Twilight casually eyed the six-pointed purple star emblazoned on the large doors leading into the throne room. To either side, a pair of massive ponies stood guard, adorned in powered barding which concealed their features almost entirely. All that was visible were their eyes, which were doing their best to look straight ahead, as though the two were completely ignorant of the alicorn standing before them.

The tall purple mare suppressed a smile as she considered the novelty of her situation. Once upon a time, she would have been the one on the other side of those doors waiting for the petitioner to arrive and make their case before her throne. Twilight hadn’t really considered how intimidating a prospect that could be from the point of view of the petitioner. She’d always done her best to make anycreature who came to Court in Canterlot feel as welcome as possible; but it hadn’t really occurred to her before how uneasy simply looking at a door framed by armed guards could be.

Granted, even during the time of the galaxy-spanning Celestia League, her guards had been armed with simple gilded spears and dressed in ornate golden parade barding, while these two wore barding made of advanced composites that didn’t look as though it had been intended exclusively for ceremonial purposes, and the magical energy rifles slung at their sides certainly weren’t ‘just for show’. The alicorn suspected that the distinction would have been lost on anycreature coming to see her a thousand years ago though. An ‘armed guard’ was still an ‘armed guard’, even if their presence was purely ceremonial.

There had ceased to be anything remotely resembling an ‘enemy’ long before the residents of their world had ventured out into space for the first time. Twilight’s Royal Guard had been the closest thing to a military that existed on Equus―and subsequently the Celestia League―and had only been kept around for the sake of tradition. The alicorn found herself rethinking that decision now. While it certainly hadn’t been her intent, Twilight now wondered if she’d been ever-so-subtly undermining her trust with the citizens of the League. After all, if the only place in the galaxy that the common citizen saw armed ponies was when they were interposing themselves between them and their monarch, how did that suggest Twilight perceived those subjects?

It had been the little kernels of doubt like that which Cozy Glow had seized upon to sow her dissension among the creatures of the galaxy. Aspects of the society which Twilight had helped to craft that she hadn’t managed to look at from all the perspectives which she probably should have. She’d kept her guards around because they’d simply always been there in her own memory. It had been impossible to imagine the palace without them. Of course, back then Equestria had possessed enemies. External threats had existed which necessitated a military. When those threats had been forever removed, Twilight should have disbanded the Royal Guard. Or at least repurposed them.

A sad little smile threatened to mar her otherwise impassive features at the thought. As Spike had told her earlier: the galaxy was a different place than it had been when she’d ascended to the throne. It had changed long before being fractured by Tirek, Chrysalis, and cozy Glow too. Meanwhile, perhaps thanks in part to her long life, Twilight’s perception of it was largely still based on how she’d remembered it always being. Nostalgia and habit had blinded her to how society had been reshaping itself throughout the galaxy; which was all the more ironic given that she’d been the impetus behind that reshaping!

A new society―a new paradigm of existence―would require somepony who wasn’t a slave to ‘The Old Ways’ of thinking to lead it, the mare knew. The mantle of leadership would indeed need to be passed on. Just as Celestia had passed the reins of to her.

Before that could happen though, Twilight at least wanted to fix a few of her more grievous errors. The least she could do was give the future leaders of the Sphere a galaxy that was at least already on the road to recovery, rather than passing them the war-torn dumpster fire that it currently was.

Prompted by some signal that Twilight had not been privy to, the pair of guards moved as one, turning inward and each laying a hoof on the door. Both of the towering sections slowly swung open. They didn’t seem to have applied any real force to the door, the alicorn noted; the door was certainly motorized in some fashion, just as it had been at the palace in Canterlot for most of her own reign. She recalled the guards being quite pleased by the renovation back then.

“Announcing Lady Twilight Sparkle,” The magically amplified voice of Princess Flurry Heart’s Sergeant at Arms announced. The purple alicorn took note of the honorific that had been used. While it was true that she’d abdicated her throne to Flurry Heart where the Celestia League-in-Exile was concerned, it was also true that she’d since taken on the title of ‘princess’ while leading the Disciples after their de facto secession from the League and the Clans. Twilight idly wondered if the lack of acknowledgement of her new position was simply to ensure that Flurry Heart retained the more prestigious title, or if it was an indication that the League-In-Exile did not officially recognize the decision which had been made by General Mayhem and her followers.

If it was the latter, that might cause some problems down the line. Especially if her meeting today didn’t go well.

Visible now through the doors was the throne room of Princess Flurry Heart. It wasn’t just the pink alicorn princess and her Court staff who were awaiting Twilight’s arrival though. The League-in-Exile had undergone something of a ‘restructuring’ since fleeing the Harmony Sphere. Thanks to the circumstances of their flight, the Dragon Clans had gained a much more pronounced political position, becoming something akin to ‘co-rulers’; or at least a political bloc that Flurry Heart couldn’t ignore when making important decisions. In recognition of this political union, there was a second throne seated next to the alicorn’s, and it was occupied by a familiar cyan dragoness.

Also present in the room, seated along either side of the grand hall, were the khans of the Dragon Clans. Some of whom, like Smolder and Garble, Twilight recognized. Others she didn’t really know hardly at all. Each khan turned their head in Twilight’s direction, regarding her with expressions ranging from detached interest to outright malevolence. Smolder, in particular, did not look happy at all to see Twilight back in her presence. The purple mare suspected that distaste would only grow once the burnt orange dragoness learned about what had happened to her forces at Buckwheat.

She at least had one staunch ally among the khans in the form of Spike, who was seated at his place beneath a banner bearing a crimson timberwolf head in profile. Her oldest and dearest friend’s face wasn’t the mask of indifference that so many of his peers were wearing. The dragon khan of Clan Timberwolf saw little point in hiding his well-known close ties with the alicorn.

The same couldn’t be said for Flurry Heart and Ember though. Despite her own close history with the former ruler of the Celestia League, the Dragon Lord would have found it politically problematic to show too much outward bias, lest she give her detractors among the khans―like Smolder, for example―any additional leverage during this meeting. She was supposed to act in the best interests of the Dragon Clans after all, and not simply do what would help her friend.

Flurry Heart’s animosity was already well-known to Twilight, of course. It had almost certainly been only at Ember’s behest that this meeting was happening at all.

Twilight filed those thoughts away for later as she stepped through the doors. It hurt that she didn’t have the favor or adoration of her beloved niece―her only remaining family. Part of her would have loved for nothing more than to throw herself at the other alicorn’s hooves, beg for forgiveness, and do whatever it took to make amends. That wasn’t an option though. Not right now.

She couldn’t let her feelings regarding her estranged relationship with Flurry Heart distract her. Twilight wasn’t here to mend fences, she was here to get a fleet of WarShips. For better or worse, that meant that she didn’t need to appeal to the nominal ruler of the Celestia League-in-Exile. Due to the nature of her arrangement with the Dragon Clans, Flurry Heart had no direct authority over the khans. It was Ember who possessed that power.

Or, rather, it was the Staff of the Dragon Lord which possessed that power. What none of the khans―save for Spike―knew, of course, was that the staff no longer functioned as it once had. To the best of Twilight’s knowledge, Smolder and her own bloc of allies didn’t actually ‘know’ that the staff was inert, they just strongly suspected it. However, if too many of the other khans felt inclined to buck any declaration of support that Ember made and insist that the Dragon Lord forcibly compel them to help...that very inconvenient truth would come to light…

...And a great many things would go wrong for all of them.

Which meant that it wasn’t Dragon Lord Ember that Twilight needed to convince to help her. It was the other khans themselves. The alicorn needed them to agree to help her on their own recognizance. They were her audience, and so it was them she would focus on addressing. Dragons respected strength above all else. So today they were not going to see a mare willing to supplicate herself before the Princess of the League in desperate hope of forgiveness.

For the first time in five hundred years, the khans of the Dragon Clans were going to bear witness to: Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle, by the Grace of Harmony, Princess of the Celestia League, Duchess of Equus, Countess of Canterlot, Defender of Friendship.

For that was who strode into the throne room that day.

Twilight’s imperious gait was both graceful and measured. A millenia spent as the galaxy’s reigning monarch had granted her plenty of time to not only become adept at ‘walking like a princess’, but to master it! Everything about her posture and her poise as the purple alicorn stepped through those doors suggested that Twilight was not a mere ‘petitioner’ to this hall, but was in fact its returning owner. Her vestments only served to further reinforce that perception, as Twilight had chosen to attire herself in a recreation of her coronation gown, complete with a copy of the star-jeweled crown which Flurry heart also wore.

“Princess Flurry Heart,” Twilight began, issuing the barest hint of a bow in the other alicorn’s direction, “Dragon Lord Ember. Thank you for granting me this opportunity to address the khans,” The alicorn turned away from the pair seated on the throne without waiting for any sign of their acknowledgement. She’d caught the beginnings of a look of consternation on the face of the other princess though. Flurry Heart was not happy with how this had started off.

However, she was not afforded the chance to cut off the elder mare, who was already speaking to the assembled dragons, “Noble Khans, I come before you today to requisition your fleets.”

There was an almost instant shift in the demeanor of the seated dragons, most of whom had immediately sat up a little straighter in their chairs at the alicorn’s presumptuous announcement. Shock and surprise had loosened more than a few jaws as the khans processed the absurdity that was a pony having the audacity to demand the use of their WarShip fleets! That was simply not how things were done in the Dragon Clans. The khans enjoyed a broad latitude of autonomy in how and when they utilized their military might; as had been the tradition for several centuries.

There was a flash of surprise on Smolder’s face. Clearly this was not how she had expected Twilight to go about ‘asking’ for their help. Forgivable, since that certainly wasn’t the typical way that somepony might have gone about it. Of course, little about the situation was anywhere near ‘typical’, now was it? Whatever Smolder or the other khans might have become used to over the years, there were still a few immutable facts which remained as far as Twilight was concerned. The khans just needed some reminding.

“You will dispatch your WarShips to the Lameduck System with all haste. They will mobilize there to be used for the invasion of Equus,” Twilight continued.

Smolder shot to her feet now, glaring at the alicorn, “Who do you think you are, showing up here and acting like you’re in a position to give us orders?” The burnt orange dragoness demanded of the mare. Several of the other dragons, especially those from her bloc of allies, voiced their own irritation with Twilight’s demanding attitude, “We will use our ships as we see fit.

“If you want them, then you’ll have to beg for them,” Smolder sneered at the purple pony now, a cruel grin parting her lips, “With a lot of groveling.”

This too was met with mirrored nods and voiced agreements. Even a few other satisfied smiles from the other khans as then contemplated the image of Twilight supplicating herself before them.

That wasn’t going to happen though. Not today, and not to them. Twilight’s expression grew only more critical as she focused her attention on Smolder, “I’m not going to ‘beg’ you for an army which you no longer have, Smolder,” She stated simply. Upon seeing the look of shocked confusion on the dragoness’ face, the alicorn gave a subtle gesture of her wing in Spike’s direction. The purple dragon took out a datapad and tapped out a few brief instructions. The other khans were almost immediately alerted to newly received messages on their own devices.

“My duty as princess is first and foremost to protect the citizens of the galaxy from all threats,” Twilight very nearly growled at the khans, her narrowed eyes scanning the crowd of dragons as they read over the information which they had just received, “That includes marauding Clan armies. As such, I arranged for the forces of the Clans involved in the invasion of the Harmony Sphere to be ‘pruned back’ so as to no longer constitute a further threat to other worlds.

“The same fate will befall any who seek to harm my subjects!”

Smolder’s face paled as she read over the message she’d received on her datapad. Before leaving for Clan space on board the Maelstrom, Twilight had received one final scroll from Cinder. It contained her after-action report, and a detailed summary of the losses that had been suffered by the Clans which had participated in the attempted invasion of Buckwheat. While each of the four Clans which had invaded the Sphere had suffered significant losses in the endeavour, Clan Smoke Jabberwock’s had been especially staggering. Over eighty percent of their committed forces were out of action―most of them permanently. What they had left in the Sphere would barely be enough to retain what they’d already conquered.

In all likelihood, they would have to pull back from some of the territories which they’d seized in order to ensure they could adequately defend their holdings from counter-attacks by the Successor States they’d taken those worlds from. For all intents and purposes, Clan Smoke Jabberwock was no longer a significant military threat in the Sphere. At least, not in terms of ground-based armies. Their WarShip fleet was still mostly intact, but that alone wouldn’t allow them to secure additional conquests.

Clan Timberwolf had gotten off the lightest during the invasion, with Cinder doing her best to ensure that she lost only enough of her forces to justify a withdrawal from the planet without looking too cowardly. Even then, most of her losses had been in terms of eventually replaceable material, and not personnel. A resupplied of equipment and BattleSteeds would see her armies in the Sphere brought nearly back to their pre-Buckwheat strength.

Of course, since the political status of any Clan was based largely around the strength of the forces at its command, this meant that Smoke Jabberwock’s power base had suffered a significant blow. Smolder still likely possessed significant reserves of troops and materials back here in Clan space, but her force totals would now be dwarfed by many of the other Clans who only a month or two ago would have been her juniors in political rank. The same went for many of the other members of her little ‘pro-invasion’ bloc.

Those allies of hers would almost certainly be looking for somewhere to place the blame for their sudden downturn in power and status. The dragoness who’d talked them into the invasion in the first place would be a logical place for them to start. After all, Smolder had promised them riches enough to grant them Greed-Induced Bigness; and instead they were now objectively poorer than when their invasion had started, having traded some of the most advanced weapons that the galaxy had ever seen for a few dozen relatively impoverished worlds in the Sphere.

“I will retake Equus and defeat Chrysalis,” Twilight stated, leaving little room to doubt her sincerity, “The Queen of the Changelings has fallen to me before, and it will happen again. To accomplish this, the assistance of the Dragon Clans is not required,” Another round of surprised looks from the khans, who now seemed more than a little puzzled by the alicorn’s statements. If she didn’t need their help, then why was she here to try and get it?

“However, seeing as it is the duty of the Khans of the Dragon Clans to honor the oaths made to protect the citizens of the Celestia League, I will interpret any refusal to follow my commands as an implicit act of mutiny, and the Clan in question will be branded a ‘rogue state’, and considered a threat to the Harmony Sphere.”

“Whatever our ancestors might have done,” one of the younger khans spoke up, “Most of us swore no such oaths! We don’t owe fealty to a disappeared ‘princess’! Certainly not to one who gave up her throne,” He gestured towards the seat upon which a now thoroughly stunned Flurry Heart sat. The declaration was met with a chorus of agreements from other younger khans.

“You may not have sworn an oath to me,” Twilight conceded, though her own smile didn’t waver in the slightest as one of her wings extended in Ember’s direction, “But Dragon Law obliges you to obey the commands of your Dragon Lord.

“And Dragon Lord Ember most certainly did promise to help me protect the creatures of the Harmony Sphere. Not an oath to serve the ‘Princess of the Celestia League’, but a promise to always be there to help me, Twilight Sparkle, as a friend.”

“Indeed I did,” Ember said, issuing an acknowledging nod in the alicorn’s direction and exchanging a brief smile with the mare before turning to address her assembled khans, “And Dragon Law is clear. I am bound by the oaths that I make under the Law; and I pledged I would do everything in my power to help.

“If I command the khans to send their fleets, that same Dragon Law dictates you obey that command. Unless...there are any khans here who believe themselves to be beyond the reach of Dragon Law?”

Smolder, at least for the moment, rediscovered a bit of her resolve and glared at the Dragon Lord, “If you’re so worried about us refusing your order, then just use the staff,” the dragoness insisted, jabbing a claw at the Bloodstone Scepter clutched in Ember’s claws, “...If you can, that is.”

The other dragons in her political bloc nodded and murmured, recovering from their own shock as well. It seemed that, despite their losses in the Sphere, they hoped to be able to salvage some of their political clout by exposing Ember’s impotence as Dragon Lord. Twilight wasn’t sure if this was part of a broader bid for Smolder to seize leadership of all the dragons at this point, or just her hoping to drag others down to her level out of spite. In either case, Ember clearly wasn’t about to let herself be suckered in quite so blatantly.

The cyan dragoness glowered at the younger khan, “Any dragon who must be forced to follow Dragon Law isn’t much of a dragon. They certainly aren’t a particularly worthy khan,” she insisted. “How would your commanders feel if it were revealed to them that their khan was so cowardly, that she had to be dragged around by her horn to face mere changelings?”

The burnt orange dragoness blanched, too stunned by the accusation to form an immediate counter.

Other khans who had appeared defiant before now wore unsure expressions on their faces as their sense of honor dueled with their more base natures. Twilight had always seen dragon society as a precariously balanced dichotomy. On the one hoof, dragons were very much a brash and boastful bunch who prided themselves on being strong-willed and independent. Yet, they also took their adherence to Dragon Law very seriously; and this law demanded that they give complete and unquestioned obedience to their Dragon Lord in all things.

The power of the Bloodstone Scepter, which served as the Staff of the Dragon Lord, to control the wills of other dragons helped in this regard, of course. No dragon was powerful enough to resist its magic. Ideally that compulsion wouldn’t be necessary, as a dragon’s own pride in simply being a dragon should be enough to get them to adhere to the tenets of Dragon Law. Ideally.

Twilight wasn’t convinced that they could wager everything on that though. If the other khans had chosen to call Ember’s bluff their entire society might have come crashing down around them, leaving behind only anarchy and bloodshed. So the mare chose to give the khans a nudge in the direction she wished them to ultimately go, “Your ancestors’ entire purpose for relocating to this part of the galaxy,” For it would not do to imply they had ‘run away’ or ‘retreated’, Twilight knew, “Was to build forces with which to defeat Chrysalis,” the alicorn reminded them.

“If there are those among you who intend to renege on that intent, then so be it. I came here under the impression that the Clans were led by dragons; and I don’t need trembling lizards too afraid of a few bugs slowing me down.”

“You dare―?!” Another of the dragons bolted out of her chair, but the alicorn stopped her protest with a look.

“You’re damn right I ‘dare’!” Twilight bellowed, cowing the dragoness to silence and even managing to get her and a few of the other khans to actually recoil. The purple alicorn glared around the room at the other assembled dragons, “You all sat here for five hundred years waiting patiently for the right time to strike and remove the changeling scourge from the galaxy. Then, when that time finally arrived, what did you do? You launch your assault against the very creatures your ancestors were charged to defend!”

Her eyes drilled into Smolder now, pointedly condemning the ‘leader’ of the invasion of the Sphere. Garble and some of the others had the good sense to squirm uncomfortably in their seats. Though far from an advocate for the invasion, Spike too wore a somber expression. He knew that his own Clan’s involvement―while far less destructive―had been far from bloodless either.

“You deliberately skirted your duties in the pursuit of sating your own personal greed,” the purple alicorn growled, “Plundering wealth just as wantonly as the changelings plundered love and lives.

“If you insist on acting like changelings, Celestia help me, I will treat you like the changelings and wipe you from the galaxy the moment I’m finished with Chrysalis!

“I built the Celestia League and the CLDF to protect creatures from harm. If that creation has now become a threat to them, then I promise you that I will absolutely burn it to the fucking ground!

“See if I won’t!”

The chamber echoed with the alicorn’s final threat―her promise. Every dragon khan wore a look of surprise, and more than a few seemed worried on top of that. Flurry Heart too appeared shaken. Meanwhile, Dragon Lord Ember had her head cocked, looking a little intrigued at the notion that the usually quite reserved and non-violent Princess Twilight Sparkle that she’d always known would vow such a thing. Spike looked...conflicted. He certainly didn’t fault the alicorn for taking a confrontational approach when addressing the khans―they’d discussed this audience and how to handle things earlier. However, that wasn’t the same thing as saying that he actually liked seeing this side of his dear friend.

He also held himself at least partially responsible for creating this whole situation. He’d allowed himself to compromise with regards to the Elements of Harmony, and the League-in-Exile found itself facing its current internal problems as a result. He had thought that he was helping to ease cultural tensions between dragons and the rest of the League, but clearly it had only made things worse.

Now his friend was charged with cleaning up the mess that he’d left for her. Fifteen hundred years of time had passed since he was the little dragon whelp living in her home, and somehow Twilight was still having to fix what he’d broken.

Finally, Flurry Heart spoke. Her tone was measured and even, betraying little of what she was feeling in that moment. It was the diplomatically neutral response of a politician, “The Crown has heard your proposal. We will reflect on your words and deliver Our answer tomorrow.”

Without another word, the younger pink alicorn stood up and trotted out of the throne room through the back door leading to one of her private rooms.

An hour later that room was illuminated by a brilliant flash of purple light as Twilight materialized in the midst of her niece and the Dragon Lord. Neither seemed surprised by the purple mare’s arrival, which made sense seeing as how Twilight had been surreptitiously invited here by a scroll she had received from Spike. Presumably at Ember’s behest. Flurry Heart lowered the glass of sparkling wine which she had been sipping from and turned her head to regard her aunt. The pink alicorn looked...well, thoroughly exhausted.

“That was quite the display earlier,” Flurry Heart quipped, “...Would you really burn the League-in-Exile to the ground?”

The question held within it a subtle, fearful note, as though the alicorn was both afraid of the answer she would receive...yet would have expected no other response to it. Twilight kept her own expression stoic. She might not have had an audience of other dragons watching her, judging her every move, but that didn’t mean that she entirely trusted her own resolve in this matter. Making threats like that wasn't something that the older mare was used to doing, “Would you really continue to stand by while your soldiers slaughter their way across the galaxy?”

Flurry Heart winced as though she’d been physically struck, but she didn’t offer up any denials. She couldn’t. Excuses though, those she could manage, “...I endured a five hundred year long regency without having to make a single decision,” the younger alicorn said in a detached tone, her eyes unfocused, looking into the past.

“There wasn’t much to do, after all. I just had to keep the throne warm while Ember and the dragons built up the military for our ‘eventual’ triumphant return,” she said, gestured briefly in the Dragon Lord’s direction with one of her wings, “Before he ‘left’, Discord told us to wait for you to come back. He said retaking Equus wouldn’t work without you.”

It was finally Twilight’s turn to look surprised, “Discord knew I wasn’t dead?” The mare frowned now, mulling over that new information, “...If he knew, then why didn’t he come retrieve me from the wreck?”

Flurry Heart could only shrug, “I don’t know. We asked him the same thing,” she nodded towards Ember, “All that he said was that while he couldn’t actually find you, he knew that you were alive ‘somewhen’. Whatever that meant…” She said, rolling her eyes in remembered annoyance.

Twilight’s own frown deepened as she tried to puzzle out the meaning behind the draconequus’ words as well. Then the realization hit her, “The stasis pod! It works by warping time, effectively ‘teleporting’ the patient to the moment it’s turned off. Which meant that, while I was inside of it, I didn’t really ‘exist’ in the present. From the perspective of everycreature back then, I’d essentially jumped to the future.

“That’s why Discord couldn’t teleport to me: I wasn’t ‘there’ yet.”

“If you say so,” Flurry Heart conceded, clearly not quite being able to wrap her head around the temporal mechanics involved, “In any case: we waited, just like we were told to,” she sighed, “the years stretched into decades, which stretched into centuries...and you still never showed up. We had the Disciples scouring the Harmony Sphere for any sign of you, but they never found anything.

“We made numerous plans to retake Equus,” Flurry heart insisted, “But every time we did, the leader of the Disciples of Discord would show up in system with the Maelstrom and warn us that we needed to wait for you to come back,” the mare exchanged an annoyed look with the Dragon Lord, who also looked like she was recalling past interactions that she’d had with the secretive group with no small amount of frustration.

“So we would wait. And wait. And wait. All the while, I would ‘play’ princess, never having to actually make any decisions or do anything important.

“Then you trotted in here, easy as you please, the pony that everycreature had been waiting for so that we could finally do something important!” Flurry Heart’s words were dripping with hints of disdain now, “Because you were the princess that actually mattered. I was irrelevant. Five hundred years spent as a seat-warmer, expected to bow out the moment a ‘real’ princess showed up to fix everything.

“Like I was still some fucking filly!”

For the briefest of moments, Flurry Heart glared at the elder alicorn, but her fury burned out almost instantly, her head bowing and looking away in shame, “I hated you for that. I wanted to prove I could do this job. The job I’d been doing for five hundred years…

“Then, the first real decision I ever made from this throne as the princess of the League-in-Exile was to let a bunch of marauding dragons go on what turned out to be a ‘murder spree’ across the Sphere. Because Smolder threatened to do it whether I officially sanctioned it or not, and I knew that Ember wouldn't be able to stop them. So I caved.

“Now millions are dead because I was afraid that I’d be seen as a failure for letting the League-in-Exile fracture in my first year of officially ruling it,” She said in a near whisper, her eyes haunted. After several more seconds of silence, the mare finally managed to muster up the courage to meet Twilight’s gaze, “You’ll have your fleet. We’ll make sure of it.”

“Pitty. I could have used some good news today.”

Overcast, the slate gray pegasus mare who served as Stellar Nova’s aide balked, having taken no more than a single step into the captain-general’s office. Her golden eyes darted to the datapad clutched in her wing which contained the latest reports she had aggregated from the various teams working throughout the Our Worlds League to restore HyperSpark communications. She was a little astonished that ComSpark was being so uncharacteristically open with the League’s head of state, given the telecom’s historical inclination towards secrecy. Of course, as the local ComSpark facilities were obviously cut off from access to the resources that would normally be available to them through the use of their communications network, perhaps they knew that they had little choice but to work with local leadership if they hoped to restore the HSGs.

The mare briefly wondered at how Captain-General Stellar Nova could have been so perceptive as to have immediately deduced that all of the reports she had gathered effectively amounted to reaching the same conclusion: repairing the network was functionally impossible. Of course, she supposed that it would hardly have taken a psychic to guess such a thing. It wasn’t like any of the last dozen or so reports she made to him on the subject had hinted at any likelihood of future success.

The mare resumed her approach and passed the datapad into the unicorn stallion’s telekinetic grasp. He scanned over the first few pages, seemingly only to gage its apparent thoroughness, and then glanced back at the aide, “How bad is it?” Less than a heartbeat later, he winced and shook his head, “Ooh, that bad, eh?”

Overcast’s eyes widened in mild surprise as the captain-general once more demonstrated his astonishing powers of perception. She’d been relatively sure that she’d managed to keep any sign of it off of her face, but obviously at least some of her own depression had leaked through to become visible. The mare offered a slow nod, “I’m afraid so, sir. According to ComSpark, their techs have managed to rule out any sort of hardware deficiencies. Whatever is wrong with the generators is related to their software.”

“Obviously,” Stellar Nova agreed, “It’s absurd to think that every generator in the galaxy could have simply ‘broken down’ within days of one another,” The stallion pointed out, casting his gaze over the information on the pad one more time, “There’s nothing they can do?”

“More or less,” the pegasus acknowledged, “replacing a few hardware components seems to be able to bring an HSG back up to an operational status, but only for a matter of hours. Maybe a day at the most. Then it just burns itself out again.”

“Can they restore the software to remove whatever ‘bug’ is causing the issue?”

“They can’t find any trace of aberrant code in the software,” Overcast explained, continuing on quickly as the unicorn frowned at her, “Obviously there is some, somewhere,” she clarified, “but without knowing what code is corrupted, there’s no way of narrowing down what needs to be fixed.”

“They can’t just...reset the whole thing?”

Stellar Nova didn’t need to feign his usual lack of unfamiliarity with ComSpark’s inner workings this time, like he usually did. Being a changeling didn’t grant him an inherent understanding of every little detail of everything that changelings were involved in throughout the galaxy. He had a broad, general, comprehension that went beyond what most creatures would likely know, but nothing too detailed. So while he might have a better grasp of how HyperSpark Generators operated than most as a result of having at least visited the restricted sections of the arrays in his past, Stellar Nova―or, rather, the changeling masquerading as him―genuinely didn’t know everything about how they worked or how they could be fixed.

That knowledge was left up to the changelings assigned to operate and maintain ComSpark’s HSGs.

“I guess not,” the pegasus mare said, offering up an apologetic shrug of her wings, “honestly, they weren’t very forthcoming on the specifics of what was wrong.”

Stellar Nova nodded along, but forced himself to look frustrated. Obviously, he knew perfectly well why the ComSpark agents that his aide had spoken with wouldn’t have been very willing to reveal much to a non-changeling, and made a note to ask them more directly himself later that evening. He’d have liked to have simply done so from the start, but his position required that certain bases be covered. Strictly speaking, there were very few conversations that the Captain-General of the Our Worlds League had with anycreature outside of the League’s executive cabinet. After all, that was the entire point of having a cabinet in the first place; so that he could delegate.

Even for a matter as significant as the galaxy losing the ability to communicate between star systems seemingly out of nowhere wasn’t something that the captain-general was just going to call up the head of ComSpark operations on the planet and chat about in secret. Considering the usually tight-lipped policy that the communications giant observed, that would have raised questions. By going through the ‘proper channels’―at least initially―Stellar Nova would be able to justify knowing about the overall issue. It would help not having to continue to play as though he was completely ignorant about everything happening with the HSGs.

“Not surprising there,” the unicorn said out loud, smirking in the smoky gray mare’s direction, “They mentioned that they can get it working by swapping out parts?” She nodded, “I don’t suppose they happened to say how many times they could do that?”

“No. But I got the impression it’s not many.”

“Oh?” Stellar Nova raised a curious eyebrow at the mare, internally wondering what the aide might have picked up from ComSpark that she probably wasn’t supposed to. Hopefully it wasn’t anything too sensitive. She was quite competent, and he’d hate to have to arrange for her to have an accident. Getting a replacement for her position up to speed would be especially annoying while he was already having to deal with a serious crisis like the League’s economy collapsing.

“Well, when they mentioned that they’d been able to get the generator working for a few hours by replacing some parts, I asked if they’d thought about replacing those parts once a week or something,” Overcast explained, sounding rather proud of herself for the initiative that she’d taken in order to be more helpful for the captain-general, “A few hours isn’t a long time, I know, but I thought that it would let us at least send out all of the really important things that needed to be sent. Official messages and stuff.”

The changeling kept his expression politely interested, but inwardly acknowledged that it was a very good idea. One that he would almost certainly have raised in private with the local ComSpark coordinator if it hadn’t looked like he was about to receive an explanation on that point now. Although he did make a note to touch on this same point tonight anyway to see if alternative arrangements could be made.

“However, the pony I spoke with said that wouldn’t be practical ‘long-term’, was the wording he used. I figured that was the case already, but I asked if it would at least work long enough to coordinate the summit that’s coming up in two months, and he said that probably wouldn’t work either. So, however many parts they have to replace the broken components with, I guess it’s not enough to get the array working once a week for even just a couple months. Six or less?”

Competent, smart, well-reasoned, and she took initiative. The perfect aide, Stellar Nova mused as he hid an appreciative smile behind his folded hooves, “I see. Well, that’s good to know. Hopefully we can talk them into letting us get out one or two of our more urgent messages in the coming weeks. Thank you very much, Miss Cast.”

The mare smiled, blushing slightly at the praise, “My pleasure, sir.”

“Well, I suppose that pretty neatly outlines our options where the HSGs go, doesn’t it? Go ahead and set up a meeting with the cabinet heads for tomorrow morning. If we’re only going to get to send out one or two messages, then we’re going to need to make sure they’re as comprehensive as we can, aren’t we?”

“Yes, sir; right away, sir!” The mare bowed her head slightly before turning and flitting out of the room to go and perform her assigned tasks.

The moment she was gone, the smile of Stellar Nova’s face vanished, leaving behind a rather annoyed-looking stallion. He reached out to the terminal on his desk and tapped out a short sequence which would seal the door and leave a notice that he wasn’t to be disturbed for any reason. Once that was accomplished, he turned his attention to the desk’s lower drawer. A green flash of flame left a changeling mare where the unicorn stallion had been sitting only a moment ago. A pocked hoof placed itself against the tactile scanner on the drawer which no non-changeling hoof would have been able to open.

After a few moments, the panel let out a pleasant chime and the drawer slid open. Within was a small communicator which immediately powered itself on upon being revealed. A few seconds later, an annoyed baritone voice could be heard from the device’s speaker, “What’s the problem?”

It was a fair opening statement, as Limerick―the true name of the changeling who merely masqueraded as Stellar Nova―had been very specifically instructed only to use this device when she perceived that there was a problem which needed ‘outside help’ to address, “The problem is that my aide is a little too good at her job, and that one of your agents is a little too cooperative when answering questions,” the changeling growled.

“What do you mean?”

“How many more spare transmitters does your array have? Is it four or five?” The mare asked acidly. The silence greeting her query was all the answer that she needed, “Now ask yourself why I know that. Because it’s not anything that you’ve briefed me on!”

“...I see,” To his credit, the ‘ling on the other end of the line sounded at least a little concerned. After all, if information like that had made it into the hooves of a non-changeling, what other sensitive information might have also leaked out which ComSpark would find ‘embarrassing’ if it became public knowledge? The telecom was already in enough hot water as it was thanks to the ongoing blackout, “Do you want her removed or replaced?”

“Replacing her raises fewer questions,” Limerick said, “I’ll forward over her latest personnel file so you can brief the agent. It’s not anything that needs to happen immediately,” the changeling mare admitted with a sigh, “So let’s put a one month countdown on it. Plenty of time to get the replacement up to speed.”

“Understood. Find out who spoke with her. Looks like we need to ‘replace’ some of our own personnel too.”

Limerick completely understood the annoyance in the other ‘ling’s voice. After all, thanks to the downed HSG arrays, it meant that getting replacement personnel from Equus was going to take much longer than usual. Perhaps many months. That meant that they didn’t have nearly as much wiggle room where agent attrition was concerned as they usually did. However, any agent suffering from a case of ‘loose lips’ was simply too serious of a liability to make an exception for.

“Will do.”

“While I’ve got you on the line,” her changeling handler continued, much to Limerick’s intrigue, “We received a message via HyperSpark an hour ago,” That got her attention. It didn’t sound like the other ‘ling’ was about to reveal that the communications issue had been solved, but if some other world was sending out HSG traffic at the cost of their own limited stock of replacement parts, then this was surely something quite important.

“It contained a message for you. From General Charon.”

Limerick’s eyes widened in unreserved shock. One of Her Majesty’s senior military commanders was sending her a message? That was rather concerning. After all, the changeling could conceive of only a very short list of reasons that a ‘ling like Charon might have for sending her a message. Clearly it was because she needed ‘Stellar Nova’―or more likely the whole League―to do something for their queen. Given the content of the message that had played right before the HSGs went offline, Limerick found herself more than a little concerned.

It had been immediately obvious to every changeling that it hadn’t really been Queen Chrysalis posing as Twilight Sparkle who had sent that message. After all, ComSpark clearly wasn’t behind the blackout! So the most logical answer was that it had been the real alicorn princess in that video, and who had a hoof in whatever sabotage had been perpetrated. The goal on that front had quite clearly been to turn public opinion against ComSpark―a goal which had more or less succeeded, given that the telecom was most definitely not well regarded by the public at this precise moment.

It would have been practically impossible for ComSpark to deny the authenticity of the message of course. After all, no amount of technical or magical analysis would have been able to detect even the slightest hint of adulteration of the video. It wasn’t a case of somepony pretending to be ‘Queen Twilight’, because it had actually been Twilight! So, unless ComSpark wanted to come out and admit that the Queen Twilight in charge of their organization was the fraud, they had been pretty effectively backed into a corner on that front and were forced to more or less ‘acknowledge’ that the ultimatum was genuine.

Limerick was skeptical as to how likely it was that the leaders of the Great Houses would bow to such a demand. Of course, even if they did, there was no way that ComSpark would be able to make good on ‘their’ bargain and restore the HyperSpark Generators back to full operation. So, even in that case, it would only be a matter of time before the Successor States declared that ComSpark had reneged on their promise and revolted against them anyway. From where she was sitting, it was hard to see how ComSpark could come out on top.

Perhaps General Charon was relaying Her Majesty’s plan in that regard?

“Please send it to my terminal,” the changeling mare said.

There was a brief pause, followed soon by, “Done. I’ll arrange for your replacement assistant, and button up some lips around here. Signing off.”

The channel closed and Limerick sequestered the hidden communicator once more. She accessed her terminal and pulled up the message which General Charon had flagged for her to look over. It was individually encrypted. Not a completely unheard of security measure for most creatures transmitting potentially sensitive documents across the galaxy, of course. Not generally anyway. It was different when changelings did it though.

Strictly speaking, all communications transmitted by a ComSpark HyperSpark Generator were encrypted, as a part of the service they provided for their customers. Since all transmissions sent over HSG were essentially broadcast ‘in the open’ at the destination, anyone with a radio could hypothetically ‘intercept’ the message traffic. So ComSpark hid everything in the whole transmission package behind a layer of encryption for which only ComSpark held the key―and had agents in place who would be the first to know if a Great House got it into their heads to try and work out a decryption key of their own. ComSpark would then decrypt the package on their own systems and relay the assorted message traffic contained within to the intended recipient.

Within those packages might be other, further encrypted, files, done so on the client’s end. ComSpark, as a rule, would keep copies for decryption later―since the various changeling agents they had peppered throughout the Harmony Sphere ensured they also knew what everycreature else’s security protocols were. This was what allowed the changelings to always be one step ahead of all of the events going on in the Sphere and ensure they could maneuver the outcomes to suit Her Majesty’s plan for the galaxy.

Of course, this meant that there was little point―generally―in an internal message going from one changeling to another being individually encrypted. After all, it was already held behind a layer of ComSpark’s ‘unbreakable’ encryption by virtue of being transmitted via HSG. Which wasn’t to say such things never happened. However, they did only happen when the information being sent was intended to be highly compartmentalized for the sake of security. This was usually done for messages regarding only the most serious of high-level operations.

Limerick’s directive regarding her assuming the identity of Stellar Nova had been one such example. A high-profile operation undertaken as a last ditch effort to avert Moonlight Radiance from upsetting the very carefully maintained homeostasis of the Harmony Sphere. A rare operation for which not even the slightest little hint could be allowed to slip out that Stellar Nova wasn’t who he claimed to be. Such operations were few and far between. Maybe even once-in-a-lifetime missions for some agents.

Which meant that it was highly unusual that Limerick would be brought in on two such operations within the same year. As she read over the message, it became quite clear to the changeling as to why this had been double-encrypted. Limerick felt herself growing extremely concerned as she pushed through the contents of General Charon’s message. Halfway through, the mare found herself having to stop and push herself away from the terminal, staring blankly at the screen.

For several long minutes, the changeling mare found herself wrestling with a deep-seated conflict deep within herself. Her initial instinct was to stop reading, reseal the message, and just delete it. After all, if it got out to any’ling, Limerick knew that she’d be fortunate to receive only a moderately excruciating execution. Perhaps sending this immediately over to her contacts in ComSpark would see her life spared? Of course, there would be inevitable questions as to why Charon would have ever sent her a message as damning as this one unless the general hadn’t already felt confident that Limerick would go along with the contained plan.

She’d never even met the general before in her life, of course, and knew her only through position and reputation. That fact was unlikely to save her though. Not if Her Majesty learned of what was contained in this missive. A lot of heads would roll…

...If Chrysalis found out, at least. What the queen didn’t know wouldn't get Limerick’s limbs plucked off like daisy petals!

Did not telling any’ling else about the message mean that she was actually going to go along with the plan though?

...Limerick didn’t have an immediate answer to that question. Which scared her. Did that mean that she was actually considering it?!

...Was that an answer in and of itself?

Besides, it was pretty clear that Charon was going to go through with everything on her end. Given what little seemed to be expected of Limerick, silence on her part would be tantamount to ‘agreement’, given that the general was unlikely to fail in her intended action as long as she wasn’t discovered...or executed during a mutiny. Of course, if the general was including Limerick and the Our Worlds League in her plans, then that insinuated that at least a few of her senior officers supported the course of action she was proposing.

That thought made Limerick even more nervous for some reason. How deeply did General Charon’s support really run? Again, the mare conceded that she likely had something of an answer given her own thoughts on the matter at this very moment. The fact that she wasn’t already forwarding this message to ComSpark seemed to be pretty telling.

…

Limerick let out a deep breath to soothe her nerves and resumed reading the rest of General Charon’s message. All the while reassuring herself that it wasn’t technically ‘treason’ if it was actually in the best interests of all changelings!

Even if Her Majesty might interpret things differently...

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