An alarm chirped, drawing General Charon’s gaze away from the latest after-action report that she was reading through. The changeling mare noted the time. She closed out the report that she had been looking at and began to issue a series of commands to her office’s terminal. Once she was done, she leaned back and waited. After several seconds, the computer sounded a small chime, signaling that it had finished creating the encoded channel that she had asked it for.

A heartbeat later, the general was alerted to an incoming request for a conversation through that same encoded channel. She accepted. Her screen remained dark, as there would be no video element for this exchange. Transmitting video or holographic information took up more bandwidth than a simple audio line did, which meant that a more intense signal was needed. Charon wanted this conversation to go as unnoticed as possible, given the nature of what was going to be discussed.

“Hello, A,” the changeling began, “Are you well?”

“I’m fine, G.” The voice that responded was distorted and unfamiliar. Which was intended. General Charon was confident that she didn’t sound anything like herself to the being she was speaking to either, “There was a little bit of fuss earlier, but it’s been dealt with.”

The general thought back to the report that she’d seen earlier, submitted by Admiral Gossamer, regarding Second Fleet’s action against the breakaway division from the Clan’s fleet. It had been something of a bittersweet outcome. For all the admiral’s ships had outnumbered those of the Clans by a margin of nearly three to one, the better part of half of his ships had been either destroyed or crippled beyond the capacity to participate effectively in any upcoming actions. An additional quarter of his ships were operational, but in serious need of repairs. Only about twenty percent of his WarShips were operating at peak efficiency.

The Clanner division had gone down hard, but it had gone down in the end. Only a few of their lighter frigates and cruisers had managed to break away and escape destruction, fleeing to the furthest reaches of the system. There wasn’t anywhere for them to really run and hide, ultimately. They would be hunted down and picked off eventually, but their survival wasn’t a chief concern at the moment. Those few lighter ships were no longer a threat, but the remaining Clan fleet most assuredly was, and so both of ComSpark’s WarShip fleets had been ordered to pursue them.

“I saw. Will you be busy, or can you stop by later?”

“Why, do you need a ride?”

Charon’s gaze flickered briefly to a datapad on her desk which detailed the latest information on the composition of the enemy ships which had managed to punch through the WarShip screen and were now on their way to Equus, via the moon. They’d taken significant losses too, the general could see, but not nearly enough to truly break them. While she also knew that the shipyard intended to launch a sortie with their own dedicated aerospace fighter wings, the changeling mare was doubtful that it would accomplish much. The Clan fleet had its own fighter escorts mingled in with their forces; and while DropShips could do almost nothing to a WarShip, they weren’t exactly helpless against mere fighters, especially in such great numbers like they were.

The fighters being deployed from the shipyard were simply not going to be enough to seriously impede the oncoming fleet, let alone stop it. The Clanners were going to reach Equus and make their landings. That much was basically a given. What remained to be seen was whether or not their invasion would end up posing a legitimate threat to QueenChrysalis or not.

“Making plans, but nothing’s set in stone,” Charon replied coolly. She wasn’t committed to abandoning Equus quite yet. Indeed, there was still a good possibility that she could end up emerging as something of a hero in the end if she stayed, “I want to bring some friends along; How many could you fit?”

There was a pause, presumably while Gossamer looked over his remaining fleet composition and confirmed which of his remaining vessels had received the battery upgrade which the general had encouraged him to get during their last meeting, “Two dozen.”

The mare felt her face break into a grimace. That was far fewer ships than she’d hoped for. Granted, those were merely the numbers for Gossamer’s fleet. The entirety of the Home Fleet was charged up and able to make a jump out of the system if needed. However, Charon had not approached the admiral in charge of it, as she considered it too risky to involve one of the Queen’s officers who was perpetually in the system. There was too great of a chance that they’d lose their nerve and reveal everything that Charon had discussed with them.

If things deteriorated far enough in the next day or two, Charon might consider taking the risk and revealing her intentions with a few of Home Fleet’s captains to gauge their interest, but she wasn’t going to plan on their involvement either way. So, as things stood, she and Gossamer had twenty four WarShips capable of leaving the Faust System. That meant that there was a maximum of one hundred and forty docking points for DropShips. Likely significantly less, as Charon considered it unlikely that all of those vessels were battleship-sized or larger. Assuming a conservative mixture of hull types comparable to the fleet’s original composition, it was probably closer to sixty docking points.

A not-insignificant portion of her forces wouldn’t be making the trip out of the system with her. If it came to that, anyway. It might not.

The general was unsure of which outcome she would be more relieved by, “Understood. G, out.”

She closed down the comm channel and set about erasing the last few minutes of logs from her computer. Once she’d covered her tracks, the changeling commander leaned back in her chair and steepled her hooves in thought.

General Charon had spent the better part of the last decade personally assembling her brigade and battalion commanders. They were all exceptionally competent officers, for the most part. The units that they commanded were likewise made up of highly capable changelings who had demonstrated their competence during the Battle of Buckwheat. Charon would have liked to take all of them with her, in the event an evacuation proved prudent. Now it appeared that would not be possible. She was going to be forced to pick who could go with her, and who would be left behind to face the wrath of the Clans―

Her terminal beeped, signaling that a new transmission was incoming. A quick glance confirmed that it was not from Admiral Gossamer, but from her aide, “Yes, Major?”

“Sorry for the interruption, ma’am,” the junior officer began, “but General Blatta is on the comm. He says that he has orders for you, ma’am.” There was a brief pause, “...From Her Majesty.”

Charon muffled her derisive snort. She very much doubted that Blatta, the commanding general overseeing the forces permanently garrisoned on the moon, had received orders from the Queen specifically for her. That wasn’t the correct channel down which her orders were to come. Indeed, most of Charon’s orders often came directly from Her Majesty; especially if she was in the same solar system as the Queen. More than likely what had happened was that General Blatta had received orders from Queen Chrysalis and elected to include Charon in them because he had―incorrectly―assumed that Charon’s forces fell under his umbrella of command because they just so happened to be on the moon.

That wasn’t how things worked, of course. Blatta knew that too―or he should have, at any rate. He was likely just trying to intimidate her into following him, so that he’d get any glory from a victory, while it would look like Charon was merely following his lead.

Charon immediately resolved to not let that happen, “Go ahead and forward the call, Major. Thank you.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

A moment later, she was confronted on her monitor with the face of a rather irritable-looking changeling stallion, “General Blatta, how may I help you?”

The other changeling scowled at what he likely perceived to be an improper level of deference to his position. While their individual ranks were the same, Blatta’s assignment as the head of the moon’s entire garrison, where Charon commanded only a single division, did mean that he technically ‘outranked’ her, it was also the case that he was not, in fact, her immediate or direct superior. He could not―officially―issue her orders. However, if he was of a mind to, he could make her life and career difficult in the long term.

“General Charon, you will mobilize your division and get them on their DropShips and back to Equus immediately! Her Majesty has recalled the garrison to Canterlot.”

It took considerable effort for Charon to keep her expression impassive. Internally, the changeling mare was absolutely reeling from the shock of what she’d just heard. Under other circumstances, she felt like she could have been forgiven for thinking that this was some sort of joke. The garrison was being recalled to Canterlot? Now?!

It was absurd! More than that: it was absolutely the single dumbest decision that anycreature could have made, under the circumstances. General Charon didn’t even have to bring up the latest sensor maps of the system to know that, because she’d been watching them like a griffon eyeing a C-bit for the better part of the morning.

The Clan fleet was not heading directly for Equus, as one might have expected. They were traveling too fast for that, and decelerating too slowly to achieve a direct orbital insertion. However, they were traveling on the correct heading for a slingshot around the moon which would allow them to breakaway towards Equus with a significant reduction in velocity; allowing them to make Equus orbit much sooner than a direct heading would have.

There were still a few hours yet before the fleet reached the moon. Plenty of time for the garrison to board their DropShips and take off without having to worry about much interference from the approaching DropShips. However, those DropShips would be starting from a near standstill, and still in the middle of their acceleration burns by the time the Clan fleet slung around the moon and started making its final approach to Equus…on a nearly identical heading as the ComSpark DropShips. There’d be no way for those DropShips to evade in time, and they certainly couldn’t fend off even the diminished WarShip fleet that would overtake them.

It would be a bloodbath!

“...Excuse me, general; you said that these orders came down from Her Majesty? Is that correct?”

“I spoke with Queen Chrysalis Herself less than an hour ago,” Blatta confirmed, puffing up slightly with pride at having shared words directly with the Queen. Then his smug sneer turned once more on Charon, “She ordered the entire garrison to depart for Canterlot immediately to reinforce its defenses against these interlopers. They’ll crash against us like a wave hitting a cliff, and be just as effective at toppling it,” he predicted, flashing another satisfied smile.

Charon opened her mouth and was about to point out to the other general the realities of space travel and converging courses which he had somehow managed to overlooked…but then thought better of it. If anything, the mare supposed, she should probably be thanking Blatta―as well as Her Majesty―for helping her to make the final decision on the matter that had been weighing on her so heavily these past hours since the Clans had arrived.

General Charon knew that she wasn’t a verifiable genius. Any navigator who’d graduated from the academy―arguably any prospective navigator merely attending the academy―could have seen that departing the moon now would put those DropShips directly in the path of the oncoming Clan WarShip fleet. The time to move Blatta’s forces would have either been about six hours earlier, or when they could be properly covered by the ComSpark WarShip fleet that was about a day and a half behind the Clan ships. That way it could be assured that most, if not all, of the garrison could safely travel to Equus and make planetfall.

The mare didn’t know Blatta’s complete background, and it was entirely possible that he wasn’t good with numbers or course plotting. He was a leader of ground forces, after all, and not WarShips. He very well may not have understood all of the factors involved. However, somecreature on his staff had to! So either they’d kept their mouths shut because they were all a bunch of ‘Yes Mares’ who had been taught never to question their commander, even when he was about to get them all killed; or―more likely―Blatta had dismissed any objections because they’d come from somecreature holding a lower rank than him. After all, if the Queen had told him to come now, then surely it was safe.

Which brought up the other matter: Her Majesty shouldn’t have been operating in a bubble either. She was surrounded by advisors and experts too. Surely one of them had let her know what could happen to the garrison if she recalled it now, right?

Then again…even Charon had to acknowledge that she would have been hard-pressed to contradict one of the Queen’s orders in Her presence. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely improbable that all of the changelings around the Queen had remained mum, even if they recognized the grievous error that Chrysalis was making.

An error that was also likely being made because Her Majesty was panicking. This couldn’t have been an order made after careful consideration of all the facts, after all. This was something commanded on impulse, and heedless of the possible consequences. The kind of order issued by a leader who had lost their nerve and wasn’t thinking clearly.

The Queen was afraid, and she was making mistakes already. It was all the more troubling to see, since their forces were debatably winning at the moment. They’d inflicted serious losses on the enemy, even though they had technically taken numerically heavier ones. Similarly, while the Clans fielded a large landing force, it was paltry compared to the planet’s own defensive garrisons. Overall, at least. The Clans would certainly outnumber any local force when they landed, and there was only so much DropShip capacity at ComSpark’s disposal. It would take time, perhaps, but an eventual victory should be possible without too much trouble. As long as Her Majesty and her senior military leaders kept their wits about them.

However, that was obviously not going to be the case, Charon realized now. If they won this day, it would likely be in spite of the Queen’s leadership, and not because of it. Which didn’t mean that it was impossible for them to achieve victory. If they did manage to carry the day, the last thing that Charon wanted was for Queen Chrysalis to feel like one of her senior generals hadn’t been committed to protecting her.

“I see,” General Charon finally said, “I will order one of my brigades dispatched immediately.”

Blatta scowled now, glaring accusingly at the changeling mare, “I believe I ordered you to send along your entire division, general.”

“And I would most certainly love to do so, general,” Charon assured him in an apologetic tone, “However, several dozen of my DropShips are undergoing maintenance cycles at the moment. It’ll take hours to get them space-worthy again,” she lied, “I only have enough current lifting capacity for one of my brigades. Unless you have additional DropShips my forces could use?”

Charon posed the question as though she genuinely didn’t know the answer, and was even hopeful that Blatta would be able to assist. However, the reality was that the changeling mare knew exactly how much lifting capacity the garrison commander had at his hoof-tips. Strictly speaking, Blatta didn’t even have the ships to move all of his own forces simultaneously, let alone spare any for use by her battalions. At least it would appear like she was doing everything that she could do to comply with the directive from Her Majesty.

“Fine. Send what you can, but send them now, general!”

“I’ll issue the orders immediately, general,” Charon promised. Blatta cut the transmission abruptly, finally allowing Charon to adopt a contemptuous sneer of her own. He was a fool who was about to get tens of thousands of their soldiers killed on the whims of a madmare.

After a few more seconds spent lamenting her lot in life, suffering under cowards and fools, Charon set about selecting which of her own forces she was going to send out to be slaughtered along with Blatta’s lot. She wanted to be sure she kept back her most valuable BattleSteeds and combat vehicles, as well as her newest DropShips. She brought up a roster of her subordinate commanders on her terminal and went about selecting those who had annoyed her recently for one reason or another.

If she had to kill off some of her officers, they might as well be the ones she liked the least…

Twilight Sparkle, Xanadu, and Slipshod all sat in the Zathura’s mission briefing room with Squelch as the sage green unicorn mare brought up the holographic plotter on the table that the ‘Steed pilots were all sitting around. At the center of the diorama was Equus’ moon. Approaching it was a cloud of blue dots representing the combined forces of the Harmony Sphere and the Dragon Clans. Also displayed was another, albiety smaller, cloud of red dots that appeared to be orbiting the moon.

“The shipyards in orbit of the moon launched their fighters about an hour ago,” Squelch began the briefing, gesturing at the red dots, “They’re timing it so that their orbit will allow them to intercept our fleet as we sling around,” Two hashed lines appeared in the holographic projection, illustrating how the elliptical path that the fighters were in would bring them to meet the flyby pass of their own ships.

“The problem is that we’ll still be performing our deceleration burn,” the DropShip commander informed them, frowning slightly, “Our margins are already so thin that if we stopped burning for more than a minute or two, we’ll be traveling too fast to make Equus orbit. We’d bounce right off the atmosphere. By the time we slowed down and got back, the changelings would have their own fleets in orbit of the planet already and we’d be properly fucked.

“Which means we can’t turn our ships to meet the fighters. We’ll be coming at them ass-first; giving them perfect up-the-plot shots on all our DropShips almost entirely uncontested.”

The pilots were all grimacing now as well as they considered the layout of the battle that was to come. It was certainly far from an ideal situation. While most craft did have at least some defenses in place to cover their rearward arcs, it was largely the opinion of most that those armaments represented a ‘token’ allotment, at best. Even where WarShips were concerned. What the DropShips themselves possessed in terms of weaponry certainly wasn’t going to be enough to keep those changeling fighters from scoring enough devastating hits to further deplete their numbers.

Which was where the three ‘Steed pilots came into play. “Mig and Doppler have worked out how to wire the targeting computers of your ‘Steeds into the ship’s sensor feed. It won’t help your effective weapons range much,” the sage green mare admitted, “but you’ll be able to see where the enemy’s coming from more than a couple kilometers out at least.”

“What about our own fighter screens?” Xanadu inquired, “How much help are they going to be able to provide?”

Squelch was already shaking her head, frowning, “Not as much as we’d like. They’re in the same boat as the rest of the fleet: If they stop decelerating for too long, they’ll overshoot Equus’ orbit. Which means no fighter support for the landings, and we’ll want them there to keep the planet-based fighters from harassing us.”

The last was said with a glance cast in Slipshod’s direction, seeking confirmation from the changeling that a not-insignificant number of ComSpark aerospace fighters were present on Equus, and would be keen to raise objections to the Clans landing their DropShip’s there. Cinder’s WarShips wouldn’t be much help in repelling such small and maneuverable craft, and the DropShips themselves would have limited evasive options while landing. Having their own screening force of aerospace fighters was going to prove essential to the landing effort, which meant that as many of them as possible had to stay with the fleet.

So, unfortunately, the majority of the fighting this time was going to have to be done by the DropShips and their embarked BattleSteeds.

“Do we have an estimated closing speed for the engagement?” Twilight inquired curiously.

“A lot of that’s still up in the air right now. It’s going to depend on the changelings,” Squelch said, “But if they don’t deviate too much from how things are right now, we’re looking at between three and four hundred meters-per-second relative velocity at intercept.”

Slipshod and the zebra pilot visibly winced. A stripped-down Pipsqueak or Breezy galloping at top speed along a flat stretch of ground might top out at thirty meters per second. Under even ideal circumstances, it would be quite difficult for even an ace ‘Steed pilot to hit such a target. The idea of trying to engage something moving more than ten times that speed was daunting, to say the least.

Honestly, it would actually be impossible under normal circumstances. The targeting systems on a ‘Steed simply weren’t designed to track targets moving that quickly. Even aerospace fighters moving through an atmosphere rarely moved that fast, as it made engaging ground targets quite difficult. However, thanks to Doppler and Mig working to network the Zathura’s targeting and sensor suite into that of their BattleSteeds, it was possible that they’d have a decent chance of scoring a hit. Maybe.

Fortunately the battle was happening in space, which meant that their weapons would have a substantially longer effective range than they did on the ground. Their energy weapons wouldn’t be scattered by the atmosphere, and their missile and kinetic weapons wouldn’t be fighting against the force of gravity.

“Just do what you can,” Squelch said, flashing the three pilots an appreciative smile. She recognized that this wasn’t the sort of engagement that they had trained for, or had much experience with. These sorts of fights were notoriously dangerous besides. While a ‘Steed’s hooves were capable of magnetically affixing to the hull of a ship, the force of that magnetic grip was hardly infinite. If a DropShips made a hard enough maneuver at the wrong angle, it was hypothetically enough to wrench them off the hull and send them tumbling into space.

And, given the magnitude of the deceleration involved, getting ‘shaken’ off the side of the DropShip would end up with the ‘Steed in question being many kilometers away in less than a minute; swinging around the moon on a completely different trajectory from the rest of the fleet and tumbling out into space. Getting rescued would be out of the question too.

The trio of pilots exchanged looks. None of them was exactly ‘looking forward’ to this fight, but they each understood that it absolutely wasn’t one which could be avoided. If there was a bright side to all of it, it was that the fight would also not be a long one. With the relative velocities involved, it was doubtful that the two fleets would be within effective firing range of each other for more than a minute or two. It would be a minute or two of absolute chaos in one of the most unforgiving environments known to equinekind, yes; but it could theoretically be worse.

“I guess we’d better go do our pre-launches then,” Slipshod said with a resigned sigh, smirking at the other ponies in the room. The other pilots nodded and everypony got out of their chairs. He turned towards the door to follow the others out towards the ‘Steed Bay, but was stopped by a hoof on his shoulder. The changeling turned in time to meet Squelch’s lips as they touched his. His eyes widened briefly in surprise before the stallion reciprocated the unannounced embrace. It wasn’t a particularly deep or passionate kiss, but the changeling was patently aware of the emotional weight that it carried with it.

The anxiety, worry, fear, dread; a whole host of emotions that hadn’t been evident at all on the unicorn’s face during the short briefing she’d just given them, all flowed into the changeling from his lover. In their place, Slipshod fed her hope and courage, reinforcing the unicorn’s fragile resolve. She wasn’t used to battles like this one. Squelch ran a dinky little understrength mercenary lance on small operations. Massive fleet engagements in space weren’t what she was experienced with or used to, and they’d taken significant losses already. She’d already watched DropShips three and four times their size disintegrate before her eyes with all hooves lost. Hundreds of lives snuffed out in an instant, all while aboard a ship tougher than the Zathura could ever be.

It was only by sheer luck that they hadn’t met that same fate, and Squelch was absolutely terrified that their luck would run out at any moment.

“Don’t worry,” Slipshod whispered when he finally broke the kiss, nuzzling the mare gently, “I didn’t come all this way just to die on the fucking doorstep,” he insisted with a defiant snort. “We’re going to make it to the surface. Then we’re going to kick Chrysalis’ flank and save the galaxy.”

“I sure hope so…” Squelch said in a breathless sigh that could have almost been mistaken for a prayer.

“You just remind Aileron to keep a light hoof on the stick, okay? I want to make it to Equus’ surface, but I want to do it at something just a little slower than terminal velocity!” The changeling stallion grinned broadly at the unicorn. He was rewarded with a reciprocated smile of her own. His mission for the moment accomplished, the pilot finally left the briefing room and headed for his ‘Steed. Squelch, meanwhile, returned to the bridge.

The DropShip’s ‘Seed Bay was practically deserted by the time Slipshod got there. Only a few fully vacuum suited technicians were trotting around as they cleared away their equipment in order to allow the three BattleSteeds to launch. Everycreature else, especially the dragons, had been recalled from the cavernous room that accounted for a full third of the DropShip’s total volume in anticipation of it being opened up to space in order to deploy the ‘Steed’s to the ship’s hull. Only those technicians who would be essential to the deployment were present. The rest were presently in the bow of the Zathura where pressure would be maintained.

That being said, every other member of the crew was also wearing their own airtight suits just in case incoming fire opened up inhabited sections of the ship to vacuum.

Slipshod cantered along the gantry towards his recently modified Crystal Cavalier and slipped inside. He double-checked the seal of the hatch to ensure that it was indeed creating a perfectly air-tight seal, and similarly triple-checked that the environmental systems were configured for zero-atmosphere operations. It wouldn’t do to suffocate the moment the bay doors opened, now would it?

Satisfied that the cockpit would serve as a contained environment, the changeling slipped his helmet on and finally lay on his piloting couch. His hooves danced over the controls with near-instinctive motions.

>>REACTOR: ONLINE.

>>SENSORS: ONLINE.

>>WEAPONS: ONLINE. ALL SYSTEMS: NOMINAL.

Slipshod keyed in his comlink to connect with the active channel which had been set up for the lance, “Gallop One reporting startup complete. Standing by for deployment.”

“Gallop Two is ready,” Twilight said a second later.

This was almost immediately followed up by Xanadu, “Y’all really already forgot about our callsign thing, huh? Xanax ready!”

The changeling chuckled, rolling his eyes. He supposed that he must have been more nervous than he’d realized, falling back into old habits because his mind was too busy processing the stress of the situation to remember the change they’d agreed to, “Correction, Stable: Bug reporting startup complete and standing by.”

While Slipshod didn’t hear the audible groan from the purple alicorn, he did pick up a hint of annoyance coming from her direction tinged with resignation, “...Twiggie ready.”

“Good copy, Gallop Lance,” High Gain’s voice crackled over the channel from her station on the ship’s bridge, “Waiting on clearance from Bay Team to commence launch…” Slipshod peered out of his ‘Steed’s cockpit at one of the nearby suited technicians. They finished up whatever it was they’d been working on and waved a hoof at somepony he couldn’t see.

“Bay Team ready to deploy ‘Steeds,” Mig chimed in.

“Understood. Awaiting ‘Go/No-Go’ from Stable Actual,” the bridge’s comms tech informed them before going silent.

“Damn it,” the changeling pilot heard the zebra pilot curse, immediately tensing up at the prospect of being informed about a problem with his Philomena, “I can’t believe we forgot to give Squelch a cool call sign too!”

Slipshod let out a relieved sigh, punctuated with a brief laugh as the tension which had to quickly welled up within him immediately vanished upon hearing what the striped pilot had become distressed by. “We’ll discuss it with her after we take Canterlot,” he suggested.

“When do I get a cool call sign?” The kirin tech inquired in a tone that possessed the faintest hint of an edge at the thought of having been left out of the zebra’s thoughts as well.

Fortunately, it seemed that Xanadu would be able to recover from the perceived slight rather quickly. “Actually, I have a few ideas for one already that I was going to run by you later,” he informed her, “But we can talk about them now, since we appear to have a little time. First, I was maybe thinking ‘Tinderbox’, since you’re so good about getting me all fired up,” Slipshod had to mute his mic so that he could let out his poorly contained choked snort. Somepony else active in the channel didn’t manage to do this though, creating quite a bit of distortion. The changeling thought it sounded a little bit like Twilight, “After the other night, I was also thinking that ‘Banshee’ might fit because of the way you scream when I’m―”

Slipshod―and the changeling suspected everypony else on the channel with him―winced in pain as the speakers in his helmet let out a near-deafening high-frequency tone. It quickly cleared up though. The stallion had only just begun to question the cause of the sudden interference when the kirin technician chimed back in with a flat, “Oops.”

The changeling didn’t get the impression that Mig felt the least bit apologetic for what she’d done.

There was the sound of a mare clearing her throat and then High Gain announced, “Stable Actual says: ‘go’.” If Squelch had heard the last few interactions, the changeling suspected that she’d said a great deal more than that.

“Opening ‘Steed Bay doors,” Mig confirmed in a far more serious tone, quickly switching back into her work mindset. “Watch that first step,” she cautioned.

The lights in the bay dimmed, punctuated by the flashing of multiple orange lights that served to warn anypony in the area of an imminent BattleSteed deployment. Almost immediately, Slipshod heard his Cavalier being buffeted by a torrent of wind as the atmosphere began to cent out of the ‘Steed Bay. Within seconds, the sound of the blustering air dulled into silence, along with the sound of the warning alarm in the bay, though he could still see that the light was strobing steadily.

His ‘Steed quivered as it spun around towards the opening doors. Slipshod felt his heart briefly leap up into his throat as the changeling found himself looking out into the black vastness of space. It was a very disorienting experience, to be sure. Intellectually, he recognized that the DropShip was presently careening through space at a speed well in excess of fifty thousand meters per second. They were also slowing down at a rate that was more than two times greater than that at which a boulder could fall through the air on a typical planet. Both of which were frightening values to try and wrap his head around.

Yet, at the same time, the view that he was confronted with was deceptively calm and placid. The field of stars appeared unmoving. The few DropShips that he could see from this vantage point were likewise hovering in place, by all appearances, as they kept perfect formation with the rest of the fleet. It almost felt like he might as well be looking out at a pristine night sky from a mountain ledge.

A ledge that, if he stepped off of it the wrong way, would send him hurtling through space at incomprehensible speeds, never to be seen or heard from again.

That thought firmly set in his mind, Slipshod very gently urged his ‘Steed forward out of his stall and along the extended ramp. The changeling tried not to think too much about the even more precarious position his Crystal Cavalier was in, now that he was experiencing all of those same previously-mentioned velocities and accelerations, but no longer safely sequestered within the DropShip. He just focused on carefully turning his ‘Steed back around to face the open bay.

He locked his focus onto the lateral hull of the Zathura next to the open doorway he was currently standing on. It took a bit of effort to convince his brain to forget about everything it thought it ‘knew’ about how walking worked as he reared the Cavalier back on its hind hooves and planted the forward pair against the side of the ship. He next detached the rear hooves from the door and swung them around to join the other two on the outer skin of the Zathura. He glanced to his right and saw that Twilight’s Rainbow Dash was likewise just now clamping down against the engine section of the DropShip.

Just beyond her ‘Steed, Slipshod could see the silver moon of Equus, slowly growing in size as they ‘fell’ towards it.

“Twiggie, you and I will station up top. Xanax, you go ventral.”

“Roger.” “Moving.”

With continued mindful diligence, Slipshod nudged his Cavalier ‘forward’ up the side of the Zathura. His stomach just about launched into his throat as he felt the ‘Steed tip ‘downward’ as it slowly crawled onto the DropShip’s dorsal side. Dull ‘thunk’s announced his ‘Steed’s progress across the steel hull as he took up position facing the stern of the ship.

His gaze darted around the revised Heads-Up-Display provided by the newly-installed Clan electronics suite, as well as some of the additional information that was clearly the product of its interface with the Zathura’s own sensors. Clearly marked on the display hovering before his eyes was a beacon denoting the present direction and distance of the swarm of ComSpark fighter craft. The values of the numbers were barely compatible with the layout of his HUD, coming in at nearly forty thousand kilometers.

That number was also dropping absurdly fast. They would meet each other in a little over ten minutes.

Lieutenant Commander Costa studied his sensors closely as he watched the oncoming fleet approach the moon. His squadron would reach perigee a little less than a minute before the Clan vessels did. At which point, his instructions were to have his aerospace fighters pour on as much acceleration as they could tolerate and do what they could to match the other fleet’s velocity and trajectory until they were within effective firing range.

The idea was to prolong the engagement as much as possible so that they could take out as many of the enemy DropShips as was feasible. Actually managing to match their velocity with the other fleet was impossible, given the time constraints and accelerations involved. However, Costa was convinced that his squadron could keep the enemy under their guns for at least ninety seconds or so. Time enough for a dozen volleys. If they managed their targets well enough, that could easily mean a dozen enemy DropShips destroyed; and that was just with his squadron alone!

Between the six hundred or so fighters in their formation, it was entirely plausible that they could down five hundred or more of the enemy’s ships, cutting their ground forces nearly in half.

He watched his display intently as the countdown to their acceleration burn reached the one minute mark. The leading enemy vessels were just over four hundred kilometer away and getting steadily closer. The changeling performed a quick check of his craft’s engines and issued an order for the rest of his squadron to do the same. It wouldn’t reflect very favorably on his squadron if they went for the maximum possible acceleration and burned out their engines because they hadn’t been primed correctly.

Costa also checked that there wasn’t any give in his harness securing him to his piloting couch. He was about to experience the better part of four gravities of acceleration, and the dampening systems of aerospace fighters was far from perfect. The last thing he wanted was to dislocate a limb because he was thrown back violently against a loose harness strap.

“Twenty seconds,” he cautioned anyling in his squadron who might not have been paying attention. His own eyes were locked on the countdown clock on his flight console, “Ten seconds…Five…Four…Three…Two…One…Ignite!”

His hoof yanked back hard on the throttle next to his flight couch. In an instant, his fighter was catapulted forward, compressing him against the harness that was latching him down. His flight suit fought back against the effects of the phenomenal acceleration in tandem with the partially ineffectual dampeners, striving to keep at least some of the blood in his body from being compressed down into his haunches.

The changeling’s jaw was clenched shut as he strived to retain consciousness, his eyes locked onto the new countdown which had just started, letting him know when his craft closed to within maximum effective firing range. The burn was only going to last for about half a minute, but it was going to be the longest thirty seconds of his life.

Finally the new timer reached zero and Costa feebly slapped at the emergency main engine cut-off. Trying to force the throttle forward to a neutral position against that many Gs would have been a much riskier affair. The lieutenant commander felt immediate relief as the force of the acceleration was removed from his body. A quick scan of his systems revealed that all was well…

…And that the lead ships of the enemy’s fleet were less than fifty kilometers away and closing at nearly a half a kilometer a second, “All wings come about!” He snapped into his helmet’s mic, his hoof already pulling back on the flight yoke as he flipped his fighter over to face the enemy, “Look for my targets; fire as you bear! Contact in thirty―”

“―thirty seconds!” Doppler’s voice warned the BattleSteed pilots anchored to the DropShip’s hull. Slipshod could feel the sensor tech’s barely contained anxiety through the deck plating.

After this was all done, the changeling resolved to take the whole crew to a resort spa for a minimum of two weeks so that they could get all of this stress properly worked out of their system. Otherwise he doubted that he’d ever experience a decent meal on the ship again!

Not that Doppler’s concerns were unfounded, the stallion conceded. They did have over six hundred enemy fighters closing in on them.

As he looked out across the Zathura’s hull, the changeling stallion couldn’t help but feel more than a little anxious himself. Part of this was because of the oppressive silence that surrounded him, in addition to the blackness. Even the DropShip itself was hard to see beyond the reach of his Cavalier’s chest-mounted searchlights. Their arc around the moon had taken the dorsal side of the ship out of reach of the local sun’s light. The only source of illumination besides the exterior lights of his and Twilight’s ‘Steeds was the eerie glow of the engine thrust looming in front of him.

Hanging in the sky just beyond that flaming aurora, a small blue and green crescent rising from the dark shadow of the moon’s surface marked their ultimate destination. Slipshod found himself swallowing back a small lump in throat as he stared at the planet. It was the world of his birth, the source of all intelligent life in the galaxy, the traditional seat of power for the Harmony Sphere…

…And where she was. Waiting for them.

Equus was a world that the changeling had once believed would be forever out of his reach. Yet here he was, returned after so many years away. So tantalizingly close that it almost didn’t feel quite real. Maybe it wouldn’t until he finally had his hooves on its surface.

They had to make it there first though, Slipshod thought acridly to himself and he glanced down at his cockpit’s sensor display. And the avalanche of red blips descending upon them with frightening speed.

This had not been an unexpected encounter, and the powers that be much higher up the command chain than himself had been diligently working to coordinate a response for the last few hours. In their wisdom, so as not to leave anycreature feeling overwhelmed by the number of oncoming fighters, each squadron of DropShips and aerospace fighters had been assigned specific targets from within the swarm. The various sensor suites of each vessel had also been networked―a feat that Slipshod was led to believe by Mig had not been especially easy for older ships like theirs to achieve. This meant that all of their defensive efforts could compliment each other, and no ships or ‘Steeds should end up wasting too much of their precious little time shooting at the same target that a hundred others were.

To that end, Slipshod noted that six of the ComSpark fighters were uniquely highlighted compared to the others. The changeling presumed that those six were the enemy targets that the three of them were responsible for fighting off. He quickly divided those half dozen into three pairs and passed four of them off to Twilight and Xanadu.

“Weapons free!” He announced. Both of them acknowledge his order.

Slipshod delicately nudged his control sticks as he lined up his own shots. He was about to fire when he was momentarily distracted by a brilliant orange plume ahead of them. The massive fireball almost immediately started barreling away from the Zathura. It took him a second to recognize that he’d just witnessed one of their DropShips being destroyed, the sight was so far removed from how he’d always ‘known’ such events to look.

The changeling also found that he was losing track of his target, despite not manipulating his controls. This too took him a second to process as being caused by the Zathura taking evasive actions so as not to end up like the unfortunate souls he’d seen just a moment ago. Grimacing, Slipshod did his best to compensate for the added ‘turbulence’ and realign his shot.

He snapped off a blast from his prismatic projection cannon, sending a brilliant chromatic helix of light shooting off into the blackness of space. The distance was over ten kilometers, and the changeling quickly lost sight of the shot. His targeting computer announced that he struck the fighter, denoting a loss of nearly all its armor plating on its starboard quarter. Encouraged, Slipshod blasted away with his pulsed energy cannons.

His computer lost contact with the fighter’s signal.

“Scratch one,” he growled under his breath, moving on to targeting the next one. It was passing within five kilometers already, and it felt like it was taking his PPC forever to charge back up for another shot. He was also finding that he had additional difficulty keeping his Crystal Cavalier aligned with the fighter as Aileron moved the DropShip about.

Suddenly, a massive dark shape hurtled past them, prompting the changeling to let out a surprised curse. He stared after the tumbling object with wide eyes for a couple of seconds, realizing that it had been a Friendship-class DropShip which had been (un)fortunate enough to not be destroyed outright, and had merely lost power to its main engines. It was now careening off towards Equus with no way to slow itself down. Slipshod couldn’t tell if the vessel was going to end up crashing directly into the planet or fly right on past it on a trajectory carrying it out of the system.

He wasn’t sure which fate he’d have preferred in their place.

Slipshod shook off the sympathetic terror and refocused on his target, lining up his weapons and letting loose with all three of his heavier energy cannons simultaniously. He was greeted with the sight of a small fireball speeding by in the ‘correct’ direction.

“Scratch two!” This time his announcement was made over the radio.

“Cleared mine,” Twilight announced.

“Only got one,” Xanadu admitted with some chagrin.

“Not bad for a Philomena, to be honest,” Slipshod assured him. The zebra’s ‘Steed was hardly designed for taking out targets at range, after all.

The changeling jerked again as a nearly blinding beam of sapphire light illuminated his cockpit’s interior. He very nearly called out a warning to the others before he realized that the shot had not been an incoming one, but an outgoing volley from the Zathura’s main dorsal turret. As more of the changeling fighters passed through their formation, the DropShip’s weapons found themselves capable of engaging them.

It did serve as a reminder that it was probably a bit soon to begin celebrating their presumed success, Slipshod conceded as he searched his display for additional targets within range.

The ComSpark fighters had flipped around again, and were now burning in their direction. Physics was working against them, and the distance between the two groups was still growing rapidly, but their acceleration would still serve to prolong the time they remained in effective range long enough to get off another salvo or two. However, those fighters also now found themselves facing directly into the bows of all of those DropShips, which tended to be the firing arc covered by the majority of a vessel’s armament.

Corkscrews of prismatic light and beams of coherent energy burst into existence from what felt like every direction at once as hundreds of DropShips were finally able to bring their weapons to bear on the swarm of fighters and avenge their fallen brethren. ComSpark fighters died in job lots.

They did not, unfortunately, die quietly.

Some of them managed to get off parting shots that hit hard enough to grievously wound several more DropShips ‘behind’ the Zathura. Secondary explosions racked the unfortunate vessels and sent clouds of debris out into space. Once detached from their hosts, those fragments of armor plating and weapons mounts lost the benefit of the constant change in velocity that they had enjoyed while joined with their DropShips. Bereft of any further source of thrust, they became slaves to their own momentum…and rained ‘down’ upon the other DropShips in the formation ahead of them.

A sharp ‘ting!’ echoed throughout Slipshod’s cockpit, startling the changeling. It took him a moment to figure out what could have possibly caused the sound. He had just worked out its cause when the sound of another impact announced itself. Accompanied by the appearance of a crack in the viewport of his cockpit.

“Oh shit…”

The words came out almost breathlessly as a cold chill took hold of the changeling. Fortunately, the transparent viewport of his cockpit was rather robust, designed to be able to withstand impact from some lower-caliber autocannon rounds. Small bits of debris traveling at a couple hundred meters per second weren’t of a particular concern to him, or the Zathura for that matter.

Large bits of debris, on the other hoof…

The stars ahead of him abruptly shifted position. The reason for this wasn’t because the entirety of the universe around him had moved, Slipshod understood. Rather, it was because the DropShip that his BattleSteed was standing upon had diverted slightly in an effort to avoid ramming into the cloud of cast-off debris that had been ejected by the other vessel ahead of them. With the speeds and accelerations involved, Aileron didn’t have a lot of time to react to the threat, and thus the change in course had needed to be sharper than was perhaps prudent under the circumstances.

At least, that seemed to be the opinion of Slipshod’s Cavalier.

It was an odd sensation to be sure, the changeling thought to himself as he watched the hull of the ship seem to lurch suddenly ‘forward’ beneath him. He didn’t feel like he was moving at all, while the surface he was standing on clearly was. Although, the stallion supposed it was fair to say that he wasn’t standing on it. Not anymore.

The sudden diversion in course had apparently created more force than the magnetized hooves of his Crystal Cavalier could manage to compensate for. It had subsequently lost its grip on the DropShip, and now he and his Cavalier were being carried away by momentum. In a panic, Slipshod tried to slam the forehooves of his ‘Steed back down onto the hull of the ship. However, he was already in freefall. Jerking the forehooves of his ‘Steed outward with such intense force had the counter-effect of imparting a backwards spin onto his Cavalier, causing it to ‘rear up’. This meant that the forelimbs of his ‘Steed didn’t get any closer to the hull of the ship.

Indeed, Slipshod was now significantly worse off, as he’d inadvertently set his ‘Steed into a perpetual rearward tumble. He lost sight of the DropShip completely as his cockpit continued to arc ‘upward’ away from the Zathura. All he could see now were the stars, and the criss-crossing display of beams of energy as the battle continued to rage around them. In a matter of seconds, he was likely to leave all of it behind, the stallion realized with mounting dread.

“Help!”

It was hardly the most dignified call for assistance that the changeling had ever issued in his life. It had been more instinctive than anything, and futile besides. What exactly was anypony supposed to do to help him? Even if Aileron completely cut all thrust to the zathura’s engines, it was too late: he was traveling faster than the DropShip. They’d have to stop their decelerating, turn around, accelerate again, catch back up to him, turn around again, and start decelerating again; which would cost them time that they didn’t have if they wanted to get into a proper Equus orbit.

They couldn’t help him, and he knew that.

Slipshod’s body was very abruptly thrown hard against his restraint harness as the tumbling of his ‘Steed was abruptly halted. The sudden cessation of movement had been accompanied by the sound of a dull metallic thud, and a slight reverberation that could be felt throughout his whole ‘Steed. On his display, the changeling could see that one of his Cavalier’s forehooves was reporting that it had acquired a secure magnetic seal once more.

Slipshod stared at the report in stark disbelief. As far as the changeling could discern, there shouldn’t have been anything that one of his ‘Steed’s hooves could possibly have made contact with, let alone achieved a proper seal on!

“Gotcha!” Twilight’s voice announced over the radio.

A few seconds later, the changeling stallion had his questions answered as to what had transpired that saved his life. For while his BattleSteed might no longer have been drifting any further from the ship, it had not been completely anchored to it either. The direction of rotation that he’d been subjected to earlier had been reversed, now that a new contact point existed, and Slipshod found that his field of view had begun to drift ‘down’ as the hind end of his Cavalier started swinging up and over.

The alicorn had seen his ‘Steed lose its footing and become dislodged from the DropShip’s hull. Somehow, she’d also managed to react in time and move along the vessel without becoming detached herself. She’d reared her Rainbow Dash up and managed to latch onto him with one of its own magnetic hooves. The shimmering amethyst glow surrounding their connected limbs suggested that Twilight was using her magic to reinforce the tenuous connection.

Then Slipshod saw the hind hooves of the other 'Steed start to slip along the hull of the DropShip. His eyes widened in fear, "You're gonna fall off too; let go!"

In response, the changeling saw two additional auras of magic manifest around the Rainbow Dash's hind hooves. They instantly ceased sliding along the Zathura's armored hull. The telekinetic field then promptly expanded to encompass both of the enormous BattleSteeds, ensuring that they remained anchored to the ship.

From his new vantage point, Slipshod could see into the Rainbow Dash's cockpit. Twilight's horn shone brilliantly as it radiated magic, her face set with grim determination around exposed gritted teeth. Even an alicorn seemed to be struggling to wrestle with keeping a hundred and fifty tons of BattleSteed immune to the tremendous forces being subjected to them by the maneuvering DropShip. They were safe for the moment at least, it looked like.

The hull plate that Twilight’s Rainbow Dash was anchored to buckled.

Slipshod mentality chastised himself for daring to issue such a challenge to the universe like that.

Twilight seemed aware of the arising issue though, and her magical field expanded to encompass more of the Zathura's hull plating. This proved to be ineffectual however, as all it seemed to do was to create additional points of stress and imminent shearing. The exterior hull of the DropShip simply had not been designed to resist such extreme forces 'pulling' at it.

"Not to alarm anypony," Xanadu's voice crackled worriedly over the channel, "but all this jerking is putting my clamp indicators way into the orange. I feel like I could fly off at any moment…"

The changeling's blood drained from his face. If the zebra's Philomena detached as well, there was nopony left to save him the way Twilight had just done. Slipshod also doubted that the alicorn could apply her magic to the whole ship. At least not for long enough for them to reach safety. Heck, they had yet to get his Cavalier back on the hull! Assuming that there was anywhere safe left for him to be put down, given the state of the distressed plating in the immediate area.

Twilight seemed to recognize this too. She couldn't hope to hold all of them in place, not under these conditions. Even if her magic was strong enough, the materials she was dealing with weren't. Slipshod could already see on his console that his Cavalier’s internal sensors were reporting excessive stress in the limb that Twilight was holding on to. It was entirely possible that, in a minute or so, it would end up ripping off completely. The designers had conducted the limbs of his 'Steed under the impression that all of its weight would be pushing down on it, after all; not pulling up. It simply wasn't reinforced in the right way. Or at least, not the way they needed it to be in this specific situation, Slipshod supposed upon further reflection.

"Hold on, everypony!" Twilight's strained warning came over his headset. Before Slipshod could ask what she was planning to do, the changeling's world was permeated by violet light.

When the stallion could finally see again after blinking away the majority of his temporary blindness, he almost didn't believe what he was seeing: he was inside the Zathura. More specially, he was still inside his Cavalier, which was in turn once more inside the 'Steed Bay of their DropShip. Given the reactions of the assembled technicians, they seemed to have been just as caught off guard by the change in circumstances as he had been.

Nor were he and his 'Steed the only ones which the alicorn had returned to the ship. The Rainbow Dash and Philomena were also both present in their respective stalls, if not quite oriented in them as was dictated by procedure. That was something that Mig and her work crews would have to deal with later.

Relieved that he was no longer in imminent danger of hurtling off into space, Slipshod doffed his helmet and let out a deep, relieved, sigh. "Two weeks at the spa," he vowed under his breath before releasing his harness and shutting down his 'Steed.

He was about to open up his egress hatch when the changeling registered that the technicians outside were still fully suited. The harrowing experience he’d just lived through had completely wiped from Slipshod’s mind that the ‘Steed Bay had been depressurized in order to launch them earlier, and would certainly not have been refilled with an atmosphere, given that it was expected that the bay would have to be exposed to vacuum at least once more in order for them to get back inside after the threat of the ComSpark fighters had passed. Obviously, that last part wasn’t going to be required anymore, so they could go about restoring the atmosphere to this part of the ship once the last of the ComSpark fighters drifted out of effective weapons range.

There was an outrush of air as the atmosphere of his cockpit evacuated the moment Slipshod cracked the seal of his hatch. The changeling stallion climbed out, carefully making his way down to the deck below, as there was no gantry ready and waiting for him. Hardly the fault of Mig’s techs, he supposed; it wasn’t like anycreature had been expecting them to return so suddenly. Most of those technicians were busy fetching chains and winches so that the loose ‘Steeds could be secured properly against any evasive maneuvering Aileron might be engaging in in the near future. The last thing they needed in this bay was for a seventy ton robot to go sliding around along the room and break something essential.

Xanadu was also making his way out of his BattleSteed, looking around in clear bewilderment. Twilight wasn’t anywhere to be seen yet though. “That was convenient,” the zebra remarked, sounding just a little shaken to Slipshod’s ears.

“Quick thinking,” the changeling said. He turned back to examine his Crystal Cavalier’s right foreleg and let out an appreciative whistle as he spotted the signs of visible stress and metal fatigue on the knee joint, “Not a moment too soon either,” he noted. A frown touched his lips as he peered more closely at the damage. While it was hardly anything as extensive as serious combat wear and tear, the changeling found himself wondering if it was something that could be fixed in the next few hours. After all, it wasn’t going to be all that long before they were in orbit of Equus. Swapping out damaged plates of ablative armor was something that could be done with hardly any time at all, but the Cavalier’s knee looked like it had potentially suffered serious internal warping.

The fighting on the surface was going to be pretty intense, to say the least. Going into battle with a bum leg was hardly going to do the changeling any favors.

Still, at least he was alive and on the ship; and maybe Mig could find a way to work some magic of her own and get the ‘Steed back in fighting shape in time for the drop, “Thanks, Twilight.”

He paused, waiting for a response. However, none came. Becoming slightly concerned, Slipshod checked to make sure that he was actually transmitting on the correct frequency, and hadn’t just been inadvertently talking to himself for the last minute. He saw that everything was checking out as being functional and set correctly though. The changeling exchanged glances with Xanadu, “You can hear me, right?”

“I can hear you,” the striped stallion assured him before looking in the direction of the slouching Rainbow Dash as well, “Twiggers? You okay?

“Twilight?”

Okay, Slipshod was getting really worried now. The changeling stallion bolted towards the cyan BattleSteed, clambering up its limbs until he found a perch that let him see inside the cockpit. He could clearly make out the suited form of the alicorn princess in her piloting couch. However, she was listing visibly to one side, and her head was bowed. Scorch marks were visible around the part of her helmet enclosing her horn.

“Slipshod to Medical,” the changeling stallion called out over his radio, swallowing back a lump of worry that was growing in his throat, “Twilight’s unconscious…”

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around!