//------------------------------//
// 21 -- A gift of sunlight 
// Story: A Method to his Madness 
// by Luna-tic Scientist 
//------------------------------//

Topsy Krett stared at the split-screen comms display in a mild panic, but was careful not to let any of her emotions actually reach her face. Princess Celestia was frowning at her. General Buckler, on the other half of the display, was scowling, but Princess Celestia was frowning at her. Does she know? Topsy had been funnelling information to the Express for almost an hour now; there was no actual proof, but the conclusions were inescapable. "I'm sorry, Princess, could you repeat the question?"

"You seem a little distracted, Topsy, is there anything I should know about?"

Celestia's expression had changed to one of concern, but even on a good day there was no such thing as a casual question from the Solar Princess. She is as inscrutable and hard to read as ever. Topsy sighed and rubbed her muzzle against one foreleg. At least I don't have to fake the fatigue. "I'm sorry, your Highness, the news about your sister was a terrible shock. You must be devastated."

An eyebrow quirked, but Celestia said nothing to that. "Trying times for all of us, but soon we will have justice and I will have my sister back."

Or lakes of glass that take decades to cool and a new set of mare-in-the-moon craters. Topsy suppressed a shiver; the images of the moon from all those centuries ago were a chilling reminder of what the Princess was capable of, even against her own kin. Topsy sighed again, suddenly remembering what she'd been asked. "Yes, Princess. As to your question... there has been a general mobilisation of the surrounding states. I have evidence of a joint command structure--"

"Ha! I knew it. It's about time you managed to see what was under your muzzle all along."

"Yes, General. It's obvious that something has gone very wrong with our intelligence gathering efforts." Or because there was no activity until Celestia threatened them with annihilation. "You will have my resignation as soon as this crisis is over."

"Accepted, Director," Celestia said.

Topsy nodded dumbly, wondering why it came as such a shock to hear the Princess she'd served for so long calmly announce the end of her career. No. Not my Princess, not any more. I certainly don't want to serve this one. There was a sharp ping of an incoming priority call, and the familiar face of Princess Luna filled one half of the screen. Topsy's ears flicked back for an instant and she tried desperately to keep her face expressionless. One hoof darted forward, muting Luna's audio.

"Who was that, Director? A pony who has your personal line must be quite important."

Celestia's face was a study of polite curiosity, and Topsy knew it was only a matter of time before she was found out. "A field agent, Princess, out in Hookbeak territory. We are so short-hoofed that I have had some of the calls redirected."

"Really, Director. Do you take me for a fool? How long have you been consorting with my sister?" Try as she might, Topsy couldn't avoid the little twitch of her muzzle. To somepony like Celestia, it was like sending up a flare. "I want to talk to her. Now."

Topsy's eyes flicked to the other screen, where Luna just nodded. Slumping, she reached out and tapped a control. "She would like to talk to you, as well."

"Luna, that was a very clever stunt you pulled. I know you are somewhere in mid ocean, but how are you--" Celestia suddenly smiled. "You're on the Friendship Express, aren't you?"

"Yes. We go to disrupt the likely origins of Discord's operations." There was raw need in Luna's voice, and she leaned forward into the camera. "Please, sister. Help us, I beg you."

Something flickered over Celestia's perfect white face, a flash of uncertainty that was immediately replaced with anger. "I should have known you were behind all this... and now you run to your allies. You will not escape my justice for long." The perfect white head turned slightly, looking at the other half of her own display. "General Buckler, this is more serious than I suspected. It is obvious that the contagion has breached the Panopticon's security. Firstly, you are authorised to relieve Director Krett by whatever means necessary."

"Yes, Princess," Buckler said with a great deal of satisfaction, grinning savagely at Topsy.

"Secondly," and here Celestia stared straight into her camera, "I am declaring the aircarrier Friendship Express and all her crew enemy combatants. Bring it down." Buckler's feral grin died for an instant, a brief flicker of horror crossing her face, then it was back and the mare nodded once.

"Sister, please, don't do this. I gave none of these ponies any choice in the matter," Luna said, while behind her there was the sound of shocked muttering and the sudden beat of galloping hooves.

"Perhaps you should have considered the consequences before suborning my ponies. Yet again, others will suffer for your vanity and personal greed. I will see you soon, Luna."

Luna flinched as if slapped, then turned back to Topsy. "I'm sorry, Director, there's little I can do. I suggest you surrender and cooperate fully."

Topsy reached out and killed the connections to Celestia and General Buckler. "I think not. You will need the best intelligence I can get you to plan your attack. Unit efficiency isn't as high as it might be, so I think it will take them some time to get through my doors. I'll keep working until the last minute."

===

"So... Sergeant Kreeeekikissshhht--" Blevie gave a very credible attempt at the chiropt name, then broke off with a strangled cough, turning to dip her muzzle into the room's water fountain. Nightstorm winced and rolled her eyes, then went back to muttering the stream-of-consciousness, almost comprehensible babble some unicorns used as a focus to settle their minds before heavy magic use.

"Chirr, please. That's actually very close, but you were missing most of the mid and upper registers," the Night Guard said, doing his best to keep a straight face. 

Trust Blevie to know how to break the ice. Despite his slightly alien body form, it had been easy enough to read Chirr; the chiropt had been distinctly uneasy with the attention the FOAL had been giving him. As well he might... what was the Princess thinking, giving us a new pony just before an operation? Trailblazer sat back on his haunches and sighed. "You do understand our reluctance here, yes? We've trained and worked together as a team for years... how are you going to do any more than get in the way?"

"My record--"

Trailblazer waved one wing, cutting Chirr off. "...is not accessible. The Friendship Express has been disconnected from the network."

"Have you ever worked with the chiropt before, Captain?"

"Not directly. FOAL units are generally on detached duty. We've been embedded in Embassy security for the last two years; before that..." Trailblazer smiled mirthlessly "...you don't have clearance for before that." He cocked his head, looking thoughtful. "Still, you lot were always challenging as OPFOR. I take it you are fully qualified -- what's your speciality?"

"Long range scouting and covert intrusion with--" Chirr glanced at Nightstorm. "--spellcaster suppression." The unicorn paused in her quiet muttering, opening one eye to briefly stare at the chiropt, before closing it again and restarting her mental exercises.

"...yet you were stuck on the night shift, guarding the world's least loved statue."

"We are spread thinly, Captain, and frequently have to operate alone," Chirr said, eyes locked on Trailblazer's own. "My Mistress will not fall into the same trap she did before... but we are the best at what we do. I will not get in your team's way."

Trailblazer stared at Chirr for a long time, then sighed. I suppose it won't be too bad... and if the improvised protection spell doesn't work as advertised, it would be very useful to have a pony who's immune. "Fine. As long as you can follow orders--"

He flinched as the aircarrier shivered under his hooves. Before him was a spellcraft map table, a slightly translucent model of the prison and surrounding area floating just above it. The model was still changing as their maps were updated, but the real gold was the internal mapping of the facility, carefully teased out of Equilibrium by the Express' skilled intelligence officer. After her interrogation, the poor mare had been released into the care of Neighmann, who was helping to integrate the Princess' gift into the aircarrier's systems.

"Now what?" he muttered. Blevie had already run to the edge of the planning room, trying to see out of the small porthole. Light was blazing in, like the sun was directly behind the thick glass. Wait, isn't the sun on the other side of the hull? he thought, ears going up in alarm, then hunched involuntarily as another thought struck home. Have we just been nuked? An air burst, the million degree fireball radiating light, heat and X-rays into the Express. Trailblazer held his breath, waiting for the shockwave to break the aircarrier's back. Alarms started to sound in the corridor outside their briefing room.

"Blevie, get away from that window!" The mare had already spun away before the sentence was half complete, falling to the ground with forelegs firmly over her head. The shockwave never came and the light didn't die, instead it just got brighter, shifting towards an electric blue-white. Not a nuke, but what... oh no, not that. One glance at Night confirmed his fears.

Nightstorm's ears had folded completely back and she was hunched against the ground as if in anticipation of a blow. Little glimmers of light flickered around her horn and she groaned again, shaking her head. "Magic, lots of magic, near. Either Discord's come out to meet us or it's one of the Princesses."

Trailblazer's heart sank and he started to feel sick. That's it then. The monster has won; Celestia has succumbed and is attacking us as traitors.

The light outside went dim and started to flicker erratically, and Trailblazer reached for the table's controls, switching through the various camera feeds from the hull. Next to him, Chirr started to do the same with another section of the tactical table, spawning multiple hoof-sized images. Clouds were spreading rapidly around the Express, thick things that looked pregnant with rain, but there was a bright spot directly overhead. The view seemed to darken, but he realised that it was the camera reacting to the extra light; everything was covered with inky shadows from the rapidly building glare. There was a warbling whine from somewhere deeper inside the Express, the characteristic note of many spellcraft devices approaching overload.

"The ship is actually fighting her off," Trailblazer whispered, staring intently at the video windows, "can you believe that, Night?"

"Not really," she replied, climbing carefully to her hooves and standing next to him, "but it is happening... although not for much longer, by the sound of it." The warble was loud enough that she'd had to raise her voice, the high-pitched noise putting his teeth on edge.

The deck shook again, this time accompanied by a distant explosion and the aching moan of twisting metal and the gunshot cracks of fracturing ceramics. Fire burst out of a patch on the Express' flank, small and seemingly inconsequential on the video image. "That's one of the thaumic suppressors gone," Night said quietly, voice empty of all emotion, "more stress on the rest. They'll go like firecrackers any moment." 

More alarms and the sound of galloping hooves, all mixed in with the ponies shouting incomprehensible orders to each other. Trailblazer badly wanted to get out there and help, but he barely knew the aircarrier's layout, let alone what her battle damage procedures were. The only thing we can do is be ready. "Blevie, Night, get your gear. Chirr--"

Something small darted away from the aircarrier's stern, a black pip of absolute darkness accelerating so fast that a conical shock wave was clearly visible against the backdrop of ocean. In its wake the clouds curdled and grew dim, as if the very light was being sucked into the object. The brilliant spot above the clouds wavered slightly, then moved to follow the flying thing.

"It's Luna," Night breathed, "she's drawing Celestia's attention." Already the harsh whine had started to fade back into the background aircarrier hum.

"Makes sense, she's the real threat. Do you think she'll make it?"

Nightstorm made a whistling sound as she drew air in through her teeth. "They were always supposed to be equal and opposite, the Ghost and the Darkness... but I don't know. Celestia always struck me as a little stronger, and by all accounts she has the Elements. It didn't end well for Luna last time."

Chirr shrank slightly at Night's final words, his eyes fixed on where the point of darkness had been, and where now was nothing more than a searing blue-white glare. "My Mistress is strong and smart; she won't make the same mistakes she did the last time." Membranous wings sagging slightly, Chirr looked from one FOAL to another, a desperate hope on his face. 

Trailblazer shifted uncomfortably, exchanging a glance with Nightstorm. "Of course. Celestia isn't in her right mind; that's got to give Princess Luna an advantage." He shook himself all over. "We need to get prepped. Chirr, you go see the armourer. Come on, ponies, let's not waste the chance the Princess is giving us."

===

Luna felt the magic build and unconsciously looked up, as if she could see the sun growing brighter through the hull of the Friendship Express. It wasn't a teleport -- Celestia obviously didn't want to worm her way through the aircarrier's defences like she had -- but a brute force application of power. My sister seems a little clumsy of late, perhaps a side-effect? Less adept or not, she would be able to destroy the Express in moments, given the opportunity.

The automated threat alarms sounded and the Admiral muttered something sulphurous and galloped from the briefing room. Luna followed him for just long enough to tell him of her intent, then teleported directly down to the hangar deck. A distraction, time to let them complete their mission... and do everything that comes along with that.

She'd left the mangled mess of the Monster Room's defences in the hooves of the aircarrier's chief engineer; the last she'd heard, that pony had been mercilessly questioning Neighmann about the correct way to connect the experimental spellcraft modules to the Express' summoning circle. At least they finally let Neighmann have the full specifications, and he's surprised me with how much he'd already figured out. Give a scientist a hint and the theories soon follow.

Ahead of her was the organised chaos of the main hangar deck, big rear doors slowly grinding open to let in a hot, blue-white glare. The heat came with it; a solid wall that slapped her across the muzzle like somepony had suddenly opened a furnace door. The little hairs on the end of her nose shrivelled and she brought all her defensive enchantments up to full power. I wish I'd had time to collect my armour, she thought, then extended her influence and brought night to the hangar.

Shadows curdled around her as the light and energy seemed to flow away from her body; photons transformed by unlikely routes into neutrino-antineutrino pairs that took the energy away without it being passed directly to atoms. Pity I can't protect the whole Express for long enough, she thought, but the strain of keeping up this trick was already starting to tell. Even if I could, she'd just come here in person, and anything I can do to keep her at a distance...

Luna galloped towards the doors, wings open and skimming along the decking and out into the hostile sky, already flying faster than most pegasi. When she cleared the rear of the Express she really started to accelerate, wings becoming proxies for much larger and more complex fields that scooped up the air and threw it rearwards, filling the sky behind her with turbulence and short-lived condensation. 

The darkness collapsed around her, forming a tight barrier against the concentrated sunlight and letting her fly within a globe of refreshingly cool dimness. Switching away from normal sight, Luna surveyed the area for magic, picking out the suddenly visible patterns of arcane activity. The whole world faded to sombre hues -- clouds, water and even the horizon itself became indistinct and faded to deep shadows -- with the exception of the Friendship Express and the sky directly overhead.

The aircarrier was alive with waves of colour, like some creature of the abyssal deeps caught in the lights of a submersible, laser-pure hues shifting and flowing all through its transparent innards. The sky... great bands and curtains of gold and orange circled and wove in the upper atmosphere, a dance that took light from kilometres around and pulled it together at a spot of Celestia's choosing. It was beautiful, in its own way; the shifting patterns of the aurora time-lapsed and visible in the artificial night of Luna's shadow sight.

As she flew further away, Luna made no attempt to hide her presence, and the patterns shifted to place her at the focal point of the monstrous lens. Sweat started to dampen her flanks as her defences took the additional strain, converting most of the light and diverting the rest harmlessly around her body. Celestia's aim wasn't perfect -- at these velocities the speed of light lag became significant -- so the area hit by the concentrated sunlight was a hundred meters across.

Under her body the upper layers of the ocean flashed into steam, the water explosively boiling in her wake and leaving a plume of hot clouds that wouldn't stop rising until they reached the stratosphere. Overhead, the apparent size of the sun had swollen to fill the whole sky, heat and light pouring in from all directions; inside her little bubble of darkness the temperature started to rise as her defences began to fail under the onslaught. Luna gritted her teeth and pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--flashing into clear air three kilometres above the top of Mount Aither-Erebos, placing herself squarely between the sun and the Palace. Even without her shadow sight, Celestia was immediately visible.

Her sister was standing on the flat top of one of the highest towers, shining like she was the sun, rather than just the controller of it. A halo of light, so bright it was painful to look at, surrounded her, casting long and midnight-black shadows across the city even in the light of the day. Celestia had turned the palace shield off to use her magic, so Luna didn't hesitate and threw the object she'd brought along from the Express.

A fifty metre sphere of water, parts of it near boiling from its encounter with the Day Princess' power, fell towards the Palace. Luna held it together with a zone of magically generated gravity, releasing her power when several bright points of plasma rose up from the tower and accelerated towards her. Sixty-five thousand tonnes of liquid moving at close to a third of the speed of sound dissolved into a boiling torrent and blasted into the Palace. 

The only things that saved the building from being washed away were its origins as a defensive fortification and the fact that Luna released the force holding her projectile together long before it actually struck. The water had spread and slowed by the instant of impact, but there was more than enough force to blast the smaller towers from their foundations and drive cracks through the most sturdy of stonework. Every window and door, even the massive entrance gates, was blown inwards, and the whole structure went dark. The water roared on, tumbling down the mountainside towards the city.

I think that got your attention, she thought, buffeted slightly by the premature explosion of the plasma bolts. Celestia had disappeared in a flash of gravity waves a moment before impact, reappearing... Close, too close! A wave of furnace heat washed over Luna as something detonated with a blue-white flash less than twenty metres away; air compressed and heated to plasma suddenly allowed to expand. The shockwave slammed into her side, knocking her tumbling through the sky.

Her own defences blunted the blow, channelling the pressure pulse around her body and keeping her organs from being turned into puree. Luna converted the tumble into an evasive manoeuvre, pumping more power into her flight magic and heading towards the Unicorn Range, away from Canterlot and any large settlements. Windows rattled for kilometres as she cracked the sound barrier on the way to becoming hypersonic, an incandescent plasma shock cone building up only a hoof-span from the tip of her horn. 

More explosions nipped at her fetlocks, but Luna was better prepared and used the concussion to further boost her already high velocity. The mountains of the Unicorn Range hove into view and she slowed and dropped slightly to weave between the highest peaks. Her own passage blasted the closest peaks clean of snow and stripped the leaves from trees up near the snowline, but Celestia was increasing the power of the magnetic pinch she was using, and the shocks from these weapons started fires and triggered landslides throughout the lower valleys.

She has become careless; this isn't the master tactician I know my sister to be. The thought was fleeting; Luna's mind almost completely occupied by keeping her magic going. Celestia had followed her into the valleys, chasing her like a falcon might hunt a pigeon, when it would make far more sense to climb and attack from above. I hope there's nopony living in these valleys-- Luna's magic grabbed hold of the next plasma bolt and deflected it into a mountainside just ahead of Celestia's flight path.

Celestia might have been reckless, but her magic was just as strong as it ever was. The knot of intense magnetism folded around the packet of oxy-nitrogen held just long enough for the half arcane, half physical weapon to burrow deep into the granite of the mountain peak. There were limits to how much even Celestia's magic could do, especially when she was distracted by the multiple demands on her skills and strength. For an instant she lost control of the patterns powering the projectile.

Far faster than the blink of an eye, the patterns unravelled and the magnetic fields collapsed, dumping all their stored energy into the plasma. Temperature and pressure, already astronomical, spiked further and the bolt exploded. The whole side of the mountain blew out as Celestia flew past, catching the Princess in a ten thousand tonne hail of boulders that blasted her against the sheer cliffs on the other side of the valley.

Luna was travelling much faster than the shockwave, but immediately noticed the absence of pursuit. Killing some of her tremendous velocity she curved around, magic making the now devastated valley jump into sharp relief. What has once been a steep-sided, tree-lined gap between two mountains was now choked with boulders bigger than most houses. A visceral terror flooded Luna, a sudden dread that made her defences flicker and her flight path erratic. Stupid mare, you knew she wasn't thinking straight, how could you expect her to deflect all that--

A hot yellow light shone out of the gaps between the boulders, then the rubble pile blew apart to leave a miniature sun hovering at the focal point of a red-hot crater nearly a kilometre across. Dazzling pinpoints of white light arced out of the floating figure, their passage creating shock cones that distorted the hazy and dust filled air. Luna felt the magic build and the approaching heat, so she fled, a pony-shaped star in close pursuit.

The pair of ponies flew a complex, corkscrewing course, occasionally moving from one part of the sky to another in short range teleport jumps. Sonic booms and the flash-crack of plasma explosions smote the landscape, as Luna began to fight back in earnest, drawing Celestia to higher altitudes and pulling her further away from the populated centres of Equestria.

On the ground, many a pony paused in what they were doing to look upwards, attracted by the snap of sonic booms, or the odd stomach-churning flutter of gravitational distortions.

===

"Staff Sergeant Chobham, I--" Chirr paused in the entrance to the armoury workshop, taking in the frantic, near panicked motion of the ponies inside. The room was a low chamber that tucked in under one of the levitator nodes and was lined with racks of armour and weapons, all of which were in various states of disassembly. A ring of work stations, each one holding a set of pegasus armour that looked like it had been eviscerated. Scales and curved plates with the characteristic bone-white hue of metal-matrix armour ceramic were scattered everywhere: the hallmarks of a job being done without regard to the collateral damage.

At the very centre was a stand holding a nearly complete set of armour. Two ponies, both heavily masked, were busy with a plasma arc cutter, doing something to the elytra carapace panels that would cover a pegasus' wings. Electric light flashed across the ceiling, making Chirr squint and highlighting the faint haze of vaporised metal oxides that drifted up from the cutter.

"Sergeant Chirr!" The gravelly voice, only barely identifiable as female, came from a burly unicorn mare whose front half was swathed in silvery fire-resistant cloth. Her back half was filthy with soot and oil, so much so that it was hard to identify her coat colour. "You can tell that Princess of yours that her choice of wing design for your kind has made our jobs very difficult." A large wrench, completely unsuitable for any work likely to be carried out in this room, floated menacingly at her side in a field of pink magic. "Do you know how much perfectly good armour I had to cut up to make a set in your size? I mean--" She broke off, gesturing with the wrench at the work stations with their mute cargo.

Chirr blinked, gaze flicking from Chobham to the armour suit and back again. "Wait... do you mean to tell me that you managed to build me a custom hardsuit in just the last couple of hours. Staff Sergeant, I'm--"

"Humbled, yes. Of course we did! You think when one of the Princesses asks in person for a favour that we wouldn't manage it?" Chobham's tone was aggressive, and Chirr would have sworn she was ready to lay him out with her over-sized 'persuader', had it not been for her fierce grin. "Well what are you waiting for? Get your mutant arse over here so we can see if it fits."

Despite the insult, Chirr found himself grinning back, and jumped forward to land in the centre of the workstations. One of the junior armourers shut off the cutter, then grabbed a portable fire extinguisher, spraying a blast of cold vapour in through the still open carapace. "This might be a mite warm for a few minutes," Chobham said, horn glowing as her magic swept the inside of the suit, coming back with a cloud of ceramic splinters. "But I'm sure a strapping lad like yourself can take it." She gave him a nudge that sent him staggering, then more magic pulled out the undersuit with its attendant harness, fitting it around his legs, torso and neck. 

Chirr stood very still as Chobham's expert touch attached armour plates as quickly as a Las Pegasus croupier might deal cards at a blackjack table. She watched with a critical eye as he made increasingly acrobatic movements to test the suit's range of motion, culminating in a tricky low-level hover. The thing was heavy, but well balanced and, apart from the occasional tight spot that was bound to cost him some fur in the next few hours, unreasonably comfortable for the rapid manufacture.

The unicorn armourer stood back, eyeing him critically. "Hmm, it will have to do. I'm still not happy with the elytra design, but that's the price you pay for having freakish wings."

Chirr folded his wings, watching as the panels snapped shut and turned his flanks into an unbroken expanse of pale armour ceramic. "It's beautiful," he said, still smiling. "I don't suppose you have it in black?"

===

The deck under Trailblazer's hooves was hot to the touch and the air was filled with a fine haze of smoke from the numerous small fires that had broken out in the last few moments of the attack. He stood for a moment in the icy blast coming from one vent, relishing the sensation as it swept along his sweat-soaked flanks, and tried to forget what was going to happen next. The undersuit, with its high-performance fullerene weave, might well save his life during the drop, but it was as hot as Tartarus without the climate control modules in the rest of the armour set.

Of all of them, Chirr seemed least affected by the heat. Trailblazer frowned at this display of stoicism, then realised with some jealousy that the chiropt's membrane wings were flushed pink with blood. That must be useful... I wonder if that's why they don't do much during the day -- too much heating from the sun? His expression turned sour as he reviewed the mission plan again. It was pitifully vague, due to the scant information on the target; it was just a pity the Express was too far from the target for the easy covert insertion he'd wished for.

Carried like cargo, he thought with distaste, no, worse than that... like munitions.

Their pilot, Echelon, flew out of the haze and landed between Trailblazer and the cold air vent. He frowned at the other pegasus, who blithely ignored the look, just nodding in lieu of a salute.

"They've just about got all the fires, so hold on to anything loose," he said with a grin, "be glad to get some clean air in here."

Trailblazer nodded in return, then narrowed his eyes and folded his ears at the sudden blast of wind and roar of sound. In moments the haze was gone and the temperature dropped to something more manageable, and the deck crew resealed the forward doors. They'd only been opened a crack; at the Express' top speed of nearly four hundred kilometres per hour any more would blast the hangar clear of anything not bolted down.

Echelon waved Trailblazer and the rest of the FOAL team out of the refuge alcove and onto the walkway that ran around the outer edge of the hanger. This space was smaller than the main hangar, but only relatively so. A number of Loup-Garou fighters were stacked up in the rear half, each one sitting on a cradle attached to the hangar's trackway system that allowed the hangarboss to shuffle the aircraft between the compact and chaotic-looking storage zone and the neat rows of launch tracks in the forward half. The aircraft were in constant motion, a disturbing sight when you were walking close beside them, and all the ponies kept away from the hazard tape marking the edge of their path.

Their ride was at the far end of the hangar, its previously sleek belly hanging open like it had been gutted. A large pod was just being pushed up into the space; too large to fit within the lower weapons bay, it occupied all of that space and bulged outwards in a smooth curve that ran a third the length of the slim fuselage. "Celestia dammit! I didn't realise how big that was going to be," Echelon said, losing his grin and frowning, "Red One looks like she's really let herself go."

Blevie trotted forward to stand next to the pilot, giving him a nudge with her shoulder. "Nah, she's not fat--"

The mare paused, turning her head to wink and give Trailblazer a sly grin. Don't you dare, he thought, it's bad enough without you adding to--"

"--she's pregnant!" 

Trailblazer groaned and Nightstorm shook her head, trying to hide a grin. Echelon looked confused by the reaction, then understanding dawned and he sniggered. "Oh, well that puts a whole different perspective on things. In that case, I'm the pony to make sure there are no complications and we bring this to term. I mean, what a lucky mare, she's going to have quads!"

Just remember, if you really wanted to, you could break his neck and probably make it look like an accident. Trailblazer caught a glimpse of the other ponies and relented, feeling some of his own tension bleed away. "I hope you've had plenty of experience with these sorts of deliveries. I'd rather it didn't get too messy."

"Don't worry, I'll wash my hooves before we start." Echelon waggled his ears, but the joke was too poor to elicit more than a flicker of a smile from Trailblazer. "Tough crowd. Right. We'll do a stealth launch with half of Green and Violet as chaperones, so that's six birds overall. The remainder of the complement will be flying distraction missions and defending the Express as required. When we've dropped you off, I'll head off on another route to make it look like it's just a coincidental fly-by."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Trailblazer nodded. "How long until launch?"

"As soon as the techs have got the pod fitted... your armour and kit are already by Red One, ready for you to get suited up. We have to leave before the force from Baltimare gets within firing range. I really hope they don't try and get up close and personal -- missiles are one thing, but if we have to shoot down our own ponies... I used to be stationed over there."

"The faster we can get this done the better, then," Night said, "keep the casualties to an absolute minimum. I hear things are getting pretty bad in the cities, but the good news is that if we break the magic keeping the thing running, everypony should revert very quickly."

"At which point psychiatry will be big business," Trailblazer muttered.

"The Express is nearly in position and will be slowing down. She's just started to spin up a nice big cyclone to hide in and as cover for us. Last thing I heard was that we're seeing aircraft movements out of the main Razorclaw bases, and stuff is heading in this direction. It's even odds which group will get to us first, although it looks like they'll be sparing some attention for the Baltimare force."

One of the engineers gave a wave and they all trotted over, inspecting the insides of the pod with expressions ranging from distaste to mild interest. With four, rather than three, ponies, it was going to be a chance to get very friendly with everypony. 

Next to the launch cradles were the suit racks. Big wheeled frames that held the armour suits up like gutted puppets, their ceramic and fullerene shells hanging open like cattle at some gryphon's slaughter house. His exoweapons, enchanted spider-things with long legs wrapped around the suit's barrel, were already attached to the shoulder mounts. A parasite infested slaughterhouse. Nice image, Trailblazer thought sourly, nodding at the armourer. Ducking his head, he crouched to wriggle in through the belly hatch, settling forehooves in their cups before lifting each hind leg in turn to do the same at the rear.

His suit seemed to come alive in a most disturbing fashion, but it was just the armour techs adjusting the fit at leg, hip and wing shoulder. He peered out through the visor, checking that the heads-up display was aligned correctly, then detached from the support frame and trotted on the spot for a few moments. "She'll do. Thanks Staff," he said to the chief armourer, then turned to the rest of his FOAL team.

The bulky parawing assemblies for Night and Blevie were next, and Trailblazer hooked up his team-mates with the speed of long practice. At least Chirr won't need a set, he thought, fussing for a moment, stretching his own wings and making sure the haul harness didn't interfere with their motion.

Satisfied, he ran a cable from the base of Blevie's throat to the tow point just above Night's tail root, then repeated the process between Night and himself. "You'll fly down by yourself; I'll ferry Night and Blevie. Takes a lot of practice." The chiropt nodded, and Trailblazer waggled his jaw to open his mic and checked communications between his team and Echelon in the Loup-Garou. "We're all set. Echelon, Willow, pull us up."

The straps tightened and they were winched into the pod, left to hang with hooves dangling free in the dark as the doors closed beneath them. Something grumbled behind and above him, then Trailblazer's earbud came alive with the calm voice of a mare he didn't recognise. "Reading green across the board. Are you feeling comfortable, mares and stallions? Then let's begin..."

Blood drained out of Trailblazer's muzzle as the engines roared and the fighter was thrown out of the Friendship Express.