//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Entrenchment 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Light flooded into the void through a jagged crack in reality, spilling a wash of color into space. Rays of light colored like rainbows sliced through the darkness, erupting from the breach in a series of dazzling pulses. The opening widened, and a dark shape loomed from within and slowly pushed itself through the pool of impossible light.

The Harvest of Steel roared to life as soon as it was clear of the breach, its engines burning hot and its augur arrays sweeping the sector for threats and data.

Behind the megafreighter came more ships. Smaller freighters translated into the system one by one, leaping from the breach while great arcs of prismatic energy lashed from their spires. First came the vessels that had left with the fleet mere months ago, and then came more. A pair of light cruisers, featuring the dagger-shaped helms that characterized Imperium vessels and the swollen underbellies that marked them as converted cargo carriers, brought up the rear of the fleet formation.

After that came a different kind of ship. Larger and awkwardly shaped as compared to most of the fleet, it featured a bulbous head surrounded by boxy protrusions on all sides. Its hull was covered with scaffolding and exposed sockets, giving a strong impression that its exterior wasn’t finished. It was the last of the vessels, and the wound in the Materium slowly knit closed behind it.


This ship joined the others in the Harvest’s wake, settling into an approach vector toward the system’s third planet. As the other ships turned into high-orbital positions, however, it moved into a much lower and more stable orbital ring.

Once it was in position, the vessel’s hull started to shift: the boxy protrusions extended outward and spires started rising in key points. Servo constructors unfolded from the scaffolding, and crews in void suits emerged from airlocks to crawl out over the hull.

By the time the rest of the fleet started dispatching transports to the world below, the constructor craft had fully unfolded, and was well on its way to completing Centaur III’s first orbital void docks.


The 38th Company had returned.


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 19
Lander lots

“Get out of the way! Move to the second block! Yes, all of you! Lightning Dust, get your team down here and keep them grounded! The air currents could become dangerous!”


Humans, equines, and cyborgs all moved to line up at the edge of the lander lots, standing in ranks and eagerly awaiting the descent of the cargo transports. The Dark Mechanicus took formation swiftly and gracelessly, standing still and offering nothing but a few short bursts of static in what passed for idle conversation among the cyborgs. The mercenaries and other human personnel who were attending - much-depleted and fairly battered though they were - milled about and muttered amongst each other. The ponies, as ever, were the most excitable, chatting and restless.

At the front of the equine formation stood Princess Luna, standing tall in her gleaming ebony armor. Behind her loomed Pinkie’s Dreadnought, and behind the assault walker waited Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy. The mares of Equinought Squadron were unarmored aside from Pinkie, and wore respirator masks over their muzzles (Rarity, naturally, had a heavy cloak and goggles on as well).

“There it is! Look!” Pinkie shouted, jumping up and crashing back down with such force that the ponies behind her bounced slightly.

The outline of landing transports was barely visible through the smog layer, descending rapidly toward the vast open lots that stretched through sector 19 of the fortress. Pinkie waved her Dreadnought’s power fist wildly while they approached, as if expecting the vessels to signal back somehow.

“Quiet down! Stay in formation!” Harlin barked just before the thruster noise drowned him out entirely.


The first transport lander was the largest, and this vessel slowly settled into the lot immediately in front of the assembled soldiers and personnel. There was a long pause once it touched down, and then a tense silence as an embarkation ramp opened up and lowered itself to the ground.

“Would anyone care to explain why there’sh a giant bear carcassh outshide the fortressh perimeter?” Solon asked, emerging from the lander and slowly lurching down the ramp. “Alsho, am I missing an anti-ship cannon? I thought there were shix of them when I left.”

A wild, raucous cheer rose from the gathered crowd, startling the Warsmith. Ponies started jumping up and down, and humans pumped their fists and weapons into the air. The Dark Mechanicus contingent were more subdued, although most of that group shifted to kneel before the Warsmith.

Solon, for his part, was fairly stunned. “... Huh. Not ushed to thish kind of reception.” Still puzzled, he sped up and clambered more quickly down to the ground.


Behind Solon came the other high officers of the fleet. Sliver stomped down the ramp, perplexed as anyone else that the mortals below were cheering their arrival rather than watching in silent dread. Kaelith followed, scuttling silently to the lots and then quickly slithering away through the ranks of his cyborg underlings. Tolken and a clutch of other Iron Warriors marched down next, lined up by rank, with their gait strong and tall. If they found the reception awkward or surprising, it wasn’t obvious.

Behind a line of Warpsmiths came the smallest of the figures emerging from the lander. Twilight Sparkle’s armor had been repaired and polished to a sheen, and a brand new force harmonizer - shaped like a golden Chaos star - was mag-locked to one leg. Spike waddled along behind her, carrying a bundle in his arms wrapped in a burlap cloth. Gaela followed behind Spike, pausing only briefly to give a tired sigh at Pinkie's Dreadnought waving at them.

The cheering instantly doubled from the equine section, and Twilight flushed within her helmet. As far as she knew, the ponies were just happy to see her again; none of them had any inkling of what she had accomplished on her long, treacherous journey with the Iron Warriors.


“Twilight! Twilight, over here!” Pinkie Pie waved the arm of her Dreadnoughts wildly, as if their friend and leader might miss the enormous pink walker.

“Hi, girls! It’s great to be back!” Twilight said once she was in earshot. She turned to join her squadron with Spike in tow, while Gaela silently broke off to follow Solon.

“Salutations, Sparkle!” Luna shouted in the not-quite magical noise spectrum. “We art most pleased to see thou hast returned unscathed!”

“Yeah! Heh… uh… sorry again about helping Tellis trick you into a deadly voyage into the Eye of Terror,” Rainbow Dash volunteered. “No hard feelings?”

“Not at all! It was actually very interesting,” Twilight said with a dismissive wave of her armor-plated wing. “A little deadly, with the odd attacks from daemons and frequent suspensions of the laws of space and time, but still less stressful than fighting Ork Dreds, so…”

Rarity suddenly noticed something was off, and her lips tugged ever-so-delicately into a frown. “Twilight, darling, did… something happen to your helmet? It looks different than I remember.”

Twilight laughed. The helmet to her power armor suit had been adjusted so that the left side of her visor would interface directly with her augmetic eye rather than simply generating a screen for it to look at. From the outside the change had been very minor, replacing a regular lens with a block-shaped sensor, but it obviously broke the symmetry of the design. Leave it to Rarity to notice.

Her helmet cracked open and lifted off, and the other mares gasped and recoiled. Even Luna clearly flinched when she saw the optical augmetic. Twilight smiled.

“T-T-Twilight, your eye!” Fluttershy stuttered, lifting her hooves to her chin in horror.

“Oh, this thing?” Twilight swung her head sharply to the side, moving her bangs out of the way of the optics band. “Do you like it? Solon made it for me!”

“Uh… what happened to yer old eyeball?” Applejack asked bluntly.

“A bolt pistol.”

“Someone shot you? In the HEAD?!” Rainbow Dash asked, gaping.

“Yeah. Don’t worry, though; I got him.” With a wink of her remaining eye, Twilight walked past the stunned mares. “I have to drop off some souvenirs to my room, but after that we can catch up! Unless we have any assigned duties, of course! There’s a lot to do now that we’re back!”

“There is? How’s that?” Applejack asked, furrowing her brow.

“Wait, what was that about souvenirs?” Rarity asked.


Twilight walked on without answering, but as Spike followed her he flipped a corner of the cloth he was using to carry the objects in his arms. After a moment he pulled the cloth back, smirking, and rushed after the purple Princess.


“... We art at a loss,” Luna confessed, tilting her head to one side. “Did she not travel to the Eye of Terror? The dread world of Medrengard? A place of nightmares and fell magic? Surely Princess Sparkle encountered greater artifacts than… that.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it. What were those things, anyway? It looked like junk,” Rainbow muttered.

“I think there was some kind of metal plate? Like a nameplate, I guess?” Pinkie said. Her power fist reached up and scraped a finger against her Dreadnought’s helmet. “And I’m pretty sure the other thing was a… broken sword?”


“General Harlin. I have reviewed the cashualty logsh on the nooshphere.” Solon stomped up to the mercenary officer standing at attention in front of the other mercenaries. “They’re high. Alarmingly high.”

“Yes, Warsmith,” Harlin agreed. “We have a full report available, but suffice to say the general absence of the Iron Warriors was sorely felt. Morale is fine after pushing out the last assault, but our attrition is becoming a hindrance to launching operations.”

“We have accounted for thiss already,” Sliver grunted, walking around Solon’s chassis. “Although I’m quite interessted in the ssiege that ssealed Kesssler’ss fate, you will have your troopss, General.”

Sliver gestured vaguely to the air, where another pair of landers were slowly descending into open spaces behind the first transport.

“We have reinforcements?” Harlin asked eagerly.

“Yesh. And more,” Solon said happily. “We acquired new voidshipsh to replace our losshesh, and a new conshtructor vesshel to build a shervice and defenshe orbital! We’ll be able to off-load material in orbit and conduct expedited repairsh!”

"Efficiency gains of having a stable orbital dock for rapid cargo transfer and repairs should exceed 47.31 percent. It will also allow us to put our abandoned ship back into service by the time we deploy for raiding duty again," Gaela interjected.

Harlin looked surprised. “An orbital? That seems like an unusually rich boon for a standard shipment, is it not? Are the Warsmiths supporting our operations more directly?”

“In a manner of sspeaking,” Sliver drawled, walking past the others.

Solon chuckled. “Ash it sho happensh, the other Warshmithsh were quite generoush to me. It sheemsh that with the shudden and tragic dishintegration of the 63rd Grand Battalion, my peersh shuddenly had an abundance of new combat asshetsh thirshty for shuppliesh and raw materialsh. They alsho wanted to enshure there wash no… hard feelingsh about earlier dishagreementsh.”

Harlin nodded slowly. He understood that the disbanding of a Grand Battalion would leave numerous men and weapons open to being requisitioned up by other Warsmiths, but couldn’t make anything else of the explanation. In particular, such circumstances certainly didn’t seem “tragic,” and Solon’s tone made it clear he was very happy about it.

“Well, this is a most fortuitous turn. Despite our losses, we should be able to return to full productivity, and stave off any further assaults.”

“Indeed,” Solon agreed. “And I look forward to returning to our raiding operationsh ash shoon ash our new forcesh are eshtablished.”

“Pardon, Lord Warsmith.” Serith’s voice seemed to come from nowhere and Harlin jumped in surprise, his hand twitching toward his sword.

The Sorcerer made a shallow bow as he approached, using his force halberd as a walking stick. “I apologize for demanding your attention so soon after you’ve arrived, but there are certain outstanding tasks for which only you are suitable.”

Solon swiveled around to glance at the pink Dreadnought and the largely naked mares standing around its legs. Then he swiveled back toward Serith. “Would theshe tashksh happen to be armor repairsh?”

“Many are, and sadly they are not limited to your equine servants.” Serith raised an arm and activated the psykant occulus. Only two of the dispersal rods slid out of their casings, with the entire gauntlet shaking and sputtering like an engine struggling to start. One of the rods trying and failing to deploy fell out of its slot entirely, tumbling to the ground and shattering into glassy flakes.

“By the Eye, you lot did have have quite a shcuffle while we were gone,” Solon muttered.

“Oh yes, Warsmith. However, our victory in your absence may have borne… unexpected fruits.” Serith turned on his heel, beckoning to the larger Space Marine. “Let your servants see to the new recruits. We’ve already moved the materials I spoke of to your forge. I think you’ll be VERY interested in what we have acquired.”


Across the lots, several light transports slowly touched down, locking heavy landing skis with the loading clamps that lined the sector. Embarkation ramps creaked open, releasing a wash of pressurized air and cold mist.

“Brother and sisters of Chaos! Our long wait is over!”

Cultists marched down into the lots, laughing and chanting prayers to the Dark Gods. At the front was a large, pale man with a Chaos icon attached to his back like a battle flag. He was shirtless, and his upper torso was covered in tattoos and ritual scars, several of which matched the star suspended over his head.

“A fresh world, ripe for despoiling! So many souls who must know the eight truths!” The head cultist threw his arms up in the air, and the others following him raised their voices in an incoherent chant. “Let Chaos consume this feeble planet! May darkness creep into every corner and hatred seed its very core! More blood! More pain! More DEATH!”

“Hello everyone! Welcome to Ferrous Dominus! It’s so nice to meet all of you!”


The march of the new soldiers stopped, and the head Cultist stumbled to a halt. A pegasus trotted up to the ramp wearing a respirator and a pair of saddlebags, with a Chaos Star amulet hanging loosely from her neck. She walked right up to the first man, and then her wing slipped into one of the bags.

“What manner of pathetic xeno is this?!” the Cultist growled, drawing a long, jagged knife from his belt.

“I’m Wind Chime! I’m a pegasus pony! Here, this is for you!”

While the man held out his blade, Wind Chime held out a glossy pamphlet with her wing.

“This gives a brief rundown of some of the services, activities, and stores we offer here in Ferrous Dominus, and where you can learn more!” the mare chirped, not obviously distressed by the weapon in her face. “You might be particularly interested in our apparel shops, since you seem to be lacking a shirt! You humans do love your clothes!”

The lead Cultist, fairly baffled, hesitantly took the pamphlet from the mare. “I don’t… um, but the…”

“If you guys hurry with your base registration, and aren’t detained for psychic scouring, you can still make today’s spin class! And please, make sure you use the trash receptacles placed at most grid intersections and don’t litter! Helping keep our death fortress clean is everyone’s responsibility!”

Wind Chime hopped forward and hugged the lead Cultist on the leg. Then she jumped away and took to the air, flying off toward the next lander.

The shirtless man watched her go, and then looked behind him at the other warriors, still holding a blade in one hand and a pamphlet in the other with little idea what to do with either of them.

“...... The hell just happened?”


****


Canterlot - statue garden

Wraithstar stood at the edge of a circle of stone tiles, waiting silently with his hands clasped behind his back. In front of him stood a great open-topped sarcophagus made of pearly marble. The sides were elaborately carved with strange, elegant runic patterns; not any language that a speaker of Imperial or Tau languages would understand, but some sort of script from the Equestrian magi. It went well enough with the statue holding a silent vigil over the tomb: a non-descript pony warrior in archaic equine half-plate, holding a spear - somehow - in the crook of its front knee.

In front of the Tau officer marched a procession of real Equestrian guards. Modern ones, of course, bearing the armor and weapons of their unlikely allies from the stars. Carried on a set of wooden planks was another statue, or so it seemed. A near-perfect likeness of Shas’o Voidsong’s body, laid flat with her hands resting on her belly, done in fine granite. Or whatever rock that petrifying spell purported to transmute into.

The absurdity that the corpse of Voidsong should be returned to the Equestrians, the ones responsible for losing her petrified body the last time, didn’t escape him. Between the Iron Warriors and Lamman’s own Fire Warriors the ponies could certainly take the least credit for her defeat. But Wraithstar didn’t care, and the 38th had no interest in Voidsong beyond confirming her fate once and for all. Even ritual corpse desecration was a meaningless chore upon a species with such weak souls, apparently.


“Would you like to say a few words? Is there some funeral rite we can help you with?”

Wraithstar glanced behind him. Princess Celestia stood close by, her expression somber.

Then he turned back around. “No. No ceremony is needed. This will be enough. More than enough.”

The ponies reached the sarcophagus, and several of them pushed Voidsong’s body into the shallow stone box. She fell in with a dull thud.

“Obviously I have no reason to honor her. To Equestria she was a merciless villain who condemned us all to extermination without a second thought,” Celestia replied. “To the Iron Warriors, she was a canny foe, but eventually one more victim among thousands. But to you…”

Celestia left the proposition hanging, and Wraithstar sighed.

“To me she was a leader, a teacher, and a hero. Her efforts may have saved the Tau Empire. I can’t claim that doesn’t matter to me, no matter what happens after this point.” He unclasped his hands and then crossed them over his chest while the soldiers marched off. “But I have no rites to offer her. I don’t know any. We rarely hold funerals for our dead. The only one I’ve ever seen was for the Lamman Sept’s last Ethereal, and I’ve seen so much death since then that the memory is a cold blur.”

“I’m surprised,” admitted Celestia. “Your people seem rather egalitarian and empathetic… incidental genocide notwithstanding.”

He shook his head. “Funerals are generally considered testaments to ego. Individuals are celebrated for their achievements in life, not the loss felt by their deaths. And few on this world are very thankful for what Voidsong accomplished.”

He walked up to the stone coffin, running a gloved hand over the edge of the opening. “Her interment here is more a warning than an act of ceremony.” Wraithstar turned his head toward the white Princess. “The survivors of Lamman will forget her soon enough. The soldiers of the 38th Company only ever saw her as another target to be dispatched and logged in their archives. But you, Princess… there’s a lesson here for you and your people.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed. “There are many lessons the Lamman Sept taught us, although we’ll be hard-pressed to forget about the capricious wars of the alien while Chaos hunts Orks through the hinterlands.”

Wraithstar smirked, his lip curling humorlessly. “If nothing else, then, don’t let your people forget that it could have been worse. Have them remember that their struggles are the price of power; the cost demanded for any race that would dare stand firm in the face of this galaxy’s numberless cruelties. And, of course, remember that at least one alien empire besides your so-called allies claims this system and every living thing in it as rightfully theirs.”

Celestia listened intently, staring at the sarcophagus amongst the garden’s immaculate hedges. “... I think we’ll need a bigger plaque,” she said eventually, walking closer. “That aside, would you like me to commission something of you to stand next to the stallion? Or some other, anonymous Fire Warrior? It was mostly your efforts that defeated her, and given that Voidsong has tried to doom us all TWICE now and the natural increase in suspicions this causes, I think it would be wise to have a… Excuse me, are you listening?”

Wraithstar wasn’t listening, in fact. He was staring up at the sky, facing away from Voidsong, with his hand shading his face against the sun.

“It’s still there, even now,” he said, his voice dry and grim. “They failed. I knew they would.”

Princess Celestia squinted up at the sky in the direction he was facing. There weren’t any clouds, but she couldn’t tell what Wraithstar was looking at. The tips of Canterlot’s towers? The pegasi soaring through the air? The Arvus Lighter transport swooping into the city?

“What are you talking about? Who failed?” the mare asked.

“Nobody you need to worry about any longer,” he sighed, dipping his body into a bow. “Thank you for granting me this boon, Princess. As little grace and forgiveness as Equestria has shown us, we have done little to earn it. Farewell.”


****


Ferrous Dominus - Solon’s forge

“Nurgle’sh beard, what did thoshe girlsh get up to while I wash gone?” Solon asked, looking down into a metal cart.

Inside the cart were armor pieces. Pony armor pieces. The loose collection of helmets, boots, and plating were in various states of disrepair, but each had clearly suffered calamitously in protecting its user. Rarity’s finely polished armor had been riddled with holes and some of the frame was burnt away from sustained pulse fire. Applejack’s heavy armor had been cracked at the helmet, partially melted, and one of the boots had suffered a disintegration event over the sole.

“Godsh alive, how did Rainbow Dash shurvive thish kind of impact without breaking her neck?” the Warsmith asked, plucking a particular helmet from the cart. It was partly flattened on the face, and one of the visor lenses was missing.

“Bad luck, I suppose,” Serith said.

“Bad luck that she shurvived?” Solon asked.

“For the rest of us, yes.” The Sorcerer made a waving gesture with his hand, and the helmet floated out of Solon’s grip and dropped back into the pile. “Unfortunately, those armors have suffered damage to systems that only you can repair, Lord. But you may attend to that at any time; what I wished to show you is more… delicate.”

“You shaid you fought shome short of mashter pshyker in the Nethalican?” Solon asked, scuttling around the pile of armor.

“Indeed. She claimed to be the master of the changelings that attacked us,” Serith explained. “I’m still uncertain as to her aims, but this ‘Queen Chrysalis’ leeched power from the Dark Portal at will, and sought to use that energy for some greater end. Then the farmer shoved a power sphere into her torso and annihilated much of her chest cavity.”

“Ha! Applejack never dishappointsh! I’ll have to give her another heavy bolt on her trophy chain for that kill.”

Serith made a dismissive sound. “Her performance was passable. But she did not kill the Queen.”

That gave Solon pause. “Queen Chryshalish shurvived the annihilation of her chest cavity?”

“She did. As she lay there, on the temple dais, I saw her soul cling to this world, sustaining her body’s cells through a combination of the Nethalican’s power and sheer will. She could not move, or even maintain basic consciousness amid her desperate final bid for her life, but she did remain stable long enough for… well, this.”


Serith reached a console and tapped a button at the edge. In a corner of the forge, a large metal cylinder stirred, lifting its duralloy cover to reveal an armorglass tube within. Monitors flickered to life all around it, flooding the local noosphere with bio-data and measurements. Some of them started running vid-capture from Serith’s helmet, showing off frankly bizarre scenes of a giant squid and cragodile fighting within a Chaos temple.

A light went on behind the tube.

“I present to you Queen Chrysalis, Warsmith,” Serith said, bowing and gesturing toward the tank. “Her fate, and that of her misbegotten hive, is now in YOUR hands.”

Solon stomped up to the containment vessel, peering at the body within. It was a shattered, twisted mess, covered in holes and disfigurements, most of which seemed to be unrelated to the obvious battle damage. An expression of unblinking horror stared out through the oxygenated stasis gel, frozen in the moment of its defeat. Withered, broken, and helpless, and yet not quite dead.

The ancient Warsmith reached up to the glass, slowly sweeping a grimy metal hand over its surface to clear some of the frost. He leaned close, and his optical cluster rotated its active lens with a soft whir.

“Magnificent…”


Entrenchment End