Iron Hearts: Book 4 - Emerald Dawn

by SFaccountant

WAAAAGH 101

Iron Hearts: Book 4
Chapter 6
WAAAAGH 101

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 15

"We will establish a defended staging area here, with a supply cache and the artillery brigade. We expect to face an immediate assault from the Orks. After the attack is repulsed, we will regroup and advance, breaking into the camp and destroying the Ork structures. After the camp is destroyed, Iron Warrior kill teams will commence a sector sweep, eliminating any stragglers."
Twilight looked over the hololithic display with an intense expression as Gaela explained the mission to her and the other Elements. Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy were with her and suited up, while a chimera APC idled behind them.
"I really don't understand. Why are we going to THEM? Wouldn't it be better to make the Orks come here?" Rarity asked.
Gaela nodded. "It would be, certainly, but the reconnaissance data of their landing site suggests that the Orks are trying to cannibalize the void ship wreck for parts. They're establishing super-heavy hull foundries and cannon works in their base camps. If we do not make an aggressive push immediately, they will start assembling assault vehicles that just might be powerful enough to break into the fortress."
"This will also keep our settlements safer; we can't just leave the Orks alone to pillage the countryside at will," Twilight pointed out.
"Hey, ya seen the grays up to anythin'?" Applejack asked.
Gaela tilted her head slightly. "We have not been carefully monitoring the Tau encampment recently. To our knowledge they have not dispatched any units in response."
"Figgers. Bring all the freaks here, then they leave 'em to us to clean up," Applejack growled, "Ah wish we could get the Orks to attack that dang beacon. Maybe some of our problems could take care of each other fer once."
"It is indeed unfortunate that is not the case," Gaela agreed, deactivating the hololith, "however, the Lamman Sept's apparent talent for stealth - to say nothing of our own strength of presence - means that the Orks will only find them if they decide the beacon is of utmost importance. I imagine it is not. The entire point of such devices is to lead the xenos to conflict, and it has already done that."
Gaela twisted her head around at the sound of heavy footsteps, and saw that Pinkie Pie's dreadnought was approaching.
"Hiya, girls! You ready to earn some more bits of ammunition made into improvised rewards for acts of great cruelty and violence? 'Cause you KNOW I am!" the power fist of her walker balled up into a fist and threw an experimental jab.
"Ah, Pie. Good. I have something for you," Gaela said as she turned toward a crate next to her. A servo arm snaked into the box and clamped onto something, and then pulled the object out.
The object appeared to be a huge helmet, obviously modeled on a horned Iron Warrior helm but scaled up so that it better fit a dreadnought's proportions.
"Awww, you shouldn't have!" Pinkie said, grinning widely.
"On the contrary, I should have prepared it immediately after my colleagues informed me that an insane and unmodified equine had somehow managed to pilot a dreadnought shell," Gaela countered, "Sparkle told me about the incident during your psionic simulations."
Pinkie's ears drooped, and her smile became somewhat nervous.
"While a heavy flamer will not immediately and easily breach a power armor shell," the Dark Techpriest began, briefly glancing at Applejack, "a plasma cannon is capable of vaporizing even a well-armored warrior in an instant. It is not a weapon to be handled carelessly."
Gaela stepped over to Pinkie Pie and then grabbed hold of the torso before climbing up one of the legs. "It was not easy to construct this helmet, since your method of operating the dreadnought is completely impossible. I had to design it as an independent device rather than allowing it to link with the systems that you're circumventing. Nonetheless, it will protect your head from small-arms fire, allow you to properly aim your weapons, grant you a vox system, and will protect you from hazardous environments. To whatever extent that last matter is possible, anyway. The pilot is SUPPOSED to be permanently sealed in a pressurized sarcophagus, after all."
"I considered it, but it seems REALLY inconvenient," Pinkie mumbled, "I mean, what if I have to use the bathroom?"
Gaela response was to bring the helmet down over Pinkie's head, slamming it into place.
"Ooh, pretty lights!" the pink mare said as the visor display blinked on in front of her.
"Ugh, couldn't you have given it a quick paint job?" Rarity asked, averting her eyes. "That gunmetal and gold clashes TERRIBLY with the pink. I fear the Orks may try to kill her just for looking so tacky."
"I won't dignify that with a response," Gaela said as she dropped down off of the assault walker. "Fortunately, I don't have time to instruct you in the helmet systems, Pie. You'll be departing soon in the assault carrier on the far side of the lots," she pointed across the rows of APCs to a large aircraft that was sitting on a set of landing struts.
"Uhm, sorry, but don't you mean, 'UNfortunately'?" Fluttershy asked.
"I know what I said."
Pinkie looked over at the distant flyer, and then turned her brand-new helmet toward the Dark Techpriest. "Wait, why aren't I going with you guys?"
"For starters, you can't fit in a ground transport, nor can you keep pace with the rest of the convoy without one," Gaela said blandly, "but the other reason is that General Gnoss has called for our dreadnoughts to form an armored assault unit to act as our spearhead for the counter-attack. Since you decided to become armor rather than infantry, you may find yourself given a very different battlefield role than the other equines."
"What? I don't get to fight along with my friends? Nobody told me about this!" Pinkie complained, shaking the power fist in the air.
"And who did you consult with before deciding to hijack an assault walker?" Gaela asked, tilting her head to the side. "Surely they were neglectful for having failed to mention such an obvious matter."
Pinkie didn't bother to reply and started walking toward the dropship as she let her power fist fall to her side.
Twilight watched the pink dreadnought go, and then turned toward Gaela again. "You've gotten REALLY good at handling her. Seriously, I'm impressed."
"She isn't the first lunatic I've had to arm and armor, and she won't be the last," Gaela reasoned as her servo arm clanked shut, "if there's nothing else, we can depart. The greenskins await their reckoning."
The ponies started walking toward the embarkation ramp, although Applejack stopped in front of Gaela and looked up.
"So, wait a tick. Ya call the Tau 'grayskins' and the Orks 'greenskins'?"
"Those are the most common slurs, yes. Why?"
"Jus' seems a tad uncreative, s'all," the apple farmer mumbled, "Ah mean, what if ya were facing a race that aren't all the same color?" Then she lifted her head up. "Like ours! If y'all were fightin' us, what kinda insultin' nickname would ya use?"
"Barnyard animals," Gaela said without hesitation.
Applejack snorted as she started heading into the chimera again. "Well, shucks, that one don't even make sense! Ah guess y'all should stick to skin colors."

****

Across the armor lots

Pinkie spotted three other walkers as she headed past the rumbling rhinos and chimeras loading up, and she smiled underneath her new helmet as the visor display scanned each war machine and listed the name of the pilot.
She may not be able to head into combat with her friends, but that didn't mean she couldn't make NEW friends out of the people she was fighting alongside. Sure, they were probably grumpy and mean, since that was the default Iron Warrior attitude. More so, in fact, because these ones had been mortally wounded and forced to live in a permanent state of half-death while still fighting for the Chaos cause. But Pinkie was not one to be easily deterred by such attitudes.
"Hiya, guys! Wassup?!" Pinkie shouted as she stomped past the numerous Dark Acolytes that were attending to the walkers.
Of the three walkers, one bore an autocannon and a thunder hammer on its arms and had a Mark of Khorne bolted onto it, another had a multimelta as its main weapon, and the final one was larger than the others, having thicker, rounded plating over its body and a large, double-barreled weapon even bigger than the autocannon. Its close combat weapon was a siege drill; an arrangement of three large, motorized drill bits mounted around a heavy flamer that replaced the standard dreadnought power fist.
All the walkers turned to stare as Pinkie Pie approached.
"I know that our computer thingies tell us each others' names, but it's more fun to introduce ourselves! I'm Pinkie Pie, and it's super-triple neato to meet you guys!"
The melta-armed dreadnought tilted forward stiffly in imitation of a bow. "Well met, Pinkie of Pie. I am Kairon. You may wish to see the Dark Techpriests to see to the maintenance of your vox system; your synthesizer sounds curiously squeaky and high-pitched."
The dreadnought with the autocannon twitched back and forth as it focused on Pinkie. "Why are you pink? Why are you PINK?!"
"Well, not ALL of him is pink. The head isn't," Kairon pointed out, "oh, this is Hett, by the way." The other dreadnought seemed satisfied by Kairon's observation, and he stopped twitching angrily.
That only left the larger dreadnought, which was still staring at Pinkie.
"What is this? Who are you?" he demanded.
"He told us," Kairon said, "he is Pinkie of Pie."
"Yuppers! Although I'm not a guy! One-hundred-percent girly-girl, over here!" Pinkie said brightly, holding out her power fist. Kairon promptly bumped it with his own fist.
"Ah. Then you are a female brother..." the dreadnought mused. "... Not many of those. Odd."
Then Kairon gestured toward the largest of them. "Since he seems reluctant to introduce himself, this is Honorable Sirius, our unit leader."
"HA! Sirius! Your name is a pun! That's awesome!" Pinkie laughed, holding up her power fist in the air for the other walker to give her a high-five. Or four, rather, since that was the number of fingers her power fist had.
Sirius did not move to complete the gesture. "I realize that lesser dreadnoughts are known for their instability, but you do not seem mentally fit for combat."
"Of course I'm fit, Sirius! Serious!" Pinkie laughed. "Oh, man! I am going to have SO much fun with that one!"
Hett started chuckling, and Kairon turned around to face Sirius.
"I have known you for over four hundred years, and I never realized that your name sounds just like a word until this very moment."
"All right, everymecha! Time to get loaded up!" shouted a voice from below. Pinkie looked down as the other dreadnoughts began moving under the dropship.
"Oh, hey! I didn't know there were pony ground crew! Rock on!" Pinkie cheered as a yellow earth pony mare walked by her.
"Hi! I'll be hooking you into your magnetic harness today in preparation for lift-off! Please proceed to an empty square underneath the aircraft!" the pony said pleasantly, although her cheerful tone was somewhat muffled by her respirator mask.
Pinkie stepped into position behind Sirius, giggling as she overheard their conversation.
"It's rather remarkable, actually. Your name even describes your temperament, which wouldn't ordinarily be of note, but is actually of great importance since your job is commanding other dreadnoughts. And because you're not crazy."
"Yes, fine. Let it go, Kairon," Sirius growled as the pony pushed the magnetic harness into place behind him.
The mare had a small leg brace on one foreleg, although rather than serving any medical purpose it had a mechanical manipulator claw attached to it to help make up for the equine's characteristic lack of fingers.
As she used this device to engage the safety clamps, the pony started humming to herself, and then, as she moved onto Pinkie's harness, she started to sing.
"One of these things is not like the others! One of these things doesn't belong! Can you tell me which thing is not like the others~!"
"Psst!" Pinkie hissed. "Sirius! She's talking about you!" The other mare finished securing the clamps and then moved on.
"... Really," the larger walker rumbled.
"It would make sense," Kairon pointed out, "as the rest of us are conventional dreadnought models while you pilot a contemptor shell."
"Kairon, cease your prattling," Sirius demanded.
"A freak! You're a FREAK!" Hett howled as the mare locked him into place.
Pinkie turned her helmet to give the contemptor dreadnought a reassuring smile, forgetting that he couldn't see her face. "Don't worry, Sirius! I still think you're cool! Serious!"
"This has 'long day' written ALL over it," the contemptor grumbled.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead

Big Macintosh looked up from his lunch as he heard the rumble of an approaching rhino outside.
The stallion was wearing his power armor, had his helmet disengaged, and had been trying to eat his meal with his servo arm for practice. This last fact was evident by the way most of his lunch was smeared across the table and the side of his face; Big Mac didn't know if he was EVER going to get the hang of having a fifth limb.
"That the transport?" Apple Bloom asked as she looked up from her own lunch. "Ya goin' to war now?"
"Eeyup," Big Mac said with a stony grimace.
"Not like that, ya ain't!" Granny Smith snapped as she reached over with a cloth and started wiping Mac's face. "We're a civilized kingdom, an' we don't send our boys out into the field wit' apple jam all over their faces!"
Macintosh endured the cleaning silently until his grandmother nodded. "All right, that's better. Now ya git out there and keep an eye on yer sister, y'hear?"
"Eeyup!" Big Mac said firmly.
"Good! Go teach them gray critters that we ponies don't take none of their guff!" the elderly mare said, shaking her hoof as Big Mac stood up.
"Granny, we're done with the Tau," Macintosh said as he rolled his eyes, "we're fightin' the Orks, now. They're green, Ah hear."
"We got green ones, now? Shucks, times're worse than Ah thought," Granny Smith shook her head sadly. "Well, ya make sure to come back to us, y'hear?"
"Eeyup!" Big Mac said as he trotted outside, his boots pounding heavily against the floor.
"See ya after the battle, Big Mac!" Apple Bloom called. "Bring me back somethin'!"

Big Macintosh headed out the door, and he turned toward the rhino idling in the road.
Dest was leaning against the vehicle, his boltgun in his hands.
"Macintosh. The rear ramp is deployed. Embark and we will depart for the front lines," the Iron Warrior commanded.
Big Mac nodded and walked around the back of the rhino.
He halted, however, when he got a look inside the passenger compartment. Stacked within the APC in a wide set of metal racks were hundreds upon hundreds of cupcakes.
He twisted his head around to look at Dest, eyebrow raised.
"Courtesy of the cakes," the Chaos Marine explained quickly as he opened the door to the driver's cab, "they thought it might serve as a morale-booster to the troops."
Big Mac nodded hesitantly. "Eeyup."
"Of course, there are not enough for all the soldiers mustering for the attack," Dest continued, "so I'll probably wait until after the battle and hand them out to the survivors."
The stallion shook his head as he walked up the ramp. Typical Chaos logic.

****

Four kilometers outside Company muster point

Twilight had plenty of time to reflect upon the upcoming conflict as she and her friends were carried to the battlefield in the Dark Mechanicus chimera. Unlike the others, who had gratefully shed their helmets as soon as they no longer needed masks to filter pollution (and didn't yet need headgear to deflect gunfire), Twilight had kept hers on to review the mission notes and keep track of vox transmissions.
The latter exercise had quickly proven futile; the vox and noosphere networks were utterly swimming with traffic, and there was too much activity for her to keep track of with her visor system alone. So she went over the checklists of primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives, as well as the images from Rainbow's scouting mission. She was pretty sure that was the sort of preparations a squad leader should be making.
Squad leader... the idea was hardly foreign to her, yet it left a strange taste in her mouth. She had always acted as the de facto leader of the Elements of Harmony, but that was because she was the pony with a direct line to Celestia. The others had followed not because they were under her command, but because they liked and trusted her. Having that arrangement formalized was no big deal, but now it was part of a larger organization with very different people at the top.
That line of thought was drifting into uncomfortable territory, so she was actually quite glad when she heard the rattle of gunfire momentarily rise above the rumble of the convoy's engines.
Twilight quickly searched the vox network and opened up a marked channel.
"Enemy contacts confirmed. Bikes."
"Looks like a scouting force. Confirmed kill on three xenos."
"More coming from behind that piece of wreckage..."
"Do not pursue. Let them bring word back to their camp."
"Gretchin in the rock face up ahead... looks like they're starting to establish watch towers."
"Barely worth the ammunition to bring them down..."
"Aim high. Ordnance barrage. Collapse the plateau on top of them."
Twilight cut the vox feed and looked up at the others.
She was about to inform them that they were starting to see Ork targets, but what came out instead was, "Rarity, why are you fussing with your mane when you're going to be putting your helmet on soon anyway?"
"That's what Ah been sayin'," Applejack grunted, "unless ya think all that hairspray'll help stop the bullets."
Rarity continued to slowly comb her mane as she levitated a mirror in front of her, not turning to look at the ponies criticizing her. "I don't expect you to understand. This is a calming ritual, a part of my life that remains unchanged while everything ELSE has been turned upside-down," the snow-colored unicorn said in a cool tone, "working to look my best is not just an exercise in trite vanity. It's a way of staying sane and collected when I'm being delivered into a literal war zone."
Twilight and Applejack seemed taken aback at first, and then guilty about judging her so readily.
"Besides, you did hear that the Wonderbolts are going to be at the rendezvous point, right?" Rarity asked, smiling brightly. "I can't look anything less than perfect in front of celebrities! I'll just keep the helmet off until the real shooting starts."
"Ah shoulda known," Applejack sighed, rolling her eyes.
Gaela wasn't paying attention to the conversation, as she was busy reviewing the list of inbound constructs for the defensive lines and working out power distribution plans.
She was interrupted from her task, however, when she heard a gentle tap of something metal against her greaves.
"Uhm, excuse me... I don't mean to interrupt..." Fluttershy said meekly.
"Obviously you did, or you would not have used a physical means to get my attention," Gaela grunted, "what do you want?"
Fluttershy wanted to turn invisible right then and there, but resisted the impulse; it's not like she could really hide from the woman when they were locked in the passenger compartment together.
"I was, uhm, looking over the training dataslate for field medicine, uh, and, well, had a few q-questions," the pegasus said anxiously. Clutched against her chest with her small servo arms was the dataslate in question.
Gaela nodded. "Proceed."
"Uhm... it's just... why are there so many sections on euthanasia?" Fluttershy squeaked.
That brought the other conversations in the transport to a screeching halt, and Gaela found that she now had the attention of all the equines in the transport.
"What's that? Some kinda fancy space drug?" Applejack asked obliviously.
"Not at all," Gaela answered, "it's actually quite simple and ancient in its application. Yet it remains the most effective and guaranteed remedy for the suffering of others."
It really amazed Twilight how Gaela could say something like that with absolutely no shift in tone to indicate that she might be joking, exaggerating, or have any particular feelings at all about such a statement. It also made her want to throw up a little bit.
"For example," the Dark Techpriest continued, "assuming basic battlefield competence on your part, you'll be applying euthanasia to many Ork soldiers today."
Applejack blinked in surprise. "What? Ah thought Ah was s'posed to be killin' 'em."
"Affirmative."
It took Applejack a few more seconds until her eyes widened. "Oh. OHHH. Shoot, that's downright gloomy."
Fluttershy scurried over behind Rarity, crouched low to the ground. "Miss Gaela scares me," she whispered to the unicorn.
"Miss Gaela scares ALL of us," Rarity replied. She didn't bother to whisper, and true to form, the woman in question was not offended.
The chimera shuddered to a halt.

"We are here," Gaela announced, her dome helmet sliding forward over her head and pressurizing, "estimated time until enemy contact is ten minutes. Find a suitable location and prepare for enemy assault."
The embarkation ramp fell, and Applejack and Fluttershy both engaged their helmets. Gears whirled and air hissed as the plates folded up around their muzzles and locked into place, and their optic visors blinked on a moment later, glowing an angry, bloody red.
They exited the APC to hear the distant whistle of heavy objects descending from orbit, and Twilight looked up at the incoming drop rigs.
"Four bunkers and four lascannon turrets," she mumbled as her visor tagged each object.
"I'll be busy setting up the bunkers and sanctifying the generators," Gaela said, "I should be able-"
"Hey! You guys made it!" came a shout from above, and Twilight looked up as Rainbow Dash swooped in for a - mercifully soft - landing.
"Why hello, Rainbow. I heard you got a head start on defending our planet from this new variety of alien scum," Rarity greeted warmly, being the only one not talking through a vox grill at this point.
"Hay yeah, I did!" Rainbow Dash laughed. "Took out three enemy planes! I ROCKED this battle, and it hasn't even officially started!" The drop rigs landed some distance away, and the ground shook from the muted impacts of several tons of prefabricated durasteel.
Then Rainbow Dash trotted up to Gaela, who had been silently analyzing the very obvious damage to her power armor. "I rocked it so hard that I need a bit of a tune-up, actually. Kinda got half-way gunned down out there."
Gaela frowned under her helmet. "You've been here since the reconnaissance mission. Why haven't you had your armor repaired yet?"
Rainbow chuckled in that unique way she did when she had a problem that was completely her fault, and she knew it.
"Yeah, see, there was this Dark Acolyte that met with me and the Wonderbolts, right? He gave them all this modified armor and other stuff. He was going to fix my armor, but then I told him to be really careful because Warsmith Solon built it himself." Rainbow lowered her head slightly. "Well, I guess name-dropping like that really intimidated the guy, because after that he was so scared of ruining it that he wouldn't even touch it, going on about not being worthy and stuff. So I need you to do it."
"I have to set up our defenses," the cyborg snapped as she turned around to leave, "if you cannot take care of your wargear, you cannot expect the servants of the Dark Mechanicus to keep compensating for your mistakes!"
Rainbow Dash stepped on Gaela's robe, stopping her (if only so that the robe didn't tear). "C'mon, Gaela! Solon totally did it when I asked him!"
"And yet you CONTINUE to neglect his gifts," Gaela growled, "I will not offer you such undeserved indulgence!"
"Gaelaaaaaa," Rainbow whined, "be cool!"
"Never!"
Twilight sighed and turned away, looking over the rest of the convoy. Mercenaries were piling out of their transports and setting up defense lines, while the tanks were lumbering up into position at the front.
"Oh, Dash! You mentioned the Wonderbolts were still around?" Rarity asked, grinning. "Where might they be?"
Rainbow turned away from Gaela and pointed a foreleg toward a high bluff some distance away from the mustering point. "They're back there! I guess they're going to be fighting too, though I don't really know how. It's not like they can handle a lasrifle, you know?"
She turned back to Gaela, only to see the Dark Techpriest had left and was opening up one of the drop rigs nearby. A small sliver of her rubber cloak was still trapped under the pony's boot.
"Come on, Gaela! Help a pony out!"
"Bother someone else!"

****

Ork Base Camp

"Waaaaagh! We got WAAAAAGH!! Git off yer bumz and git yer gunz, boyz!"
The call to battle in the Ork camp was less like an alarm and more like a dinner bell. Excited Nobs rushed through the camp and bellowed to the other Orks still setting up structures, stringing together mobs on the spot. Those that had gathered enough bodies rushed for the back of the camp, where numerous vehicles were parked in long lines.
"Wot's all da ruckus?" Hazarr grumbled to himself as he finished welding together a key relay on an enormous, building-sized electric transformer.
Turning away from his project, he watched the Nobs running and shouting through the camp.
"Oi!" he barked at an Ork at random, "wot's goin' on?! We'z not done buildin' yet!"
"Da humies, Boss Coggz!" the Ork said happily, slamming a fist into his palm. "Da humies came! Dey's all bunchin' up just past da cliffs! We'z gonna go smash 'em!"
Hazarr tilted his head to one side. "Fer realz? Dey came heah? Huh." The Big Mek hadn't been expecting that. Why build a huge wall and all that fancy dakka if you were just going to leave it? Humans were dumb.
"Whateva. Go krump 'em good," the Big Mek grumbled as he went back to his work.
"Er... you'z not comin', Boss?" another young Ork asked.
"Nah. I'z still gots ta bild da big dakka. Jus' cuz dey came out heah ta fight us don't meen we won't need stompas ta crakk da base."
"All roight, Boss. Yer da... well, da Boss."
Hazarr started walking back toward the transformer tower, but halted as a gretchin walked in front of him.
The small, simpering creature was carrying a communications rig that was bigger than it was, and its tongue hung out of its mouth as it struggled with the equipment.
"Call fer ya, Boss!" the gretchin squeaked. "Sounded right 'portant, it did!"
Hazarr squinted at the screen of the device. "Aw, zog it! It'z from dem dumb gits in da ships! Whadda dey want now?"
Grunting in frustration, Hazarr slammed his power claw onto the box, turning it on. This also happened to crush the gretchin carrying it, but the Big Mek didn't notice.
"Dis is Coggz. You betta not be callin' me ta cry dat da humies shot ya up," he growled.
"Boss! It's bad, Boss!" exclaimed the Ork on the other end of the line before a burst of static interrupted. "We booked it, we did! But most'a da boyz is gone! Dere's only two ships left!"
"Dat's wot ya gits git fer ignorin' me! I told ya dat big 'un was cursed!" Hazarr snapped.
Another burst of static. "Wot? No ya didn't!"
"Well, I told da boyz on my krooza, an' dey shoulda spread da word," Hazarr grumbled, "whateva. Dat it?"
"N-No, Boss," another burst of static, "see, after we'z was gettin' shot up by da humie ships, we was gonna board 'em, see? Git in close and choppy-like!"
"An' lemme gess: ya grot-lovin' softies mucked dat up, too," Hazarr snorted, picking up a cable running from the transformer.
"Dat's jus' it, Boss!" Static burst. "Hardly no boyz came back! Da ones dat did said dey was jumped by spiky boyz!"
Hazarr dropped the cable as his claw went slack. "Spiky boyz. We'z fightin' spiky boyz?"
"Dat's roight!" More static. "We wasn't ready fer dem! We got stomped, Boss Coggz!"
Hazarr brought his claw down onto the communicator, which turned the device off. By breaking it in half.
"Spiky boyz?" mumbled a Nob that had been close enough to overhear. "Never fought dem. Dey's s'posed ta be roight hard, ain't dey?" He looked quite excited at the prospect.
"Yeah, dey is," Hazarr grumbled, "ting is, if we'z fightin' Space Marines, dat changes da maths."
"Da wot?"
"Da number o'boyz it's gonna take ta beat down da humies. 'Justed fer da vohlyum o'dakka, 'course."
The Nob's eyes started getting glassy, and Hazarr grunted as he turned away. "Nevah mind. I'm jus' sayin' dat we'z need more dakka, and we'z needin' it roight quick."
"'Kay. But... da humies is already heah," the Nob pointed out.
"Yeah. Dat's da problem," Hazarr grunted. Fair fights were all well and good, but Chaos Space Marines never fought fair if they could avoid it. Besides that, the human army looked to be the equal of his own in numbers even before he had learned that a portion of it was made out of super soldiers. The boyz were poised to take an adamantium boot to the teeth if he didn't cook up a surprise of his own.
The Big Mek looked around at his camp, and the terrain that surrounded it. Much of the ground was rough, crushed rock; thanks to the descent of the battlecruiser, the surrounding land had been scoured of vegetation, and enormous cliffs of stone had been pushed up into the air as a tremendous impact crater formed. These cliffs formed the perimeter of three sides of his camp, while the other was blocked off by the wreck.
Hazarr's eyes lingered on the wreckage of the Tau battleship. Or, more specifically, the massive turrets that sat on top of the wreck; battered and shredded by the impact, but largely intact.
"I gots an ideah," Hazarr chuckled deeply, "wait 'til dem Kayoss crazies get a load'a DIS!"

****

Muster point designation Zeta

Twilight watched as hundreds of men rushed back and forth across the defensive lines, carrying supply crates and heavy weapons to the front. Ferrocrete defense lines had been set up in staggered rows between the bunkers and main battle tanks, and all the drop-turrets were manned. Some mercenaries had even started digging trenches, but that operation had been brought to a quick halt as great plumes of exhaust smoke rose over the crags that protected the Ork encampment.
If one were to look at the front line, one might assume that there were no Iron Warriors at all. Looking further behind the defenses, however, they were difficult to miss. Standing on raised plateaus or clustered behind tanks were the gleaming warriors, each of them seeing to their pre-combat rituals. Each unit brandished heavy weapons as they set up, carrying cannons and launchers that were the size of ponies themselves. It was a humbling sight, and it was hard to imagine any enemy possibly overcoming so much firepower and armor.
And yet...
Turning toward the dark, cloudy plumes, Twilight's visor started tagging incoming vehicles. A counter on the side of her display listed an estimate of active hostiles approaching.
It was rising steadily, and would soon break four digits.

"Hey, AJ! Right nice day for a war, innit?"
The voice wasn't addressing her, but Twilight turned around anyway. Watching the number of incoming enemies was just depressing, anyhow.
Daniels and Big Macintosh were approaching, the latter towing a metal wagon loaded down with ammunition crates. And Trixie on top, prattling on about something or other.
"Mac! Wy!" Applejack turned around, her head tilting to the side. "Ah'd say Ah was glad y'all could make it, but speakin' honestly n'all, Ah wouldn't mind ya skippin' this mess. We gotta whole heap o'trouble bearin' down on us."
Daniels started speaking, but his voice was drowned out by the thunder of artillery guns firing behind them, all firing in rapid sequence.
Once the noise died down, the mercenary reached forward and plucked the hat off of Applejack's helmet. "Well, look at you. I suppose I should have seen this coming, but I still find it just slightly distressing that they're arming you better than us humans."
Applejack calmly fired her gravity lash, ripping the stetson out of Daniels' hand and yanking it back onto her helmet. "Well, don't take it personal. If'n Ah had mah say, ya would get the best, fer sure." She turned toward Big Mac, who was heading toward the men setting up heavy weapons on the walls. "Whattya think, Big Mac? Pretty nifty digs, ain't they?"
"Eeyup," he said with a brief nod.
"If Trixie may expand upon that," the armored unicorn quickly added, "Trixie finds that your armor being the largest and obviously heaviest fits well with your status as the mare with the-"
Trixie's commentary was mercifully ended early when Big Mac disengaged the magnetic harpoon linking him to the single-axle wagon. It immediately flipped backward, spilling the ammunition and the mare on top of it into a heap easily accessible to the surrounding soldiers.
There would have been much laughter and snarky commentary, but another artillery barrage rumbling from behind them made it difficult to be too distracted.
"Looks like they'll be moving into engagement range soon," Daniels murmured as he put on his own helmet.
"You've fought these kinds of battles before, right?" Twilight asked, looking up at the human. "We saw a lot of what we can expect from the Orks, but on a rather small scale. How do these battles run strategically?"
Daniels took a deep breath as he pulled up his rail rifle. "The way to stop an Ork offensive is to break its momentum. Orks are tough, but their main advantage is numbers. If they're allowed to hit our defenses all at once, there'll be no stopping them. They'll just trample all of us. Take out enough of their transports, though, and throw enough obstacles in their path, and they'll have to make a slower, more cautious approach to our lines. Orks don't do slow and cautious well."
Another thunderous barrage was loosed from behind them, and this time a few battle tanks joined in, lobbing shells into the trukks racing toward the front lines.
"We can count on the heavy weapons fire from the Iron Warriors to do most of the hard work for us in stopping the transports and armor, but mixing it up with Ork infantry isn't fun, either. We have to turn this into a shooting battle, and then we have to WIN the shooting battle."
Twilight stared at the approaching alien vehicles before she lifted off into the air and away from her friends.

The armored alicorn flew low over the rows of soldiers lining up at the defense walls, and then landed on a hellhound attack vehicle positioned ahead of most of the other tanks.
Twilight's horn casing glowed brightly as she stood atop the hellhound, and she took a deep breath.
"ATTENTION, ORK INVADERS!" Twilight's voice was magically spread for over a kilometer in every direction from her spell, rather than simply being amplified to an absurd degree like the Canterlot Voice. Every soldier and alien in range heard her as if she was standing right next to them.
"YOUR LANDING HERE HAS VIOLATED THE SOVEREIGN TERRITORY OF EQUESTRIA, AND THREATENED OUR HOMES AND PEOPLE! YOUR AGGRESSION IS BOTH UNPROVOKED AND MEANINGLESS! THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS CONFLICT!"
"What does she think she's doing?" Daniels asked.
"It's a Harmony thing," Applejack assured him, "ya gotta at least TRY to talk things out, even if ya know it's pointless. Just let 'er be."
"THIS IS YOUR FIRST, LAST, AND ONLY WARNING! GO BACK TO YOUR VESSELS AND RETREAT FROM THIS WORLD, OR PREPARE FOR YOUR ADJUDICATION!"
Among the approaching vehicles, a looted and modified Leman Russ tank twisted its turret toward the hellhound and its passenger. The tank rocked back as it fired its main battle cannon, lobbing a large and uncharacteristically accurate shell across the battlefield and directly toward the noisy pony.
Twilight snapped the force harmonizer off her back and floated it forward, activating shield mode. A hex-grid of purple lines spread out from the poles, and shimmering plates of psionic energy appeared between them.
The shell slammed into the shield, causing the harmonizer to shudder backward as the defensive grid struggled to hold back the enormous kinetic and thermal energies. Ultimately it managed to do so, and the harmonizer stopped quivering as it stabilized. Twilight was pleasantly surprised to realize that there was no feedback surge, either.
Then the flames dissipated and her vision forward was clear again.
"Well, that was a pretty clear response. Had to try," Twilight mumbled.
A creaking noise came from behind her, and Twilight twisted her head around to see the inferno cannon gunner emerge from the top hatch.
"We object to you drawing additional fire toward our vehicle," the man confessed, "but we APPROVE of your deflecting incoming ordnance from it. Please proceed with the latter while toning down the former."
"Noted. Sorry about that," Twilight said as the man ducked back inside.
The sounds of lascannons and autocannons started running down the defensive lines as the weapons with the longest range started to lash out at the enemy. Trukks exploded in the distance or stuttered to a halt, spilling their cargo of alien fighters onto the rocky ground while the heavier vehicles continued rumbling forward into the crossfire.
Twilight banished the barrier and then started charging up the harmonizer's beam weapon, her visor bracketing the nearest incoming transport.
"For Equestria, and the Princess! ATTACK!!"

****

"Yeesh, things are really heating up down there," Soarin mumbled as he looked over the edge of the bluff, his optics zooming in on the bursts of artillery fire. Green bodies and smoldering plates of metal flew into the air with every string of detonations, and yet the waves of smoke-belching transports rumbled forward into the carnage regardless.
"And they're only going to get worse," said a man in a stilted, electronic voice, "for the xenos first, but eventually our own forces will start to feel the weight of the Ork assault."
The Wonderbolts were gathered around a new set of supply crates, and each of them now wore fitted armor plating over their jumpsuits. Most of the team watched the battle outside anxiously, but Spitfire was inspecting a small, onion-shaped device in her hoof.
"So wherever we drop these things, the artillery will hit that area exactly?" she asked the Dark Acolyte.
"Affirmative," he said as he picked up an artillery beacon with a ten-fingered augmetic hand, "at the moment, the xeno fighters are far from our lines, and there are so many targets that it is difficult to miss. As the battle progresses, the Orks will need to be attacked much closer to our own units, and much of the battlefield will be obscured by smoke and detritus. The deployment of spotters and artillery beacons will ensure that our most powerful weapons can contribute to the battle under more dangerous conditions."
A string of bullets zipped over Soarin's head, and the ponies nearest to the ledge leapt back as gunfire peppered the rock wall behind them.
"I really thought we were done with this after we finished with the scouting mission," Fleetfoot grumbled as she laid flat against the ground, "why are we even still here?"
"We're still here because there are still a lot of ugly green thugs that want to murder us all for fun," Spitfire snapped, "this battle isn't done, so neither are we!"
The Wonderbolt Captain noticed a distinct lack of patriotic enthusiasm from her subordinates, so she decided on a different form of persuasion.
"Do you remember what Rainbow Dash did when we landed here?" Spitfire growled. "She had been shot halfway to pieces, nearly crashed, and then rammed through two enemy planes! And what did she say when she got back? 'Fix up my suit, dude, I'm going back out there as soon as my friends arrive!' Now are you going to show that level of guts, or is that the sort of attitude that only exists in hotshot WEATHER MANAGERS?"
Soarin set his jaw and puffed out his chest. "You're right, Captain!" he barked. "Well, mostly right! As I understand it, technically Rainbow Dash is officially employed as a space pirate now, not on the weather team! But your point remains valid!"
"I would like to mention that Miss Dash also has some kind of super-advanced space armor," Silver Lining grumbled as he ran a hoof over the armor plate covering his chest, "how exactly does this stuff stack up to that? It feels way too light."
"That armor compares most unfavorably to the constructs of the Warsmith," the Dark Acolyte scoffed, "such creations are beyond replication. However, your current protections were assembled from Tau combat suits, which are considerably stronger than simple flak armor while being only slightly heavier. It will provide substantial resistance to Ork weapons."
Another bullet zipped over Soarin's head, causing him to flinch, and then Silver Lining shouted in pain as another blind shot slammed into his side. The stallion was completely bowled over onto the ground, and his teammates quickly rushed up to him.
"Silver! Silver, are you all right?!" Soarin shouted in a panic.
"Aaaugh..."
"Was that a 'yes'? I mean, obviously you're still alive, which is great, but if you were really all right I think you would be able to tell me!"
"Uuhuuhn..."
"See that?" the Dark Acolyte pointed to the felled pegasus. "Look at the projectile impact on the left pectoral plating. No penetration at all. This armor is perfectly sufficient."
"My ribs..." hissed the pegasus as he curled his legs up under his body. "Think... ribs... broken..."
"Well, yes, that can easily happen thanks to the oversized caliber of guns that Orks favor," the cyborg admitted, "but that's barely even an incapacitating injury."
Spitfire frowned and slowly approached the edge of the cliff, keeping her head down. "That seemed like it came from pretty close, didn't it? I thought the Orks were still far away. Plus we're pretty high up."
The sounds of warfare were rising in volume and intensity now, with the salvos of lasblasts and artillery explosions being joined by the constant cacophony of Ork shootas to create a constant, incomprehensible sea of noise. Still, Spitfire swore she could pick out some sort of engine roar closer than the rest of the sounds. She wasn't exactly an expert on high technology after being made to use it for half a day, but they kind of reminded her of the flight packs that Tellis and Rainbow Dash used...

"WAAAAUGH!!"
Spitfire leapt back as an Ork soldier blasted upward past the edge of the cliff, a trail of flame and smoke following along behind it.
"SWEET BABY LUNA!!" the orange mare screeched as she watched the alien ascend. "A rocket! They strapped an Ork to a Celestia-damned ROCKET!"
"Stormboyz!" shouted the Dark Acolyte, his augmetic arm shifting open to reveal a las-blaster. He waited until the roaring Ork reached the peak of his ascent, and then released a carefully-timed pulse of lasers into the foe.
The Ork's battlecry turned into a gurgling howl as it descended, and Soarin barely leapt out of the way before the alien hit the ground in a heap.
"Are you serious?" Fleetfoot shouted as the sputtering rocket booster bounced away in front of her. "This is how Orks fight?! This is insane!"
"And I think it's getting worse!" Blaze warned as his ears twitched. They could hear another approaching rocket engine, along with a fresh salvo of random bullets flying up over the edge.
Two more Orks appeared, the first hitting the edge of the cliff and pulling himself up. The second went higher, his rokkit pack carrying him over the Wonderbolts' heads.
The Dark Acolyte fired a laser burst into the first alien, dropping him off the edge. The second, however, crashed feet-first into the cultist, smashing him to the ground before raising his axe.
"NO!!" Spitfire screamed as the cyborg was reduced to a blood stain across the stone, and she leapt into the air before the Stormboy kicked the corpse aside.
"Back on the ground where you BELONG!" she shouted, punctuating the last word with a two-legged buck to the Ork's face.
The alien staggered back under the assault, blood and spittle spraying from its jaws.
Then it surged forward again, and Spitfire zipped away from the Stormboy's axe.
"Cripes, it's like kicking a brick wall!" the mare complained as a slugga round sailed over her head.
The other Wonderbolts that weren't rolling around in agony jumped into the air, intending to surround and batter the alien, but paused as they heard more rokkit engines and battle cries coming from below.
"Captain, we gotta get outta here!" Soarin shouted as he flew up behind the Stormboy and booted him in the back of the head. Again the Ork stumbled, but quickly shook off the blow.
"Wait! We can't leave Silver!" Spitfire said, beckoning to the injured Wonderbolt. Silver Lining was on his hooves and limping away from the fighting, but didn't look like he was going to be flying anywhere yet.
The Ork already among them tried to fire his slugga, only for it to click empty. "Imma beat ya all ta mush!" the Stormboy growled, tossing his sidearm aside and taking a two-handed grip on his choppa. "WAAA-ARGH!"
Spitfire's eyes blinked as something struck the alien from the side with a significant heat flash, and then they widened as the Ork fell to the ground with half his torso burnt away.

"Hello, dears. You look like you could use an extra hoof up here."
Standing at the far side of the cliff, Rarity posed without her helmet, with one foreleg raised off the ground and her head turned slightly in profile. As much effort as she put into her heroic appearance, though, the Wonderbolts' attention was mostly on the humming plasma gun floating in the air next to her, wrapped in her magical aura.
Then then next group of four Stormboyz rocketed over the edge of the cliff.
Rarity snapped a shot off at one of them, striking him in mid-air and frying the alien instantly. The others hit the ground running, charging the mare in gleaming armor with a gleeful roar on their lips.
"This is a VIP area!" Rarity shouted, her face twisting into a disapproving glare as the sheathed blade on her back started to glow. The plasma gun dropped out of the air at the same time, automatically mag-locking onto her side as it touched the gleaming armor plating. "Begone, ruffians!" The power sword pulled free of its sheath, and lightning arced down over the weapon's edge as it twisted in the air toward the nearest alien.
Then Rarity's horn pulsed.
The first Ork fired his slugga, only for his target to dart out of the way of the bullet at a speed that absolutely precluded any reaction. The power sword lanced forward into his throat and then cut sharply to the side. The Stormboy fell, dead before he had even realized what had happened.
Rarity's body was a blur as she dashed around the Orks trying to pummel her, and her power sword cut a gouge into the next alien's chest before drawing away and then stabbing into the breached skin.
The last Stormboy was briefly torn between chasing after the shockingly quick pony and fighting off the power sword that had no one apparently wielding it. When he saw the crackling blade pull free from his mob-mate, he made his decision and hacked at the sword.
The power weapon was hammered to the ground, lacking any real leverage to resist, and the Ork soldier stomped on the weapon's hilt to hold it down. Was that it? Did he win? He'd never fought an inanimate object before, so he wasn't sure.
The point was made rather moot when a plasma bolt took his head off from behind.
Spitfire gaped as Rarity's form slipped back into the normal flow of time, and she shook her head to clear it of the persisting after-images that had followed the glamorous unicorn.
"What in Celestia's name just happened?" the Wonderbolt Captain demanded.
"Whatever happened, can it happen again? I see a real big one coming up here!" Soarin warned as he hovered near the edge of the cliff. He lurched back ahead of a spray of wild gunshots, ducking away next to Fleetfoot.
Rarity took a quick glance around, and her eyes settled on the Wonderbolt crouched in a corner, wheezing painfully. He had a belt of grenades wrapped around his chest, as did the rest of the stunt flyers.
"Pardon me, darling, but it doesn't look like you'll be using those," Rarity said as a blue glow swallowed the belt. The latch came undone, and Silver Lining blinked as the belt of explosives slipped off and hung in the air in front of him.
Then he squeaked in fright as every one of the pins popped out at once, falling to the ground in a little pile.
"It's smashin' time!" cheered a massive Ork Nob as he ascended over the edge of the cliff and landed, kicking up a wave of rock dust under his boots. He was wielding a large iron hammer with a head about the size of a pony itself, and the Wonderbolts quickly darted away from the behemoth.
"We'z gonna-" his usual massacre preamble was interrupted as a belt flew toward him and wrapped around his neck.
He reached up and tugged at it hesitantly. It wasn't tight enough to constrict his breathing at all, and yet the small, squishable equines in front of him were staring at him with expressions ranging from horror to wild anticipation. "... Wot?"

"Anyway, Miss Spitfire," Rarity said, turning toward the orange pegasus. She paused to take a few steps to the side as the grenades detonated. The considerable blood splatter fell just inches short of her armor, and she grimaced briefly before she continued.
"I know this is hardly the ideal time, but my father's birthday is coming up, and he's something of a fan of yours. Is there any chance I could get some autographs from your team?"
Spitfire landed in front of the unicorn, an incredulous expression on her face. "Are you SERIOUS? We should be asking for YOUR autograph! That was brutal, filly!"
Rarity winced as she levitated her power sword out from under the Ork corpses. She wasn't ashamed of her combat prowess, but "brutal" was probably the least elegant way to describe it.
"In all seriousness, though," Soarin said as he landed on her other side, "you just saved our lives. You could ask for more than autographs."
"Maybe later, darling," Rarity said as she floated her blade in front of her. The power field crackled to life again, burning away the last of the Orkish blood, "for now, I just wanted to make a quick request before things get too hectic." She sighed as she sheathed her blade across her back. "I can't stay for too long; the others are down there on the front lines, and those ponies can get into all SORTS of trouble wandering around a battlefield."

****

A screeching howl boomed in Twilight's ears as she fired the force harmonizer's heavy beam, the noise only partly reduced by her autosense filters. A thick lance of purple hammered the front of a Gunwagon and ripped through the vehicle, tearing it in half.
The turret in front of her swiveled, and a jet of burning liquid sprayed across a smoldering transport wreck, bathing it in fire and incinerating the aliens sheltering behind it.
Warning icons on her helmet appeared, and Twilight shifted the harmonizer into shield mode before a cluster of rockets sailed wildly at her armored perch. Most of them spun away or hit the ground en route, but two of them sailed more-or-less randomly on target, only to hammer uselessly into Twilight's shield.
She tried to keep her mind on the battle, but Twilight couldn't help marveling how EASY it was to create a shield with the harmonizer. Hard shields were a very advanced unicorn spell, and barriers that could shrug off the sorts of kinetic and thermal energy contained in anti-armor weapons were limited to the most powerful ponies or those who claimed shields as their special talent, like Shining Armor. If the harmonizer's barrier effect could be scaled up, could it be possible to generate impenetrable barriers powered by a few random unicorns? Such a device would have obvious military benefits, but there were plenty of scientific applications for-
Her thoughts stumbled as the hellhound lurched underneath her. Twilight was mag-locked to the hull, but that had been an impact, not directed movement.
Glancing to the side and down revealed an Ork bike - as well as its dazed rider - that had apparently rammed into the side of the vehicle, and she could see the rest of the biker group riding off toward the defense lines.
A quick pulse of energy into the force harmonizer, and she cut a beam across the unit, slicing through riders and rending rear wheels apart. Most of the Orks lost control of their bikes and were flung onto the smoke-strewn battlefield. She was confident the humans could handle the remaining few.
Another missile warning light. Twilight's eyes widened as she quickly fed more power into the force harmonizer and swung it around, but it wasn't as quick to change output modes as she would've liked.
The crew of the exploding hellhound surely would have agreed.

Twilight yelped as she felt a surge of heat from below that briefly overwhelmed the controlled temperature of her armor interior. This was followed by a rapid series of warnings and angry red diagrams flashing on her visor, none of which were especially helpful as she was flung through the air on a wave of flame and shrapnel.
She hit the ground hard, but felt little pain from the jarring motions or searing heat. In fact, as she staggered to her hooves she seemed ultimately unharmed, if not fairly guilty about failing to protect her former perch and its operators.
A trio of bullet ricochets off her right flank cut short her mourning, however. She drew deeper into her magic and cast her regular shield dome, covering her from all directions as she tried to get her bearings.
Twilight was now surrounded by the full tumult and chaos of warfare. There were columns of smoke and waves of dust everywhere. Ork corpses and the blood slicks that used to be recognizable corpses were scattered all over the ground. Streams of lasers and bursts of tracer fire stabbed through the obscuring elements in an aimless frenzy. And underpinning the visual carnage was a constant crash of artillery and cannon fire in the background. Were it only her shield standing between her and the endless havoc, she would have been completely overwhelmed by the sensory stimulus alone. Behind her visor, however, the noise was filtered to sane levels, the heat wash from a hundred furious weapons was blocked out, and the nearest enemies were detected from behind the smoke and ash and bracketed for her convenience.
How did soldiers like Daniels handle open warfare without the aid of a sealed and fully computerized combat interface? Humans were insane.
Not quite as much so as the Orks, however. Not only did the green aliens seem to be conducting battle well enough without especially sophisticated equipment, but they were doing so on the wrong side of an artillery brigade while soaking up horrendous casualties. Yet the assault had barely faltered, and she could hear the infrequent bellows of laughter and guttural cheering in-between ordnance salvos. They were ENJOYING this.
"Well, if they like dying so much, who am I to judge?" the alicorn growled as she turned and focused on the largest incoming enemy signature.
That signature happened to be a Battlewagon, and Twilight raised an eyebrow as the huge, lumbering transport rolled out of the smoke. Mounted guns on the vehicle's top blazed constantly, spraying her barrier with bullets, but the numerous lesser impacts were tolerable.
Of greater concern was the massive, spike-covered metal roller attached to the front of the vehicle and flattening everything ahead of it. It was an almost comical sight to see such a crude weapon on a battlefield filled with lasers and artillery, but Twilight certainly didn't imagine she'd survive if she let it crush her.
So she didn't.

Twilight made a short teleport before the shield dissolved, rematerializing right next to the side of the battlewagon.
Switching the force harmonizer to blade mode, she stabbed the crystalline purple weapon into the transport as it rumbled past, punching through the wheels and holding it in place telekinetically while the battlewagon kept moving. Sparks and chunks of shredded metal spewed from the point of contact, and the entire vehicle started to shake from the damage.
Twilight wrenched the harmonizer free, and the Battlewagon ground to a shuddering halt with fully half of its wheels and tracks ripped apart. Some of the Orks packed into the wagon started firing out from the passenger compartment, but the few bullets that reached her spattered off her armor.
Then she spotted something being flung out of the compartment at her: some sort of baton-shaped object with a metal head.
"Oh! A stikkbomm! I remember hearing about those from Delgan!" Twilight said, magically immobilizing the object in the air. "I don't want this." She telekinetically flung the explosive back into the passenger compartment.
The howls of pain and angry shouting after the stikkbomm exploded indicated that some of the passengers had survived, so Twilight summoned a fireball at the tip of her horn and then lobbed that into the passenger bay as well.
Then a battle cannon shell screamed over her head, passing close enough to scrape one of her wings.
"Yipe!" Twilight was pushed off her hooves by the concussive force of the explosion, knocking her onto her side but again sparing her any real injury. Scrambling upright, she saw what appeared to be a ramshackle Leman Russ battle tank with a grinning Ork face bolted onto the front. All of its giant and long-ranged guns also seemed to be aimed toward her, which she actually found a little flattering, if not way too dangerous.
"Hey! That tank doesn't belong to you!" the alicorn shouted as she made another teleport directly in front of the battle tank.
Twilight jumped up, her wing boosters carrying her over the hull of the vehicle as it shook from the power of its three heavy bolters. The tank's weapons kept firing obliviously at the spot where Twilight had been, perhaps thinking that she had merely been obscured nearby.
"What have we got here..." Twilight landed on the top of the looted tank's main turret, and she spotted a fuel drum hanging on the back that wasn't secured properly. It was probably enough to cause an explosion, but not an explosion large enough to destroy the rest of the tank.
Well, then. Time to improvise.
Again the harmonizer formed its glowing, violet edge, and Twilight used the blade to slice through the lock and hinges keeping the main crew hatch closed. Then she kicked the hatch cover off.
Twilight levitated the fuel drum up and cut off the cap, dumping the volatile contents into the tank interior. Some angry shouting came from the crew compartment, and she responded in kind.
"Ponies are a loving and peaceful race!" the alicorn shouted as she flung the empty drum away and lit a spark on the tip of her horn. "This is YOUR fault! YOU did this to us!"
She dropped the flame into the tank, turning away as the grunts and shouting turned to panicked howls.
"Okay. Next is-"
Twilight was cut off by a cascade of heavy bullets hammering her in the side, knocking her clean off the tank and sending her sprawling onto the ground.
"Ow! That actually hurt!" she complained as she stood up again. A diagram of her armor structure appeared briefly, a red section marking a breach in the plating. None of the bullets had managed to pierce it completely and reach her body, but the pieces of the internal carapace now jutting into her skin were a painful reminder that even power armor wasn't indestructible.
"Okay, next is NOT standing on an elevated position surrounded by enemy guns," the alicorn said as she ducked low next to the disabled tank. Bullets ricocheted wildly off the vehicle plating from all directions as the enemy weapons sought her out; clearly her actions so far hadn't gone unnoticed.
That conclusion was reinforced as her visor tagged numerous infantry charging toward her through the smoke and blast craters. Twilight grimaced. As bad as it was being surrounded by Ork gunfire, being surrounded by Ork choppas was considerably worse. Their dream training had quite literally hammered that point into her.
She established a vox connection with the artillery captain.
"Artillery control, this is Sparkle. I've got numerous incoming targets from multiple directions. Do you have time for a volley in my direction?"
Static crackled in her ear briefly. "I'm reading you, Sparkle. Upload a targeting solution for us and we'll bring down the hammer."
"No need for that. Just center it on my location," she replied as she turned around and peeked behind the Leman Russ. More Orks charging from the other side. Perfect.
"You... want us to fire directly ON you? You won't have long to clear the blast area."
"Please," Twilight said as she locked onto Applejack's locator rune. Numbers rapidly scrolled across her visor, detailing the farmer's distance and elevation in relation to Twilight herself.
"Your funeral. Firing now." The vox link cut out.
"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" the chosen battlecry of the Orks rumbled in her ears and steadily built all around her as the aliens approached, and her armor shook as a few of the charging Orks managed to hit their highly visible and unmoving target with their pistols.
"Yeah, I'm out," Twilight said before she teleported away.

****

Twilight reappeared right behind Applejack, who was peeking over the top of a defensive barricade next to Daniels and Big Macintosh. She listened carefully for the sound of "her" artillery strike hitting, but unfortunately the sound was impossible to pick out among the churning noise of battle that now surrounded her. Oh well.
"Hi guys! What'd I miss?" she called out.
Applejack turned around, obviously surprised to see the alicorn. "Twi? What happened? Ah thought that flamer tank rode off with ya!"
"Yeah, it did," Twilight confirmed, "I got a little too far out, so I came back." She shrugged, shifting the battered shoulder pads on either side of her. "So how are things holding up here?"
"Better'n expected, really," Applejack admitted, "which is still pretty bad, but, y'know, toler'ble."
A scream came from behind the apple farmer, and a mercenary collapsed to the ground with an arm missing.
Applejack glanced down. "Still alive! Someone bring 'im over to Flutters!"
The two soldiers nearest were only too happy to comply, ducking down and dragging the gasping man away from the front lines.
Applejack turned back to Twilight. "We've been gettin' worn down pretty steady-like, but Wyatt says that's how we know we're actually winnin'."
"If we were losing, we'd know, because we'd all be dead or running by now!" the mercenary shouted as he fired his rail rifle into the distance. Big Macintosh was shooting at the same targets through the smoke, standing with his forelegs on the defense wall and his heavy bolter spewing long bursts into the distance.
"The Orks haven't breached the lines yet?" Twilight asked.
"Nah," Applejack grunted, "a few groups of 'em made it close after their wheels broke down, but Trixie tricked 'em with her illusion thingamajig while we shot 'em apart." The unicorn was standing well back of the first line of defense walls, and Twilight watched as a few zig-zagging fireballs were launched, perhaps blindly, into the battlefield beyond.
"Well, sounds like you're doing better than I was, at least," the alicorn decided.
Her declaration was followed by a cannon shell slamming into the nearest bunker. A spray of ferrocrete burst from the back of the fortification as it started to split apart from the accumulated abuse, and a squad of mercenaries flooded out of the back of it.
"And now we're not! That's what you call a 'jinx'!" Daniels shouted back to the equines as he stopped to reload. "Don't do that!"
Applejack quickly turned back toward the battlefield. "We got another of 'em big trucks comin'!"
"That bunker was keeping the armor back!" Daniels complained. "The Havocs already have their hands full with the damned looted tanks! We don't have anything to stop it!"
Twilight levitated the force harmonizer above her head as she saw the huge vehicle emerge from the distant smoke. It was similar enough to the Battlewagon that had tried to run her over before that she easily identified it as the same type of vehicle, although this one looked somewhat different. The most obvious difference being the lack of an enormous metal roller mounted on the front.
"Got it," the alicorn mumbled as she charged up the harmonizer, "Big Mac, could you step down, please? You really don't want to be in the way of this."
The stallion quickly did so, ducking out of Twilight's line of fire right before a bright purple lance of pure power screamed over the defensive walls.
The Battlewagon shook violently as the heavy beam hammered into it, yet kept plowing forward into the energy stream. Armor plates crumpled and the reinforced glass of the windshield cracked and broke. Twilight was fairly sure the beam managed to cave in the driver's cab and crush the pilot by the time her weapon petered out.
Oddly enough, this didn't seem to slow the vehicle down much.
"Aw, horseapples!" Applejack shouted as she galloped out of the way of the smoldering transport. Several mercenaries followed behind her, while Daniels and Big Macintosh split away in the other direction.
"No, no, no, no, no!" Twilight chanted as her wing boosters carried her out of the battlewagon's path. If it kept going, it would carry its payload right into the artillery brigade. "We need to stop it! We have to-"
The Battlewagon's front wheels suddenly popped off, rolling to either side as the front portion of the vehicle dropped to the ground and started digging a furrow into the dirt.
"... What? Did I jar something loose?" Twilight asked as she landed and backed away from the transport.
Then one of the hull-mounted big shootas lit aflame, and small parts began to come loose from the rear tracked section of the vehicle.
"Trixie KNEW this spell would come in handy!" Trixie crowed while her horn casing pulsed with magic. The exhaust pipes on the Battlewagon started shaking and sputtering violently, and one of the axles snapped in half. "Hurry up and get the ones inside!"
There was still a lot of wild gunfire coming from the passenger compartment, and most of the surrounding mercenaries were rushing for new cover. Applejack and Big Mac were closest, and the sister nodded silently to her sibling before they both charged for the rear of the vehicle.
Macintosh swung around once he reached the Battlewagon, and his augmetic leg wound up as Applejack aimed her heavy flamer.
A tremendous crack boomed over the battlefield as Big Mac ripped open the rear of the passenger compartment, and Applejack wasted no time before pouring flame into the breach. Within seconds the entire Battlewagon was vomiting smoke as its passengers and cargo were cooked alive, while at the same time the vehicle's engines came apart due to Trixie's efforts. Some Orks leapt from the sides of the Battlewagon while still on fire, but these panicking fighters were quickly cut down by lasgun fire.
"All right, that takes care'o these varmints!" Applejack announced. "We gotta-"
She was cut short as something burst out through the fire and the remaining armor plating on the rear of the battlewagon, knocking both Applejack and Big Mac aside with its sheer mass.
"NOB!" Daniels shouted, bringing his rail rifle up. The enormous Ork was on fire, like the rest of his unit, but the mob leader was covered in a massive, super-heavy armor suit that protected him from the worst of the flames. The fire did a good job of obscuring his vision, at least, because rather than stopping to shred the Apple siblings with its power klaw the Ork was racing forward in a rage, his shoota blasting wildly ahead of him without any particular target.
Daniels lowered his aim on the alien and fired a burst into its leg. The super-accelerated projectiles drilled through the mega armor's plating like so much butter, exiting out the other side with a hefty wash of blood.
The Ork staggered, roaring furiously and firing its twin-linked shoota in a blind arc in front of it. Daniels fell over as bullets slammed against his chest plate, knocking the man down from the sheer force.
"WAAAAAAA-hurk!" the Nob's war cry was cut short as two floating blades plunged into his back: one a glowing, crystalline purple, and the other a metal sword crackling with an intense power field.
The alien slumped forward, kicking up a wave of dust as his heavily armored corpse hit the ground.

"Really, I leave for TEN MINUTES, and this place goes straight to Tartarus while I'm gone," Rarity sighed as she slowly levitated her power sword out of the Ork's back. She finally had her helmet on, and some kind of wrapped bundle was on her back, directly behind the suit's power plant.
"Well, thanks for coming back," Twilight said dryly as she deactivated the harmonizer's blade and had the weapon float back to her.
"Wyatt! Wy, you all right?" Applejack gasped as she raced toward the mercenaries that had been in the general direction of the Ork's fusillade.
"Oh, I'll be fine," the man grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, "bones knit themselves, you know?" He looked to his side and saw two men laid out on the ground, having taken the barrage with considerably less grace than he. "Looks like we've got more work for Miss Fluttershy, though."
"HEY!!" barked Trixie. "Trixie hates to interrupt, but those weren't the last Orks out here, you know!" the unicorn was again behind a defense line with a squad of riflemen, lobbing sparkling jets of flame into the steadily advancing aliens.
"Coming!" Twilight replied, rushing past Daniels as the mercenary dragged one of his fallen peers in the opposite direction.

"Hey Miss Shy, got another for you!" Daniels called out as he pulled the wounded mercenary past a supply transport. The vehicles had been parked in a loose square, effectively blocking off an area that had then served as a makeshift medical bay.
"Oh, dear. Is it bad?" Fluttershy asked, not turning toward the mercenary. She had her narthecium gauntlet poised over the stump of a man's shoulder, spraying a solution onto it to disinfect the wound and accelerate clotting.
"Oh, not too bad. He won't bleed out soon. Right, mate?" Daniels shook the wounded man's shoulder. The man made a noise in response that suggested he might be retching into his respirator.
"Put him in the back, if that's all right," Fluttershy said, moving on to the next patient. The small servo arms extended from her chest plate, slowly approaching the bloodied hole in the mercenary's abdomen.
Daniels looked around the area. Besides Fluttershy, there were exactly two people helping treat the wounded: a rifleman who was probably only back here as a helper to avoid coming here as a patient, and a Dark Acolyte whose augments were suspiciously heavy on blades and light on needles.
"Well, you've been keeping busy, I see," Daniels murmured as he found an empty spot and laid down his injured associate.
"Oh, yes, it's been very hectic," the pegasus agreed breathlessly as the man beneath her squirmed in pain, "I'm used to taking care of injured animals all the time, but not this many! And I'm, uhm, not really all that familiar with human biology, so I'm not totally sure I'm doing it right, but I really hope I am because I'd feel just terrible if I accidentally killed-"
"Flutters," Daniels said sharply, noticing that Fluttershy's voice had been speeding up and steadily rising in pitch.
The pony froze stiff, her servo arms halting with a warped, blood-soaked bullet held between their metal pincers.
"Calm down," Daniels continued, "you've got drugs, you've got tools, and you care. That's already more than we're used to." He hefted his rail rifle. "Probably more than we deserve."
"Oh. Uhm... th-thank you..." Fluttershy ducked her head as she placed a bandage press on the wound of her current patient. "Mister Heranus, if you don't mind, could you come and get..."
Fluttershy trailed off as she glanced at the Dark Acolyte, who was looming over a mercenary with a mono-molecular-edged servo blade poised for cutting.
"Wait! What are you doing?" Fluttershy yelped, her vox grille automatically amplifying her timid interruption into the audible spectrum.
The robed cyborg halted. "I am amputating the damaged limb in accordance with my preliminary diagnosis."
"But he just has an arm fracture, doesn't he?"
"Affirmative. An augmetic replacement for the afflicted extremity will be far more functional and resistant to damage in combat."
"That's not the point! Don't cut off people's limbs if their injuries aren't even that bad!" the pegasus retorted, her voice becoming a bit more heated.
"That directive would have been very relevant four subjects ago."

Daniels quietly crept away as Fluttershy continued arguing with the Acolyte. He had considered asking for a painkiller for his own injuries, but figured the meek pony had her hooves full as it was. Best to save the time and supplies for those who needed them most.
He moved into a crouch as he approached the defense line, noting that the barricades were practically shaking from the volume of bullets hammering them while most of the soldiers were keeping their heads down.
"I'm back! What'd I miss?" Daniels shouted as machine gun fire whistled through the air over his head.
Twilight had her head down too, but her force harmonizer hovered above the barricades while sweeping a purple beam across the battlefield every few seconds, cutting into the Orks slowly advancing on their position.
"I talked to an officer!" the alicorn shouted. "The armored vehicles and Iron Warriors are massing for the counter-attack! The Ork assault is breaking up!"
"Spiffy! Could you do that voice trick and tell the Orks shooting at us? I don't think they realize they've lost yet!" the mercenary yelled back.
Twilight rolled her eyes under her helmet. "Hold on!" She switched the harmonizer to shield mode, and soon the hex-grid barrier of energy came alive with power flares as bullets sprayed over it. "Okay, that'll cover us! Fire back!"
The mercenaries wasted no time wondering when they started taking orders from ponies; the fact that Twilight wore power armor and had given them a tactical advantage were enough qualifications for them. Ranks of soldiers turned their lasguns back toward the battlefield, emptying their clips in the direction of the Orks' muzzle flash.
"There we... go!" Applejack grunted as she pushed the box of heavy bolter ammunition into place on Big Mac's side. Then her helmet opened up before she pulled the first rounds of the belt out of the box with her teeth, feeding the heavy bolts into her brother's main weapon.
Big Macintosh waited patiently, trying not to feel TOO embarrassed that his sister had to help him reload his weapon in a reasonable time frame. Trixie was beside him, still launching firebursts into the smoke beyond.
"WaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAGH!!" The distant warcry built into a thunderous wave as the shooting started to die down, and those ponies that had spent the previous night fighting endless waves of Ork fighters perked up. They knew what that sound meant.
"They're making a push!" shouted a mercenary as he readied a grenade. "They're rushing us!"
"At least they're doing it on foot this time! Right sporting of them!" Daniels chuckled ruefully as he found the last magazine of rail rifle ammunition and slid it into place. "Strictly speaking, it isn't vital to the mission that we hold them back any more, but I'm sure you'll all agree that it's still preferable to being trampled to death!"
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed as his visor started marking targets by the dozen.

As the torrent of incoming bullets became a trickle, Trixie poked her head up over the barricades to see the wave of dirty green figures sprinting through the veritable rain of lasers, heavy bolter rounds, and the odd purple beam sawing across the battlefield.
"Show time," the unicorn said to herself while she rushed toward Applejack.
"Pardon Trixie, apple pony," she said kind-of-politely.
Applejack barely had time to mumble in confusion before Trixie hopped on top of her back.
"What the-? Hey! Whaddya think yer doin'?!" Applejack demanded. It wasn't as if Trixie's weight caused her any actual strain, but it was rather distracting to have another pony riding her in the middle of a crucial phase of a battle.
Trixie's horn casing glowed before her hat floated up off her helmet, and as she spoke her vox-distorted voice boomed over the battlefield exactly as Twilight had done earlier.
"QUIVER IN FEAR, BRUTES! FOR NOW YOU FACE THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL... TRIXIE!!"
Ignoring the exasperated sighs from some of the other armored equines (including her current perch), Trixie stood up on her hind legs and beckoned to her floating hat with a foreleg.
"BEHOLD! FOR TRIXIE SUMMONS YOUR DEMISE WITH BUT A FLICKER OF HER MIGHTY MAGIC!!"
As her horn glowed brighter, Trixie's wizard hat started to shake and distend, as if the opening were a mouth trying to spit something out.
And then it DID spit something out.
Boltguns spilled from the hat two or three at a time, dropping toward the ground and then swinging back up into the air while wrapped in a soft, pink glow. This continued for several seconds, and by the time the hat vomited a puff of smoke and dropped back on Trixie's head, there were a full thirty of the hefty firearms floating in the air, spaced out around the unicorn and aimed toward the oncoming horde.
The Orks actually did seem quite impressed by the feat of magic and subsequent display of firepower. A few stopped to clap.
The thunderous sound of all the bolters discharging on full burst swallowed the other noise of the immediate area, including the approaching aliens. Twilight couldn't help but stare at the fusillade, letting her own weapon fire slacken.
"Trixie?! How can you possibly aim thirty weapons at once?!" Twilight shouted to be heard over the bolter fire.
"AIMING IS FOR THOSE WITH ONLY ONE GUN!!" Trixie cackled.
The application of Ork shooting tactics against Ork assault tactics proved surprisingly effective, and more and more howling soldiers dropped to the ground mid-stride with gaping wounds in their chests or legs.
Then the barrage stopped, and thirty boltguns made ominous clicking noises in the air.
"Welp. Trixie's done," the unicorn declared, hopping down off of Applejack as all the bolters dropped to the ground at once, "good luck fending off the survivors! You can thank Trixie later if you don't die!"
Applejack rolled her eyes as the caped pony galloped away. She really couldn't bring herself to complain.

"Incoming melee!" Daniels shouted, dropping his rifle and drawing his sword and pistol as the Orks made the final push for their front lines. Out of some sixty who began the initial charge, a mere ten remained after weathering the guns of the defenders.
Then, in a turn of events that surprised nearly everyone, the ground underneath the incoming Orks flashed and turned to ice.
"Hit them now!" Twilight shouted, her horn glowing and surrounded by a frosty chill as the harmonizer switched to blade mode.
Some of the aliens lost their footing on the unexpectedly slick ground, either sprawling flat on their faces or sliding forward and slamming awkwardly into the barricades.
The humans wasted no time standing up and spearing the aliens with bayonets, and Daniels started by shooting an Ork boy that was climbing to his feet and slashing another that was raising his choppa.
After that, events became a wild and desperate blur fueled by adrenaline and panic. Slash, shoot, dodge, twist. Daniels had performed this bloody dance a dozen times before, thrice against Orks, but it never seemed to get any easier. Some people seemed to be born for this sort of carnage. Or, in the case of the Space Marines, reborn for it. For Daniels it was the ugliest, most desperate part of war, and usually the kind that only happened when things went wrong.
His sword bit into green flesh, but not deep enough. A backhand slammed into him in response, and his previous, minor injuries came alive with pain. This stunned him long enough for the laughing alien to ram into him with its shoulder, sending the mercenary crashing to the ground.
Daniels wasn't entirely sure what happened after that; the world seemed to spin around him as he laid on the ground, and all the strength had left his body. All he could be sure of was that he was still alive; he was in way too much pain to have finally passed away.
"Daniels, darling, are you still with us?"
There was hardly any mistaking that voice for anyone else, even if Daniels couldn't recognize the different ponies' armor suits on sight. The unicorn was standing on the chest of a dead Ork, her power sword plunged into its throat. There was a considerable amount of blood splashed over her power armor, but given the lack of obvious tears in the plating, none of it was hers.
"Hi Miss Rarity," Daniels groaned out, his throat feeling painfully dry, "did we win yet?"
"We did, actually," Rarity said, looking up at the melee's aftermath.
The entire area was a mess of savaged Ork bodies and slicks of blood, with a mere handful of human corpses scattered among them. The only Ork still alive was currently impaled on one of Big Mac's horns, and was weakly beating at the stallion's helmet with his bare fists as he bled out.
Daniels slowly forced himself into a sitting position, and he unlatched his headgear.
"Well, congratulations," he gasped as he pulled his face mask and helmet off, "you've all survived the first part of your first battle against the greenskins. That's a pretty big deal!"
Applejack blinked behind her helmet. "The first part? ... Aw, horseapples! We still gotta go take apart their camp, don't we?"
Big Mac swung his head to the side, and the dying Ork boy was flung away into a crater. "Eeyup."
"Well, after the numbers they committed here, there can't be too many of them left defending their base," Twilight reasoned.
None of the ponies like the way that Daniels chuckled ruefully at that statement.
"You'd think so, huh?"

A low rumble diverted the ponies' attention as a rhino APC approached from behind the defensive lines, maneuvering through the shattered defenses.
It slowed to a halt next to the armored equines, and Twilight perked up considerably when the side access door opened.
"Gaela! There you are!" the alicorn chirped as the Dark Techpriest stepped out of the transport. "I was kind of worried when I teleported back here and didn't see you!"
"I SHOULD have been on hand to mend the defenses as necessary," Gaela said, her voice carrying slightly more irritation than usual, "but I was otherwise occupied."
A servo arm pointed to the sky, and ponies looked upward to see a gleaming figure blasting through the air on a trail of flame.
"How bad was it?" Twilight asked.
"Dash's supposed skill at flight is in serious question. And her obvious shortcomings as far as restorative litanies were also on ample display." Gaela grunted. "My repairs were comprehensive, however. She should be able to survive her next blunder."
"Not to rush your conversation," shouted a voice from the rhino's driver compartment, "but did you actually want to give the equines their deployment orders?"
"Apologies, Lord Dest," Gaela said quickly, stepping aside so that the ponies might enter the transport, "the Iron Warriors and the remainder of the armored contingent are beginning the counter-attack. There are still many Orks between us and their base camp, however. We will require armored transportation."
"Right! Let's go!" Twilight said as she walked into the rhino. Rarity and Big Macintosh followed her without delay.
Applejack did hesitate, glancing back at Daniels. "Ya think ya can get over to Flutters all right, cowboy? Ya ain't lookin' too good."
"Hey, I'm not the one being sent out to look for more trouble," Daniels said with a cough, "you take care of yourself, AJ. And look after your bro! Don't think he wants any more metal bits!"
Applejack snorted and entered the rhino. Gaela stepped in behind her, and then closed the side access door and locked it.
"Who was that, and what is the basis of his bias against augmetic components?" Gaela demanded.
Applejack groaned as the transport started to move. "Just let it go, would ya please? Let's concentrate on kickin' the last o'these critters off our planet!"
Gaela nodded hesitantly. "Very well. The final push into the Ork encampment will be spearheaded with our armored assault formations. The Iron Warriors will be deployed behind their initial breakthrough to take ground and eliminate entrenched resistance. We'll be escorting the Scavurel demolition teams that will be demolishing the Ork structures while the Iron Warriors clear out the base."
"So not a front-line role this time," Twilight released a deep breath, "that's kind of a relief. I think I've had enough of that for today."
"And you've all acquitted yourselves quite well," Gaela said, her tone easing ever-so slightly, "judging by your suit data recorders, your performance was beyond adequate."
"To be fair, expectations were low," Dest added from the driver's cab.
"This is true," Gaela agreed, "but you have nonetheless exceeded them. The Warsmith seemed certain that at least Rarity would be dead by now."
The unicorn snorted indignantly, but Twilight actually felt herself blushing under the extremely measured praise. After all, it was very rare to hear any sort of positive sentiment come from Gaela that wasn't related to high technology or Solon.
"Should you complete the rest of the mission without further complication, it will reflect quite well upon Team Rainbow Dash."
Twilight's head snapped up. "Team WHAT?!"

****

Pinkie's plasma cannon released a high-pitched whine as its magnetic stabilizer built up charge, and the muzzle flashed as she locked on to her target.
Three Orks died in an instant, their bodies dissolving under a wave of super-heated gases as the plasma orb detonated. The blast also caused a nearby crag to explode from the kinetic and thermal energy, and two more aliens staggered as rock shrapnel carved into their backs.
"Come out and play! You wanted to fight, didn't you?" Pinkie snickered behind the cascading targeting arrays of her visor as the green-skinned soldiers crawled deeper into the rocky crags that separated them from the (mostly) Astartes walkers.
"Slay the alien," intoned Sirius before he opened fire on the same Orks with his butcher cannon. The guns hammered away at the rocky alcove, tearing through stone and Ork flesh in equal measure as it sawed across the rocky outcroppings.
Pinkie heard bullets spraying uselessly across her side armor , and she turned her head to catch sight of something big coming out from beneath the cliffs.
"Oh, hey! Orks have Dreadnoughts too, huh? Neat!" Pinkie exclaimed as she bracketed the first one with her targeting array. The Ork Deff Dread was a clanking monstrosity of scrap metal bolted and welded together into a three-armed walker, all of them bearing giant buzz saw blades. Big shootas were strapped to the can-shaped body of the walker, and these sprayed ammunition in the direction of the enemy vehicles as the Ork Dreadnought plodded forward.
Pinkie fired her plasma cannon again, but the shot went high and splashed against the rock walls.
"Pinkie of Pie, relent," Kairon requested, the less colorful Dreadnought stomping up next to her, "my weapon is more accurate and suitable to the task."
The Ork Deff Dread halted as it was speared by Kairon's multi-melta, its front armor dissolving and dribbling down its legs. Along with much of its pilot.
"Thankee, Kai! You're the best!" Pinkie cheered.
"Not at all. My skill at arms is entirely unremarkable for a warrior of my veterancy and wargear loadout," the Dreadnought insisted, "also, I have identified incoming Tankbustas."
Pinkie hissed, cat-like, as she saw the Orks flood in behind the dreadnought wreck. All of them were carrying rokkit launchas, and the pony pilot remembered full well what those magnetic bombs did.
"Suppressive fire! Suppressive fire!" Sirius shouted as his butcher cannon turned toward the Orks and sawed across the rocks they were sheltering behind.
"My weapon is unsuitable for such a thing," Kairon noted, a touch of deep regret to his voice as a rokkit sailed over his head.
"Then use normal fire!" the contemptor growled. "Hett! Finish off those wartrakks and join the rest of us!"
The Khornate walker giggled insanely in response. His twin-linked autocannon was pointed well away from the current combat, taking long-range shots at distant vehicles.
Pinkie's tail twitched nervously as more rokkits flew at them from behind the rocky crags. She managed to step back just in time, and one such projectile hit squarely in her chest plating rather than detonating on her helmet.
"All right, time to bring The Party!" Pinkie said with an uncharacteristic edge to her voice. Her shoulder-mounted party cannons levered downward, and spots of red decorated her visor to show the estimated impact zone.
"Let's ROCK!" The cannons fired.
Sirius was expecting the wide-barreled (and inappropriately colorful) guns to be some sort of mortars, given their mountings and the lack of any obvious ammunition feed.
So he was probably even more surprised than the Orks when the Tankbustas found themselves surrounded by a rain of confetti, party favors, and cupcakes.
"What?" mumbled the Contemptor, his butcher cannon faltering.
Two frontal plates on Pinkie's Dreadnought popped open, as if they were concealing a hidden weapons bank. Except instead they were concealing speakers.
"Burrrn, baby, BURN! DISCO INFERNOOOO!! Burrrn, baby, BURN! Burn that mother down!"
"... What?" Sirius asked again as music boomed through the area.
As bizarre as it was, or perhaps BECAUSE of how bizarre it was, the rokkits had completely stopped coming. The Tankbustas were either staring up at a disco ball inexplicably floating above them, laughing and cheering, or fighting over the cupcakes that had been included in the barrage.
"The heat was on, rising to the top!" Pinkie's speakers continued blaring as Kairon stomped up to the Orks.
"Everybody going strong, and that is when my spark got hot!"
Kairon lifted his power fist, revealing the heavy flamer mounted at the wrist.
"I enjoy this battle hymn," the Dreadnought said, "it is thematically appropriate."
A great tongue of flame blasted over the distracted Orks, incinerating half the unit in a single sweep.
"I heard somebody say: Burrrrn, baby, BURN!" Pinkie sang along with as she fired the plasma cannon again, blasting another pair of Tankbustas to vapor.
A larger Ork came at Kairon with a magnetic bomb, but the assault walker was quicker, turning on the Nob and grabbing the alien's entire upper torso in its power fist.
The Tankbusta Nob was crushed in an instant, and the survivors of his unit started scrambling away as Kairon tossed away the pulped Ork.
"Boss is down! Dey got da boss!"
"Leg it! Dere's too many of 'em!"
Pinkie cut her speakers as she stepped up next to Kairon, her targeting arrays locked on the fleeing aliens. "Party's over! Go home, already!" the mare shouted as she began charging her plasma cannon again.
Pinkie pouted as she saw warnings flash across her visor in red, complaining that her main weapon was on the verge of overheating. She stopped charging up the cannon, and heard an intense hissing noise as the magnetizing chamber spewed steam from its cooling vents.
"Aw, fudgsicles! They got away!" Pinkie moaned.
"I am unfamiliar with the unit designation 'fudgsicles'," Kairon noted, "but the enemy has indeed withdrawn." He focused his optical arrays down the path the aliens fled. "Curious. This route does not lead to the enemy camp, but in fact enters a breach in the void ship wreck."
Sirius, who had been entirely silent and immobile since seeing the party cannons in action, started when a thunder hammer thumped against his back plating.
"Command? Command? Command?" Hett repeated like a broken record, tapping his melee weapon against the larger Dreadnought with each word.
"I wonder if this is what it's like to be in the Emperor's Children," the Contemptor mumbled to himself as he slapped away Hett's thunder hammer, "it's like guiding a herd of drug-addled younglings."
He amplified his vox unit as he approached Pinkie and Kairon from behind. "Return to formation! Our orders are to advance on the Ork encampment!"
"Affirmative," Kairon said immediately, turning back toward the lead walker.
Pinkie hesitated. "But the bad guys went that way," she said, pointing toward the mountain of metal that made up the wrecked ship.
Hett's torso seemed to quiver in fury. "Cowards! Kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM!!"
"Forget it," Sirius snapped, "our target is the encampment."
Pinkie frowned. "But what if there's something really important in there?" she protested.
"Like what?!" Sirius demanded, his patience thinning rapidly. "What could there possibly be inside the rubble of a Tau void ship besides crushed metal and dead bodies?"
Pinkie considered that question carefully, and then she gasped. "Maybe there's CANDY!"
"NO! No, there is no candy!" Sirius retorted angrily.
"Now, hold on," Kairon said, holding up his giant, mechanical palm, "how could you POSSIBLY know there's no candy?"
Sirius didn't really know how to answer that.
"I'm gonna go check!" Pinkie Pie declared, accelerating her walker to a heavy jog toward the gaping hole in the battlecruiser hull.
"More targets! I WANT MORE TARGETS!" Hett snarled as he raced after the pink dreadnought.
"Well, I'm sure we'll find ONE of those, at least," Kairon reasoned as he followed after the other two walkers.
"No! Stop! Halt! Cease at once!" Sirius shouted to absolutely no effect. Pinkie hammered the opening in the void ship hull with her power fist, tearing it wide enough for her to fit through without difficulty.
"You idiots! You're going the wrong way!"
The Contemptor's words went unheeded as Hett and Kairon walked into the breach, eager to pursue the fleeing enemies and/or capture the highly hypothetical cargo of sweets.

Sirius made an incoherent growling noise as he considered his limited and very unpleasant options.
He could go about his actual mission himself, and leave the three impudent walkers to their fate. Surely, however, he would be berated after the fact for failing to keep control of his unit, even if he completed their orders on his own. Even worse, splitting up meant that he would be spearheading the assault on the encampment alone when he had fully intended to make the pink, feminine-sounding Dreadnought take the lead and draw most of the enemies' fire. Of lesser concern was the fate of his insane brethren, who had chased several Tankbustas into an enclosed space with lots of cover where they could easily get ambushed. Or stuck. Or just lost. They WERE that stupid.
If he chose to follow them, he would surely suffer censure for abandoning his mission. But there was at least some chance of convincing them to stop acting like morons and follow orders, and his siege drill was by far the weapon best suited to ripping through bits of void ship hull. Survival, at least, was far more likely.
"I hate my afterlife," Sirius growled as he stomped off toward the breach.

****

Rainbow Dash soared through the air above the battlefield, surveying the progress of the counter-assault.
The Ork army was a fragmented mess, reduced to small groups of survivors spread out over the blasted battlefield and several vehicles that had been crippled but not destroyed. Ork strategy being what it was, the infantry either stuck it out against the oncoming assault and were ripped apart by precision bolter fire, or simply fled to a safer area. Before regrouping, turning around, and THEN getting ripped apart by precision bolter fire. Not many of the aliens seemed intent on getting back to their camp in one piece, or mounting a defense that had any hope of working.
The remaining Ork armor was being taken care of quite handily by the Wonderbolts, surprisingly, who were making long and blazing fast runs across the battlefield and dropping artillery beacons in the midst of stomach-turning stunt dives. Wherever they flew, earthshaker artillery shells followed, hammering the piles of smoking scrap into piles of smoking scrap that weren't shooting anymore.
"Yeah, I think we've got this thing pretty much wrapped up," Rainbow Dash said to herself smugly. She was mildly disappointed that she'd been in the back getting her armor repaired while her friends were in the thick of things, but she couldn't be too hard on herself; she had led the first phase of the battle without their help, and almost single-hoofedly demolished the Orks' air power. And now that her fuel whatever system was hammered back into proper shape and the slivers of hot metal had been pulled out of her wing, Rainbow Dash was back and ready for more!
Her vox system crackled to life.
"TEAM RAINBOW DASH?!"

Rainbow frowned before she turned upward and built altitude. It sounded like Twilight was in one of her moods again, and Rainbow didn't want to get sniped or anything while she was talking.
"Yeah, I'm here. What's up?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"TEAM RAINBOW DASH?!" Twilight's voice yelled again.
"You already said that. And it's not even a complete sentence," Rainbow pointed out, "throw me a bone here, Twi. I'm not a psyker."
"WHY is our unit called 'Team Rainbow Dash'?!" Twilight demanded.
Rainbow's brows furrowed as she considered it. "Okay, well, that was a complete sentence, I'll give you that, but I still don't understand the question. Why WOULDN'T we be named Team Rainbow Dash? That's a great name!"
"Why would our unit be named after you? You're not even the team leader!"
Rainbow quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, is THAT what this is about? You're upset that you didn't get top billing?" She snorted. "Twi, you know I love you like a sister, right? But you've gotta learn to reign in that ego, filly."
There was some kind of indignant sputtering noise from the other end that was only barely distinguishable from vox static.
"I mean, I get it, I really do," the pegasus continued while she flew higher and rose above the cloud cover, "you're a Princess, the Element of Magic, and now a hotshot space pirate mare in charge of a super awesome armored pegasus. And some other ponies too. It's pretty cool. But you have to try not to lose your head over it, you know?"
More of that sputtering noise, and then the sound of the pony on the other end taking a deep breath.
"I think our unit shouldn't be named after any of us in particular," Twilight said with a tone of steely calm, "like 'Harmony Squad'. Why don't we just call ourselves that?"
Rainbow Dash snorted. "Twi, filly, we're SPACE PIRATES now. Let's be real, okay? We can't go for something so sweet and cheery."
She noticed something in a cloud some distance away, and Rainbow Dash blinked in surprise and zoomed in on it with her visor.
"But just naming the squad after a thing rather than a pony is fine. How about 'Rainbow Squad'? Rainbows are pretty awesome."
"You just said we shouldn't make it sweet and cheery! And it's STILL named after-"
"Yeah, okay, great. Rainbow Squad it is. Gotta go, Twi." Rainbow cut the vox link and blocked further incoming transmissions.
Then she flew over to a rather large cloud before cutting her speed and dropping onto it.

"Well... I was wondering what happened to her," Rainbow Dash mumbled as she disengaged her helmet. She took a moment to shake out her mane, and then took a deep breath of the high-altitude air. It carried the smell of ash and gunsmoke, no doubt carried up from the battle below, but she still found it far more refreshing than the stale, filtered air provided by her armor.
Then she looked down at the dark-furred form laying at her hooves, snoring softly.
"Hey!" Rainbow said, leaning her head down. "Hey, Luna! Hello? Wake up!"
The alicorn didn't so much as twitch at the noise.
"Luna! C'mon! Have you been asleep all this time?" Rainbow demanded, raising her voice. "Get up!"
Luna shifted away from the pegasus, rolling onto her back with her wings spread out beneath her. Her head lolled to one side, a trickle of drool leaking from her mouth.
"Mmmmm... oh, yes... We DO enjoy thine apples..." she purred softly, one leg twitching in the air.
Rainbow Dash frowned, and then started lightly smacking her boot against Luna's side. "HEY! Get up! Come on!"
The physical contact seemed to do it, and Luna snorted while her eyes fluttered open.
"Huhn? Wha?" she blinked repeatedly, and then winced away from the light of the sun, still high in the sky and bright as ever. "What hast transpired? Where art We?" She craned her neck up, and the dark blue alicorn squinted. "Element of... Loyalty? Why hast thou disturbed our slumber?"
"I think a better question is why you're napping above a war zone," Rainbow Dash deadpanned, "I mean, I'm not gonna judge anypony for catching a snooze here and there, but there's a time and place, you know?"
Luna continued squinting, and then her eyes widened in realization.
"The battle! BLAST! We fell asleep!" Luna gasped as she scrambled to her hooves.
She rushed to the edge of the cloud, cringing as she saw the general state of the ground below.
"Ponyfeathers!" Luna cursed. "When We were informed that combat would not commence for several hours after the completion of your reconnaissance, We merely sought to rest our eyes briefly!" Luna cast a desperate look toward Rainbow Dash. "We hath not faltered?!"
"If that's a 'we' we, then no. We did fine," Rainbow assured the larger pony, "the Company knows what they're doing, you know? I don't think they were going to let the entire battle depend on you being there."
Luna was somewhat offended by the implication that she was unnecessary (one of many generally sore subjects for the Dark Princess), but it was muted by the embarrassment of having slept through the mission.
"Really, I don't even know how you managed to catch a nap up here," Rainbow Dash admitted, her ear twitching at the crash of artillery below. "Even up here, it's way too loud for me to fall asleep. And it was WAY louder twenty minutes ago."
Luna sighed miserably. "Our... nocturnal nature renders us quite the heavy sleeper," she said, looking away from the pegasus, "it is necessary to rest during the day, when most others are active and at their most raucous."
Then Luna shook her head. "But this is no excuse! We shalt take to battle at once!" Her horn started to glow.
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow as waves of dark blue moved over Luna's body, leaving behind gleaming ebony metal. In seconds, Luna's normal regalia had been replaced by a suit of jewel-encrusted, ebony armor composed of linked front and rear body segments, heavy boots that came up to the knees, and a breast plate that bore her cutie mark drawn over a light blue shield.
A month ago, Rainbow Dash would have declared the armor one of the most awesome non-Wonderbolt-related things she had ever seen.
"So, are you just going to ASK the greenies not to shoot you in the face, or what?" Oh, how times had changed.
Luna offered an annoyed glance at the pegasus. "We will not claim that this plate is the equal of Solon's technological wonders, but it is enchanted to protect our entire body, rather than merely the enclosed portions," she sniffed, "moreso, We most favor the maxim 'the best defense is a good offense'. The Orks cannot slay us if We break them first."
"You're the Princess," Rainbow shrugged, letting her helmet sweep back into place and once again enclose her head.
Luna squinted down at the ongoing battle, and she pointed a hoof at an Ork tank as a Wonderbolt swooped over it. "There. We shalt descend and defeat the foe's most dangerous weap-"
The words died on her tongue as the tank was swallowed by artillery blasts, and she let her hoof fall back to the cloud as she frowned.
"Yeah, see, the Company actually has this part of the battle pretty much wrapped up," Rainbow explained to the pouting alicorn, "you see those high rocks?" She pointed to the craggy bluffs in the distance. "That's the edge of the Ork encampment. All the real action is going to be on the other side. So if you want to help out-"
"Then We shalt take to battle in advance of the convoy," Luna declared, lifting off with a determined expression.
"I was... going to say you should help them break through, but if you insist," the pegasus mumbled.
"Come, Element of Loyalty! Today the Orks learn the full measure of the powers that stand against them!" Luna declared as she accelerated through the air.
"Yeah, okay," Rainbow mumbled, blinking repeatedly around the icons on her visor display, "ah! Found it!"
Luna looked back at her. "Found what, pray tell?"
"Nothing, nothing. You go ahead and beat up those aliens. I'll cover you," Rainbow said before activating the recording function on her visor.

Almost the moment that Luna crossed over the rocky cliffs, the Dark Princess was bracketed by multiple fields of fire from below, and long strings of tracer rounds started stitching across the sky after the highly visible dark spot.
Then it disappeared.
"Wuzzat? Did we git 'em?" a Flashgit positioned on a high cliff lowered his long-barreled shoota and peered up into the sky, pushing up his dirty magnifier optics. His mob wasn't so convinced, and continued shooting blindly into the air as bullets casings poured onto the ground.
A second flash of light had the Ork blinking, and suddenly an alicorn was standing in front of him with a scowl on her muzzle.
"BEGONE, ALIEN FILTH!!" Luna roared, her horn pulsing. A telekinetic blast slammed into the Orks, and most were knocked off their feet and sent sprawling onto the ground.
The mob's boss slid backward slightly, but retained his footing as the alicorn reared up. "Wot we got 'ere? A talkin' hoss?" He laughed as he dropped his kustom shoota and drew a "knife" from his belt that was the length of a human arm. "Ya wanna fight, horsey?!"
"Challenge accepted!" Luna barked, before teleporting behind the Nob.
Her rear hooves struck the alien like a thunderbolt, and the towering Ork was sent flying off the edge of the cliff.
"Challenge concluded!" Luna barked, her eyes glowing as she glared at the rest of the Ork mob. Flame sparks spewed from the tip of her horn and burst over the aliens, engulfing some of them and sending those Orks back to the ground.
One of the Flashgits clubbed her on the back, and Luna staggered before lashing out with a hoof, striking the alien in the face and knocking him back. A heavy flap of her wings brought her above the other aliens trying to surround her, and as she continued to rise higher her magic amplified every rush of air to a hurricane-force blast to buffet her foes.
"Thou art nothing before our power!" Luna howled as the Orks struggled to push forward toward the pony. Some fired their weapons instead, although the headwinds didn't help their aim any.
Luna pulled up into the air, her wings surrounded by liquid shadow as her magical energies built up within them.
A singularly powerful flap blasted the ground below with concussive force, knocking the Orks off their feet again and splitting apart the uneven crags of rock. Most of the Flashgits were blasted off the edge, although a "lucky" few were simply slammed into the face of the bluff behind them.
Luna landed again, her magical charge waning as she regarded the three survivors of the unit. They were battered, but as determined as ever as they pushed themselves to their feet.
A spray of shuriken cut across them, and two of the Orks fell for good, gurgling in agony as the bladed projectiles sliced through their body armor and flesh with equal ease. The last simply limped over to his fallen weapon, ignoring the shuriken lodged in his arm as best he could.

Luna frowned, and then looked up. "Miss Rainbow Dash, if it pleases thee, We wish thou would cease assisting us when the foe is all but crushed already."
A small orb of shadow coalesced next to Luna's horn, and then it blasted into the last Flashgit, puncturing its chest and finishing it off.
"Hey, just trying to help, Princess," Rainbow Dash said as she swooped in over the cliff. Under her helmet, she rolled her eyes. Luna sure could be a glory hog. "Help in a way that doesn't involve drawing fire from the other hundred greenies around here, I mean. I did enough of that already." When Luna had teleported onto the ground it had left Rainbow as the only remaining airborne target, and she didn't much care for the attention.
A stitch of gunfire cutting across the rock face behind her illustrated her concern, and Rainbow landed on the cliff next to the larger pony to cover from the firepower below.
Then she noticed that one of Luna's wings looked badly ruffled and she had a pair of small cuts across her neck.
"Hey, you all right? You're not bleeding, are you?" Rainbow asked.
"Nay, We art well," Luna insisted as she shook her wing, "as We mentioned, our armor protects us with a magic field, robbing the enemy's blows of a great portion of their strength before they meet our body. These bullets can still cut flesh even then, but the damage is a trifle."
Rainbow Dash nodded hesitantly. It wasn't the same as a real barrier (or a pressurized armor suit), but reducing a bullet wound to a paper cut was a pretty big deal.
An explosion on the cliff face below them caused the ground to tremble, and the winged ponies glanced at the edge as cracks started to seep through the stone beneath their hooves. Neither of them had any real fear of falling, obviously, but nearby detonations still represented a threat for obvious reasons.
"So, how do you think the magic armor would stand up to that?" Rainbow asked, poking a metal-clad hoof toward a rokkit spiraling through the air. It hammered into the rock some distance away, blasting apart a big chunk of the bluff and sending several tons of stone falling down.
Luna grimaced. "We hast not the occasion to test our protections against such weapons. But the armor fares poorly against great heat. For that reason alone..."
She spotted an alcove further down on the cliff, and her eyes narrowed at a dozen or so Orks firing rockets up in her general direction. So far the barrage seemed to be more dangerous for them than for Luna, given that any falling debris from the explosions would tumble down the bluff and onto the cliffs lower down, but the aliens either hadn't considered this or didn't care.
The green warriors fired another explosive salvo upward. Most of the rokkits veered wildly off target, tearing out sections of the mountainous rocks and raining burnt shrapnel on the warriors below. One rokkit, though, seemed to careen toward the ponies almost at random, swerving on its flight path and trailing thick, black smoke behind it. Luna's horn started to glow.
The rokkit halted in mid-air, trembling violently as a blue aura seized it. The engine sputtered and flared brighter, coughing up even more smoke as if the projectile itself was protesting its treatment.
"Ah, this device is familiar. A crude imitation of the human weapon." Luna telekinetically twisted the missile in half, and the roaring engine was dropped away while the warhead remained suspended just beyond the cliff.
Sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth, Luna turned the rokkit head around and then magically flung it back toward its origin point, like a dart.
She found the subsequent explosion and the agonized screams of dying Orks most satisfactory. The detonation also seemed to weaken the cliff that the Orks were using as a firing platform, sending big chunks of it - and one particularly unlucky alien - plummeting to the ground. That gave her an idea.
Luna cast a tremor spell, sending a shudder through the stone with a flash of her horn and a quaint stamp of her hoof. The negligible vibration traveled rapidly through the crags, building in strength to a furious peak as it flowed downward to the cliffs below.
Great seams split apart the stone as it shook and cracked, and the Orks scrambled for safe footing as the cliff began to crumble underneath them. None of them found any.

"Nice! This is awesome!" Rainbow Dash chuckled as she recorded the whole thing, crouched next to the Princess.
"Indeed! We shalt continue to eliminate the foe's elevated combatants so that they shant ambush our allies below!" Luna declared. She pointed at a group of shoota boyz that were ascending a tall ladder up onto another cliff to use as a vantage point. "They will be the next to perish! Might thou survey the field from the air, and inform us of any hidden enemies?"
"You got it, Princess!" Rainbow Dash saluted and fired her impulse blasters, catapulting up into the air before her flight pack engaged to carry her away.

Rainbow was glad to get back into the sky and away from the action. Even though it was partially her idea, plunging into battle alone and way ahead of the front lines against possibly hundreds of enemies wasn't QUITE a level of boneheaded bravado that she felt comfortable with. That might be a fine challenge for a Princess - Rainbow wasn't even sure if alicorns could BE killed - but she was quite unsettled by the sheer number of green bodies still milling about the Ork camp and brandishing weapons.
Her vox crackled in her ear.
"Miss Dash, it's Lieutenant Garron. I've got something I need you to check out; the Wonderbolts aren't close enough, and their gear isn't calibrated for it."
Rainbow Dash blinked, and then frowned. "I thought I turned the vox off."
"This is a code Primus communication, Dash. It overrides your comms node prioritus."
"Well, how do I turn those off, too?" the pegasus grunted, clearly annoyed. She was in the middle of watching Luna rip apart an Ork camp all on her own; did this guy really think she had time for this?
"If you want to ignore Primus-level Company orders, simply inform any Iron Warrior after the battle. He'll execute you on the spot, thus resolving the problem for everyone."
"Ugh, FINE. What's this big important mission you have for me? I hope it doesn't take too long. I'm supposed to be scouting for Luna," Rainbow grumbled.
"From your location, you should have an excellent view of the void ship wreck," Garron noted.
"Yeah?" Rainbow Dash turned in the air, zooming in on the shattered hulk that had practically created a new mountain range just outside of Cloudsdale. "What about it?"
"We're getting some very... unlikely readings from the vessel. We need you to close and determine-"
"Hey, is that turret moving?" Rainbow interrupted.
"What?"
Rainbow felt a creeping sense of dread as one of the battlecruiser's building-sized energy cannons - missing most of its outer plating and with most of the wide, squat barrel shredded - turned on its mounting. Huge gouts of sparks and bits of shattered metal rained from the enormous weapon as it moved, giving the impression that it was definitely turning against considerable resistance.
"You said there's a ship turret MOVING?" the human's voice demanded. "Give me a scanner reading! Now!"
"Yeah. Uh..." Rainbow gulped. "It's coming in at 3.6."
The confusion on the other end was palpable. "3.6?"
"So cool it's HOT," Rainbow Dash clarified, "not the highest reading I've ever gotten, but WAY cooler than a broken gun should be!"
"... I have no idea what you're talking about."
Rainbow Dash felt her heart sink into her stomach as new readings started to swim over her visor. The barrel of the cannon was starting to glow, and new trails of smoke were pouring from the cracks in its plating. "Never mind! That cannon is working! And it's aiming at the assault convoy! You have to stop them! Tell them to-"
And then the world underneath Rainbow Dash turned white.