth a damn. The only reason they’d never have taken on a contract to invade Equus before is because ComSpark would never have posted or sanctioned it―for obvious reasons.

“But ComSpark isn’t doing much of anything right now, are they?” She flashed a grin across the table.

Nacht found himself in agreement with the hippogriff hen. The mercenary outfits in the Sphere had to be feeling rather put out by their sudden inability to operate. While they would normally never have seriously considered taking on a job off of the MRB’s books in exchange for payment in House script, things had changed quite drastically in the last couple of weeks. C-Bits were the next best thing to worthless. The Mercenary Review Board was effectively offline. On top of that, their operating expenses certainly wouldn’t have decreased very much. If anything, they’d skyrocketed.

After all, since the only work that a reputable mercenary could get was through ComSpark’s MRB, and ComSpark paid their contracts out exclusively in C-Bits, that meant that most mercenaries held their on-hoof cash reserves almost exclusively in C-Bits. Which, because of the plunging value of that particular currency, meant that their bank balances had been rendered almost entirely worthless. Food, fuel, and parts, which would have cost them a few thousand C-Bits a month ago would be costing them millions―if not billions―of C-Bits right now as local planetary merchants expressed their reluctance to trade in a currency which was effectively useless to them right now.

House script, on the other hoof, would be holding its value much more reliably on local markets. Meaning that the only way operating mercenary groups could survive for the foreseeable future was to get their hooves on local currency. Which meant taking ‘off the book’ jobs for groups other than the MRB. Of course, given the general disarray that most of the Harmony Sphere was experiencing, even most of their usual employers wouldn’t be looking to employ mercenaries any time soon. The transstellar corporations which were the hay and oats of a mercenary company’s client base were going to be far too busy trying to sort out their own communication and supply chain issues to worry about encroaching on a competitor’s territory.

Nocreature was going to be hiring mercenaries any time soon. Not in the quantities needed to support the industry anyway.

Which meant that mercenaries would indeed be desperate for work―any work―that came their way. Even something that sounded as insane as invading Equus. As long as the pony offering the work could pay in something besides C-Bits.

The Great Houses were uniquely situated to expand their military capabilities right now, Nacht thought with a grin. Even without the support of the armies of the League or the Confederation, the combined forces of the Commonwealth, Federation, and the Combine, with the addition of most of the mercenary outfits in the galaxy, should be more than enough to launch a conquest of Equus that had a better than decent chance of success.

“The three of us will be able to spread the word on that front rather quickly, I think,” Timberjack agreed, “And Victoria as well, once she is informed of the plan. All that’s left is to discuss where the invasion fleet will be assembling at,” the earth pony glanced between the pair for a moment, “...To which I would like to propose: The Lameduck System.”

Thera frowned, cocking her head at the stallion, “There’s nothing in the Lameduck System. It’s got one planet that nocreature even bothered settling because the atmosphere’s toxic,” she pointed out, “While I can appreciate wanting to keep a force build-up a secret from this Queen Chrysalis, an invasion force as large as the one we’re talking about is going to need a lot of infrastructure to support it, and for a long time too.

“Without HSGs to let us communicate across our territory, it’s going to take months―maybe more than a year―for us to gather our forces together. We’re talking about millions of beings that are going to need to be supplied and supported for at least that long. That can’t be done in a deserted system with no infrastructure.”

Nacht was nodding along in agreement with the hippogriff, and was about to name his own proposed location for the assembly area for their fleet when Timberjack spoke up again, “The Lameduck I is uninhabited,” he agreed, “But it’s incorrect to say that there is ‘nothing’ there. Nor is its atmosphere toxic.”

Thera’s frown deepened, as she reached for a datapad, “The survey reports clearly indicate that―”

“Those survey reports were doctored,” Timberjack interjected, silencing the hen and capturing the attention of both dignitaries, who were looking at him with confused expressions, “Specifically, they were doctored by Ambassador Spike before he led half the CLDF out of the Harmony Sphere,” the earth pony explained patiently, “This was in an effort to hide the fact that Lameduck I was intended to serve a very specific purpose―this purpose, in fact.

“The Lameduck System is located nearly sixty lightyears from Equus. Putting it right on the cusp of being reachable in just two jumps. JumpShips equipped with additional batteries can cross that distance in hours from the ‘go’ order.

“From the beginning, Lameduck I was intended to be the point from which the Clans would launch their bid to take back Equus from Chrysalis. To that end, it is equipped with numerous fortifications capable of housing millions of soldiers and containing prestaged supplies to support them. Fuel, weapons, ammunition, spare parts, everything.

“It’ll support your armies for as long as we need,” Timberjack assured the others. Indeed, a not insignificant part of his company’s mission in the Sphere had been to periodically check in on those fortifications and ensure the caches there remained serviceable. He could even provide detailed ledgers of exactly what was available on the planet.

Nacht and Thera exchanged looks as they considered the offer. The two knew that neither of them had a nearby world which had already been prepared as a stepping-off point for an invasion of the Faust System. If the Clans truly had one that was all ready to go…

The First Prince of the Federated Moons looked at the earth pony, “Well...It sounds like we can finally get started then!”

“...We can stop if you want. I’m perfectly fine with stopping, just so you know.”

Slipshod managed to somehow not wince at the sight of Squelch’s sapphire gaze glaring daggers at him, “No fair reading my emotions, Slip; we talked about this.”

“It doesn’t take an empath to see you’re uncomfortable,” the stallion said, undeterred, “We were married for a year. I know when you’re uncomfortable,” The unicorn mare let out an annoyed sigh, but she didn’t persist in denying the accuracy of his statement. In an attempt to be helpful, he offered, “I told you: it’s no problem for me to be an earth―”

“No,” Squelch cut him off insistently. However, at the same time, the mare did cease in her pursuits and rolled off the stallion, crawling up until she was laying beside him on the bed, “Because it is a problem,” the unicorn mare insisted, frowning, “And I need to get over it.”

“You really don’t,” Slipshod assured her. A flash of green lit the room for a brief moment before the amber earth pony laying next to her rolled over and took the unicorn in his hooves, “This is fine. I promise you,” he said, smiling at the mare.

Squelch reflexively resisted his embrace, but only for a moment before giving in and turning in towards the stallion in her bed. Slipshod could feel her pleasure and having his firm, warm body against hers. Then the feelings of guilt rushed in and the mare once more tried to pry herself away from him, if a bit reluctantly. She was shaking her head insistently, “But this isn’t you! If this is really going to work, shouldn’t I be okay with who you really are?”

Slipshod let loose a long-suffering sigh as he allowed the mare the distance that she felt she needed, all the while favoring the unicorn with a wan smile, “I’m a changeling. I’m ‘really’ anything that I want to be!” He emphasized the point by shifting himself into the form of an older griffon mare, “Species, gender, age,” Now he was speaking to her as a pegasus stallion with a plaid coat pattern, “Coloring,” His features split into a grin upon seeing the flat look that Squelch was giving him.

He reverted back to his ‘original’ earth pony shape again, gesturing at his body dismissively, “Changing shape for me isn’t any different than changing clothes for you, and matters just as much. You put on that silk bridle for me,” The stallion nodded his head towards the long-since discarded accoutrement laying on the floor of the apartment suite. He reached out with a hoof and idly ran it over the mare’s cheek, “Let me ‘wear’ this for you.”

For the briefest of moments, the unicorn turned into his touch, smiling. Then her expression faltered again and he felt the doubt return. He did his best to suppress any outward signs of his own frustration with Squelch’s stubborn refusal to accept what he was saying; reminding himself that one of the qualities that he liked best about her was the mare’s principled nature. Even when he found the principal in question damned annoying!

“But even if I accept that, it doesn’t change that you get ‘excited’ no matter what I’m wearing―or not wearing,” she added, flashing a playful little smile even as her telekinesis tugged at his nethers, causing the earth pony to jerk in pleasant surprise, “So...I should be too,” Now she was frowning again, nibbling on her bottom lip furtively.

“Okay, so it’s not quite the same,” Slipshod conceded, rolling his eyes, “But I still don’t care if carapaces don’t ‘do it for you’,” The stallion flashed a broad grin at the mare, “It doesn’t bother me.”

“But it bothers me!” Squelch groaned as she rolled away from him, splaying out on her backside. To her credit, the mare’s exasperated exclamation suggested that she was feeling far more frustrated with herself than with the situation; as though she was perfectly well aware about how much she shouldn’t be bothered by the situation, but still was, “I hate that I’m squicked out by how you feel,” she said with a defeated sigh.

“...It’s like licking one of my pumps.”

“Well that’s an image,” Slipshod muttered. The pair were silent for several more seconds. Then the stallion said, “...But it’s oddly doing something for me. I think you just gave me a new fetish.”

Squelch snorted, and shortly thereafter burst out into a full laugh.

It was a sound that the stallion hadn’t been afforded the opportunity to hear very often over the past year or so. Which was a shame, because he really liked it. Perhaps, someday, there’d be cause for more of it. They had a long way to go to get there though.

Speaking of which…

Slipshod glanced over at about the same time the door alerted the pair that they had a visitor. Instinctively, Squelch gathered up the bed sheet around herself with her magic, glaring in the direction of the door. The stallion contemplated pointing out that neither of them wore much in the way of clothing when they were off duty anyway, but refrained from doing so as he acknowledged that the unicorn’s sudden modesty likely had more to do with what she’d recently been doing while unclothed than with her state of dress in and of itself.

The changeling wasn’t entirely immune to that feeling as well, as he materialized a bedrobe over his body with a flash of green flame while rolling out of the bed, “Coming!”

Squelch closed the door behind him as the stallion stepped out into the apartment suite’s den. He could hear her moving around inside, searching for something to throw over herself that would satisfy her temporary prudishness. Slipshod fluidly shifted into a unicorn version of his ‘regular’ pony self in order to gain access to magic to open the door with. On the other side stood Xanadu, wearing his BattleSteed pilot’s barding and a toothy grin.

“I hope I am interrupting?” The zebra said, wiggling his eyebrows in Slipshod’s direction even as the striped equine looked around the apartment’s interior for any sign of the suite’s other occupant.

“Interrupting what?” Slipshod asked innocently.

“Please, who do you think procured Squelch that bridle?”

The amber unicorn stallion jerked with mild surprise, “Where’d you get something like that from?”

“Mig loaned it to me,” Was the simple reply. Slipshod had thought there was something familiar looking about it. That thought materialized only a moment before the stallion finished processing what the zebra had said, but his question was promptly and accurately guessed by the other pilot, “I saw it in her closet while we were looking through it for something fun to try out together.

“You should see what that mare looks like in a set of crocodile-patterned leather boots. Mm-hmm! Anyway, I thought she’d like it. Was it any good?” Xanadu waited expectantly for a response.

Slipshod opened his mouth to reply as the bedroom door opened, revealing Squelch now sporting a pink satin gown. The grin was back on the zebra’s face, “Apparently…”

“Yes; thank you, Xanax,” The unicorn mare said with a nod in the pilot’s direction as she sidled up beside Slipshod, “I take it the next ‘academy’ is starting today?”

“Two hours,” Xanadu nodded, his demeanor shifting into something slightly more serious as the topic was directed to ‘business’. He glanced in Slipshod’s direction, “We have seven candidates this time. We have some Breezies, Pipsqueaks, and a Jenny lined up for them. I’ll take three of them if you’ll take the other four?”

The other stallion was already nodding along, “Sounds good. I’ll get suited up and be down there in a bit.”

“Good,” the mischievous smile returned with aplomb as the zebra glanced between the two, “So...What was smoother? The silk saddle or Slip’s―”

The door slammed shut and cut off whatever else Xanadu had been about to say. Squelch glared at the sealed portal for several more seconds while Slipshod chuckled and allowed himself to shift into his changeling form. He headed for the bedroom, and the closet containing his ‘Steed barding.

It was an odd feeling being an ‘instructor’. He’d never really envisioned himself as a teacher, certainly not where operating a BattleSteed was concerned. Circumstances, however, had somehow managed to elevate him to such a position. He was, strictly speaking, the ‘best trained’ pilot on the planet, being the only one who’d attended an academy on Equus, or even the Harmony Sphere for that matter. His intimate knowledge of the tactics taught by the Equus academies made him an ideal instructor, since their adversary would be exclusively using those same tactics.

There was also the fact that they would need as many capable BattleSteed operators as possible for the coming campaign. Fortunately for them, the Red Reivers of Peregrine had managed to procure for themselves an abundance of BattleSteeds during their raiding. Far more than they had the pilots to operate. There were also plenty of Disciples on the planet who were available to train to operate them. So the Irregulars had taken to occupying themselves for the last couple of months running prospective candidates through improvised training academies as quickly as Mig and her technicians could rebuild functional ‘Steeds for them to use.

In the grand scheme of things Slipshod doubted that their efforts here would really make a difference. The invasion of Equus would consist of tens of thousands of BattleSteeds and their pilots, along with hundreds of thousands more combat vehicles and millions of cavalrymares. The few dozen pilots that he and Xanadu managed to train up here would be little more than a drop in the bucket in comparison. Certainly nothing that could possibly shift the balance of forces one way or the other in any meaningful fashion.

Training these pilots made him feel a little less useless though.

It was odd, the stallion thought to himself with a wan little smirk. A few months ago, his direct actions had played a not-insignificant part in shaping the future of the whole galaxy. His convincing Squelch to keep Twilight with them. Getting the alicorn to the Disciples and the Dragon Clans. He and the rest of the company were responsible for nearly everything that was happening right now on the galactic stage…

...And yet they’d been largely reduced to irrelevance. Twilight, Ember, Timberjack, and the heads of the Great Houses would be the creatures directly shaping the future of everycreature in the galaxy now. Perhaps as it should be, the changeling conceded. They were the ones with experience doing such things, after all. It still felt a little weird though, to have moved from a position of obscurity executing middling little mercenary contracts, to suddenly affecting the lives of trillions of beings, and then reverting right back to taking a few ponies and griffons by the hoof and claw respectively to teach them how to pilot a ‘Steed.

Fame was fleeting, Slipshod supposed.

The changeling began to idly wonder what the history books would say about this time period in a hundred years. A thousand. Would he and Squelch even be footnotes?

Would it bother him if they weren’t?

For all Squelch had been telling him to give thought to the future, perhaps that was looking a little too far into the future, Slipshod mused as he slipped into the barding. After all, history was written by the winners; and they hadn’t won yet...

General Charon watched the horizon grow progressively darker and more curved through the window of her cabin as the DropShip ascended from the surface of Buckwheat. In just a few minutes, her view filled with starlight, twinkling around the edges of the shrinking world. The changeling commander felt a bitter taste in her mouth as she watched the scene of her greatest military accomplishment fade away; because she knew that her glorious victory had been almost immediately overshadowed.

She would not be praised by Her Majesty upon her return to Equus. Certainly not as she should have been. In fact, the general was fairly certain that she would be chastised for falling for such an ‘obvious ploy’. Despite General Charon doing no more than what she had been ordered to by her queen.

It was just a tiny bit galling to know that she had somehow played right into the hooves of the real Twilight Sparkle, the changeling thought to herself. For they were the only one who could have brought down the Primary Circuit the way that they had. The alicorn who’d invented the devices was the only one with the depth of knowledge necessary to perform such thorough sabotage. Charon had taken the time to review the damage to Buckwheat’s HyperSpark Generator in detail. According to the technicians who’d been on duty when the array had gone down, they’d received a message from another system moments before the HSG sent out an automated response to every other HSG in range and then began to overload. They’d attempted to avert the build up of power, but had found that they’d been locked out of the system through the use of an extremely high-level override.

The sort of override that could only have been executed by one of the original developers of the system in the first place. Charon suspected that she’d only need one hoof to count the number of creatures in the galaxy today who met that criteria.

Coupled with the fact that the message had been timed so perfectly with the conclusion of the campaign at Buckwheat...and had even mentioned the confrontation with the Clans…

That part had not sat particularly well with the general either. She’d been under the impression that the alicorn had been working with the Dragon Clans. So then why would Twilight Sparkle have ordered them to invade Buckwheat? Especially when her message made it sound like she had planned for that invasion to fail? While the notion that the Clans had gone into the fight expecting to lose would certainly help to explain why they’d been so easily baited into Charon’s numerous traps and ambushes, the changeling commander doubted that the former ruler of the Celestia League was actually cold-blooded enough to sacrifice that many of her own forces for the sake of creating a narrative meant to cast Queen Chrysalis in a negative light.

It didn’t strike Charon as being particularly ‘Harmonious’.

Not that any part of the Clans’ invasion up to this point had felt that way either, the changeling conceded. Especially when the general had known for a fact that the real Twilight had recently gone through such great lengths to get Victoria Blueblood installed as the Archon of the Pony Commonwealth. The young pegasus should have been perfectly willing to allow for the Clan fleets to pass right through her territory all the way to the Faust System without any issue. A brute-force invasion shouldn’t have been necessary.

Yet the Clans had still performed one.

The simple answer was that some of the dragon khans had ‘gone off the reservation’, as it were, and weren’t interested in the alicorn’s plans. It certainly explained the seeming lack of interest the invaders had in reaching Equus as quickly and efficiently as possible. Their sudden and keen interest in Buckwheat specifically still puzzled the changeling general, but the message crafted by Twilight suggested to Charon that the former pony princess had somehow convinced or maneuvered the Clans into focusing their forces here specifically so that Chrysalis could defeat them.

Which meant that Charon’s victory here had served Twilight Sparkle’s needs, and probably more than they had Her Majesty’s. That didn’t sit well with the general at all. Especially when the alicorn could now effectively move through the galaxy largely in secret. It would take months for any of their field agents to get word of her activities in the Harmony Sphere back to Equus, and by then the information would be so out of date as to be the next best thing to useless.

Charon could only conclude that the communications blackout that the alicorn had imposed was the prelude to an invasion of the Faust System. While the general had known that it had only been a matter of time before the real Twilight made a play for Equus, there’d at least always been the knowledge that the forces there would be able to see the invasion coming weeks or months out. Almost to the day. After all, a HSG message could travel much further and faster than a JumpShip could ever hope to. The changelings would have known well in advance when an invasion was coming, and how large of a force it would be.

Now though? With message traffic limited to courier vessels using JumpShips, Charon doubted that it would be possible for them to receive any warning that an invasion fleet was about to arrive in Faust. Their WarShip fleets would need to be kept at a constant state of high alert for months. It wouldn’t take long for that level of readiness to wear on the crews. They’d need to be cycled much more frequently than usual to keep them from becoming burned out or complacent. That would mean training up additional crew rotations for their fleet, which would draw significantly from their reserves.

The same reserves that were going to be needed to construct additional fortifications on the planet itself.

The changeling found herself frowning deeply now at that last thought. The simple fact was that Equus didn’t possess a lot of very defensible positions that an invading force could be funneled through in order to give the defenders a clear advantage. This was because, unlike most other worlds in the galaxy, Equus had not been developed over the last few centuries with repelling invasions in mind. After all: who would invade Equus?!

Not that any force would have even been able to make such an attempt in the first place, since only a select few changelings even knew the jump coordinates for the system. Charon herself didn’t even know what they were. The real Twilight Sparkle and the Dragon Clans certainly would know what those coordinates were though.

Since the Clans had appeared in the Sphere and began their invasion, Her Majesty had ordered the planet to be fortified against a possible invasion, but any serious effort would still take time. Buckwheat had only required a few months to prepare, but Charon had had the advantage of not needing to secure any specific part of the planet, and the Clan force that she’d needed to fend off had been considerably smaller than whatever Twilight was going to bring to bear against Equus.

Equus was the site of many dozens, hundreds even, of critical facilities and locations that couldn’t be allowed to fall into the hooves of invading armies. Their BattleSteed factories, their weapons foundries, their ammunition stockpiles, their cocoon larders, locations that―if seized and destroyed in an initial invasion―wouldn’t be able to be rebuilt or replaced in time to help them fend off a second attempt.

The centralization of all of their significant assets in one system had been one of their biggest defensive advantages, giving them an extremely small territory to worry about defending, and allowing them to concentrate their forces in a singular location. However, it also had the downside of leaving them with few outside resources to draw on if the need arose. No additional sources of weapons and materials that they could bring in, or secondary locations which they might fall back to if the worst should happen―

The general cut that thought off. It was a dangerous one for her to have, especially once she met with the queen. If Her Majesty felt even that niggling kernel of doubt within Charon, the changeling would find herself ‘replaced’. With extreme prejudice.

Still…

As one of Queen Chrysalis’ senior generals, it was Charon’s mandate to take whatever steps were necessary to secure the hive and to thwart the efforts of their enemies. She had been granted rather broad authority in that regard as well. She would not have been elevated to the position that she was in if she didn’t have the trust and faith of their queen to act without explicit and direct orders. Especially if whatever Charon wanted to do was genuinely in the best interests of the hive as a whole.

Charon depressed a button that summoned the bridge. A moment later, the DropShip’s captain reported in, “Yes, ma’am?”

“Captain, I want you to send a message to the JumpShip Halifax. I have new orders for them. They are to proceed to Aether, where they will deliver a message to the Captain-General. I’ll have the message for them within the hour.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

The line went dead and Charon went to work drafting the missive that was to be passed to Captain-General Stellar Nova. Or rather, the changeling that was posing as the leader of the Our Worlds League.

They might have access to some additional resources after all, Charon mused.

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