Waiting was hell. Firefly had waited for the Armistice. She had waited in the ruins of Valdus for the airship home five weeks after the bloody battle had begun. She had waited in the canyons before the Talon ambush that had nearly ended her. She had waited to hear news of why an assassin had attempted to kill the captain, sending the fleet into the mad spiral they were currently in. Now, Firefly waited for her internal affairs hearing.

The spartan trappings of the ready room were further exacerbated by the presence of MARSTAG troopers posted at the door. Each griffon marine was decked out in full kit for CQB: body armor, helmets, balaclavas, and Aquellian KR rifles. Friendly and conversational they were not. Their eyes constantly darted from occupant to occupant as if daring them to draw a weapon and start a fight.

Firefly knew better. As likely as it was that she could disarm or incapacitate all four marines at the door faster than they could sight in, it was her job to comply, otherwise any remaining goodwill Brahma had managed to squeeze out of the Admiral would be squandered in seconds. Not to mention they were technically considered allied forces and such a gambit would be straight up fratricide.

“How long are they going to have us in lockdown?” Thunderlane grumbled as he paced.

“As long as it takes the admiral to go through her investigations.” Roshina said. Her eyes were closed, her arms crossed and her legs kicked up on the seat in front of her.

“That could take ages. At this rate, the Talons will wipe us out before we figure out who sold us out.” Sunburst growled. “At least we’re out of the damn bunk rooms for a few hours. I swear to Celestia’s tits, if I have to hear that hoofball bouncing off the bulkhead one more time I’ll --”

“Not my fault I got bored,” Thunderlane shrugged. “Besides, I wasn’t the one who nearly clogged the head…”

“Okay, so maybe that last MRE didn’t quite agree with me,” Eastwind chuckled sheepishly.

Eastwind’s silliness was rebuffed with an eyeroll and exasperated sigh from Sunburst and a hoof-stifled chuckle from Thunderlane. Firefly herself snorted in frustration. Everyone had their own way of coping.

It had only been a few days, but the tension in the air was palpable. Combat resolved itself in an instant of violence. This constant watch by armed guards, the threat of being accused of being a traitor, and the uncertainty of which commands and commanders were legitimate lingered and festered.

“So I see the admiral still has her head up her haunch,” Khog grumbled at the clock. “We’d get this done faster if we went up to her compartment and blew open the hatch!”

“Not without getting shot full of holes by every marine on this ship, Rojo.” Thunderlane said. “Last time I checked, even dragonscale doesn’t stop seven-six-two FMJ at point blank range.”

Khog managed a pained grin at Thunderlane’s refusal to ditch the nickname. “My point still stands! You already know I’m not one to sit around. I just want this done and over with.”

The banter continued around Firefly, quickly fading into noise as she brooded. She knew Admiral Flyleaf. She’d served under her during the War. They’d stood together as the victims of the Goodwill massacre were buried and overflown the ruins of Valdus when victory was finally declared.

Flyleaf was a good mare. She’d never betray Firefly. Would she? Firefly wasn’t so sure anymore. Steelfeather’s assassination attempt had come seemingly out of nowhere utilizing magical coercion as a main component. What was to say Flyleaf wasn’t also suffering the effects of a geas? Or worse yet, the commissioner of the geas?

Before Steelfeather had been compromised, he had been a loyal marine. Before Cindermane had gone rogue, she had been a loyal commander. Before the Admiral stabbed them in the back, she would have an exemplary record of service. Brahma seemed to trust the Admiral, however, and if Firefly couldn’t trust Brahma’s judgment, she didn’t know whom she had left to trust.

“You seem troubled.” Roshina finally spoke.

Their seating at the rear of the ready room afforded them full view of both the guards and the various cliques that had formed as the cooped-up fliers attempted to pass the time. While Firefly was bristling with stiff hairs and restless ticks, Roshina was uncannily tranquil. Firefly’s envy soon gave way to curiosity.

"And you seem less than troubled,” Firefly said, giving Roshina a sidelong glance. “Frankly, I'm not sure which bothers me more.”

Roshina cracked a wry grin. "I try not to let the enemy see when they have me backed into a corner. It makes them overconfident, more likely to make mistakes in their own hubris."

“That’s what bugs me. Who even is the enemy anymore? Is it the Talons? Or is it our own fleet?”

“And now you understand the trouble ACG must go through each and every day. You never know whom you can trust in counterintelligence and blackside operations.”

“Do you even trust your handlers?”

“I trust them to give me good intelligence. No sane handler would willfully lose assets through purposeful withholding of intel.”

“That’s not the same as trusting them.”

Roshina raised an eyebrow; as much of an eyebrow could exist on a scaled creature. “I don’t see the difference.”

“There’s professional trust and personal trust,” Firefly said, holding her front hooves in front of her as if weighing the two. “I trusted Rafale on a professional level. I trusted that she had a plan and that she wouldn’t withhold mission-critical intel. Just like your ACG handlers, no sane operative wants to lose assets.”

Firefly leaned back in her seat, resting her seat against the rear bulkhead of the ready room. She propped her rear hooves up on the seat back in front of her and crossed her front hooves in front of her chest. “Personal trust is different. I would never bring Rafale to a bar fight or a strip club. As soon as I’m in civvies she may as well not exist. You don’t have to be friends with someone to trust them professionally. But you do have build friendships to trust someone personally.”

“I see,” Roshina said. She tapped her chin in thought. “Do you trust me, Firefly?”

“I trust you.”

“Now is that personal or professional trust?”

Firefly frowned and pawed at the deck with a rear hoof. “Both I would think.”

“You seem uncertain.”

“I’m ‘uncertain’ of everything these days,” Firefly spat.

“Even your friends?”

A pang of guilt shot up Firefly’s spine. She sighed. “You saw what happened back on the Sova. I lost my shit back there. My own flight thinks I’m unfit to fly, let alone lead. So yeah, I’m pretty damn uncertain they’re still my friends.”

“Is that what you think they think of you or what they actually think of you?”

“What’s the difference?”

“You can’t read others’ minds, Firefly,” Roshina said, crossing her arms across her chest and reclining in her seat, mirroring Firefly. “And even if you could, I doubt you’d want to. Regardless of whether or not they like you at the moment, your friends trust you to speak your mind. The least you could do is give them an opportunity to do the same.”

Firefly looked down, closed her eyes, and sighed. “You’re right. Not that it will matter if we don’t get out of this hellhole.”

“They’ll come for us soon enough. If not today then tomorrow. The Admiral has been pretty methodical about how they’re moving us about. They always transfer us to the ready room and back to the quarters at around the same time.” Roshina chuckled quietly. “If I were them I would have dosed us all with ataxium and had us locked in the brig.”

“Yeah well I’m glad they didn’t for now.” Firefly half laughed, half contemptuously snorted. “You think Flyleaf will catch the mole?”

“Honestly? No,” Roshina shook her head. “Not this way. I’m sure memoirs of the Indrek campaign were standard reading in Naval Academy. You already know how counterinsurgency works.”

“You’re saying this is full blown insurgency?”

“Let us hope it’s not. But even if it’s just one small cadre, she’ll never catch them like this. COIN needs to be conducted organically. It has to be grassroots. Unless you are intentionally trying to lose, you can’t apply top-down pressure and expect it to work. If she tries to fight this like a classical war -- against her own people no less -- she will lose.”

A twinge of obfuscation tainted Roshina’s words. The words said one thing, but her tone said something else entirely. Firefly’s ear twitched. “You think Admiral Flyleaf is a conspirator.”

Her response was less a question than a statement of what the dragonness had left unspoken. A wan smile tugged at the corners of Roshina’s mouth

“I cannot say for certain. But if she’s not purposely disrupting fleet operations, she’s certainly playing right into enemy hands.”

Firefly was uncertain, now more so than ever before. Something about what Roshina said left a bad taste in her mouth. It took a moment to recognize the feeling. It was guilt. Not just regular guilt from regretful action, the self-doubting kind of guilt; the feeling that she was wrong even if she wasn’t at fault. The same kind of guilt she felt on the night they first met.

She’d put faith in Brahma, in Flyleaf. But Roshina’s words began to corrode it like gentle acid. What if Roshina was right? What if Firefly’s judgment of the Admiral was wrong? What if they were just being set up for an even bigger fall? Neither of the options Roshina had presented sounded particularly good.

CLUNK.

All eyes turned to the hatch as the lock disengaged. Four marines stepped through the portal, quickly fanning out and taking positions by the hatchway, forming an impromptu cordon with the two marines already at the hatch. Finally, a single figure stepped through the door, a pegasus in full battle rattle with combat uniform bearing the ship patch of the Eidolon.

“Commander Firefly,” he called. “Come with me.”

“Time to get this over with,” she muttered to herself. Firefly felt eyes upon her as she stood from her seat. She turned to Roshina with a wry grin, “When I get back I’ll let you know who the real bad guys are!”

“Were it only so easy.” The dragonness’ response was uncharacteristically flat.

Firefly raised an eyebrow, but had no time to investigate. She trotted down to the front of the ready room. “I take it you’re not allowed to tell me anything, sergeant?”

“No, ma’am. That’s above my pay grade.” He shook his head as he waved the marines through the hatch and pulled it closed behind them.

“Good sire.” Firefly didn’t expect to glean any intel out of him. She wasn’t a master spy like Rafale and couldn’t scry for clues in the aether like Roshina or Atal. “Guess I’ll just have to grill the IA agent until they tell me something…”

The route through the ship was circuitous, made even longer by the complete lack of activity within the vessel’s passageways. Firefly’s own hoofsteps rang hollow through the bowels of the ship. There was not another soul in sight save for the marines with which she now traveled. Every hatch she trotted past was locked. Down the levels they went, every deck just as lonely as the last.

Finally, they reached the Majestic’s brig level. Instead of merely tossing her in an isolation cell, however, the marines guided her down another passageway. The sergeant opened the hatch to what at first appeared to be another isolation cell and ushered her inside. The very timbre of her hoof falls on the deck changed.

Gone was the hollow clank of hooves on steel, replaced instead by a strange hum that momentarily peaked with each strike of a hoof. Sterile, piercing white-blue light uniformly illuminated the entire space, giving Firefly the illusion of floating in the midst of a snowstorm. The compartment was also cold, several degrees below ambient shipboard temperature, though thankfully nowhere near the subzero chill outside. Its walls bore no identifying features save for a single drain hole in the middle of the gently sloped floor. Firefly chuckled to herself, briefly considering utilizing it just to give her interviewers as hard a time as they were sure to give her. It was then that Firefly realized where she was.

This was one of the Majestic’s rendition rooms.

The marines nudged her to the bench, but did not strap her in. Firefly didn’t start a fight. The time to escape would be later, when she could use the interrogator as leverage. The marines filed out, the hatch slamming closed and locking behind them. As soon as the hatch locked, the compartment fell silent, eerily so. Normally, Firefly could hear the hum of the ship’s engines the movement of hooves through passageways, and the clanging of hatches and machinery resonating through the ship. But all of it had suddenly vanished.

She took a deep breath and laid down on the bench, doing her best to relax. The sensory deprivation was unnerving, but expected. She had to keep herself calm and fresh for the interrogator.

Firefly hadn’t been in a rendition chamber since SERE training. It was there that she had gotten a taste of “enhanced interrogation,” as the trainer had called it. While such things were technically illegal by Equestrian law, combat fliers and special operators were likely to encounter it if captured while operating in denied territory. Ideally, of course, capture was to be avoided, but sometimes circumstances were not so favorable. Of all the times she figured she would have to use her skills, Firefly had least expected it to be in her own ship against her own peers.

She was uncertain of how long she waited. It felt like an hour, maybe two, but it was likely shorter simply due to the isolation of the rendition chamber. Finally, the hatch of the compartment unlocked and groaned open.

“Commander Firefly.” The greeting was clipped, proper, and impeccably enunciated.

Firefly finally looked up. In the hatchway stood a lone pegasus mare. Her coat was a rich brown, the color of book bindings, her mane, tail, and pinions a pale cream. At first glance, her navy working uniform made her appear to be yet another crew member. But closer inspect revealed a few wrinkles on her muzzle and the white of age beginning to creep into her mane. Finally, Firefly’s eyes came to rest upon the four stars on the mare’s collar. She closed the hatch behind her and trotted up to the bench.

“Admiral.” Firefly said flatly. “Long time no see.”

Admiral Flyleaf must have thought she knew something important. Why else would she come down to interrogate Firefly herself? At least now Firefly could judge whether or not Flyleaf had been compromised in person.

“Three days ago, you were involved in an incident with Lance Corporal Anderson Steelfeather.” The Admiral wasted no further time with greeting and smalltalk. She paced around Firefly as she spoke. “This resulted in the death of Steelfeather and the near death of Captain Skywind. The report also notes your disciplinary infraction shortly before the assassination attempt occurred. My arcanists also tell me of geases and magical coercion. This entire week has been one gigantic screwup from top to bottom!”

“You’re telling me,” Firefly cracked. Her smirk quickly faded when she saw the Admiral’s face had not dropped its stony visage.

“Give me one good reason to believe you haven’t been compromised, too.”

Firefly was willing to take slights and blows from others of her rank and deal it right back. But having her integrity challenged by someone she had so admired and respected stung. It took a moment for her to collect herself enough to retort, but when she did, her voice was edged with venom.

“You first,” Firefly growled, craning her neck to face the Admiral. “You served with me. You know me. You know what I stand for. You know I would never betray those I’ve fought and bled with!”

“Steelfeather was spellbound and there is still a mole running amok on board my ship!” The Admiral shot back, continuing to pace. “You were involved in the canyon ambush, you were involved in an altercation with Captain Skywind, and you spoke with Lance Corporal Steelfeather in the hangar before his death. Which forces me to ask: have you been contacted by any agent outside of Entente chain of command within the past week?”

“Are you even listening to me? Are you even the real Admiral Flyleaf?” It came out more desperate than she had been intending it. But Firefly was losing her cool. This wasn’t the Admiral Flyleaf she knew. This wasn’t the Flyleaf she had fought alongside.

“I asked you a question, Commander,” the Admiral said, ignoring Firefly’s own question.

“I should be asking you that same thing!” Firefly snarled.

The Admiral’s face remained stony and unperturbed. “Were you contacted by any agent outside of Entente chain of command within the past week?”

“You gotta be shitting me! Have you forgotten everything about me? About you?”

“Answer the question, Commander.”

“We were comrades, Flyleaf. You saw us through Valdus when nopony else could. I really want to give you the benefit of the doubt,” Firefly said. As she continued to speak, however, her voice deepened as she twisted her words into a threatening growl. “But if you threw it all of that away; if you found it in your heart to stab all of us in the back, if you are the mole, I swear to Celestia I will rip your heart out and make you choke on it!”

Firefly leaped up from the bench, her muzzle nearly touching the Admiral’s. Her words dripped with venom, her glare could have pierced armor plate, and every muscle in her body was prepared to deliver a bone-shattering strike to what was surely an impostor standing before her.

Suddenly, a cacophonous ringing surged through Firefly’s ears. A thousand knives stabbed into her mind and tore at her eardrums. She crumpled to the floor. Through bleary eyes and nauseatingly blurred vision, she could barely make out the glowing blue gem set in purple-tinged metal that Admiral Flyleaf held in her hoof.

“Your convictions are strong, as always, Firefly.”

Firefly swung wildly, but her hooves found only empty air. She scrabbled at the deck, the bench, the bulkhead, anything to gain traction. But the knives in her head buried themselves deeper. Her limbs convulsed and seized against her furious efforts. She spat curses between gagging and dry heaves. She would not lose to a damn infiltrator!

“But also as always, your judgment is hasty,” the Admiral leaned in as she spoke. Though Firefly could barely hear through the shrieking of the sonic device, she could tell something had changed in the Admiral’s voice. It was now familiar, comforting even. “If you would have just sat still for a few more minutes, this would have been a lot easier. But now that I have your attention, listen to me carefully, because we do not have much time. I’m not here to torture you, I’m here to brief you.”

The realization clicked into place and Firefly ceased struggling. This was more like the Admiral Flyleaf she knew. It had to be a counterintel op. After all the insanity with Rafale, the Abyss, the canyon ambush, and the assassination attempt, Firefly had feared all was lost. Flyleaf’s revelation gave her new hope. She turned an ear and listened.

“The sonic emitter will mask this conversation for now. You’ll have to forgive the dog and pony show. With all that has been going on this past week one can never be too careful.”

As the Admiral spoke, she ran her other front hoof in a circle around the gem. The mental knives slowly withdrew, allowing a semblance of clarity to return. The frenzied ringing faded to a dull hum. Bit by bit, Firefly regained motor control of her limbs.

“Giving medicine to the dead, Admiral,” Firefly managed through gritted teeth.

“Noted,” Flyleaf nodded. “I have been in contact with Agent Rafale. Last night, she received a heavily encrypted message from a source within the Red Talons, codename: Hecate, a potential defector. The source claims to have operational data on both the mole and Cindermane’s endgame.”

“How do we know it’s legit?” Firefly rasped.

“Rafale’s team deemed it actionable and I trust her judgment. But in order to recover the intel we have to move fast.”

“Plan?”

“Hecate will deliver a dead drop to the ruins of Amore’s Rest. You will infiltrate the village and retrieve the drop. This mission will be off the books, so I need you to select two flights from your most trusted team of combat fliers to perform the retrieval.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Firefly barely managed a smirk against the infernal din of the sonic emitter. “I already have combat flier teams in mind: Timberwolf and Typhon. They’re my squadron’s best and I trust them with my life.”

“I’ll have them moved to the Eidolon under cover of prisoner transfer. From there, you will depart on Maven team’s ARC ship, Fortis. Deployment is at 0400 tomorrow.”

“Got it. Can you turn that damn thing off now?” Firefly groaned.

Admiral Flyleaf clicked the gem once and clipped it back to her jacket. Instantly the noise stopped. Firefly breathed a sigh of relief as the nausea subsided and the mind knives melted into the aether. If REIN had access to that kind of magitech, she’d have to be more careful about getting on Rafale’s bad side.

“I see you haven’t changed a bit,” the Admiral said, her scolding tone returning. She was loud enough for whomever was in the observation room to hear on their mics. She looked toward the one-way glass. “Sergeant, prepare for prisoner transfer to the Eidolon. I’ll have a full list for you compiled shortly. We have some more processing to do.”