Entrenchment

by SFaccountant

Springing the Trap

Entrenchment
An Age of Iron Story

Chapter 14
Springing the trap

****

Ferrous Dominus
Sector 1 – Security Checkpoint

“Auspex scans complete. Let’s see… drones, personnel, battlesuits, weapons…”
The guard at the gate sounded bored as he checked off the contents of the Tau transports waiting for entry. Several Devilfish APCs and cargo haulers hovered in a line outside the main gate, and a Fireblade stood before the mighty guns of the palisade with his pulse carbine by his side.
“Is there a reason for all this stuff?” asked a voice off to the side.
The Fireblade turned his head. A unicorn in a flak helmet and rebreather was walking along the length of his transport while an auspex scanner hovered over him and picked out the contents.
“This is a military base. These are military supplies,” the alien grunted, his hand resting on the stock of his carbine.
“We were only expecting a transfer of a bunch of experimental walkers,” the pony retorted, slipping his goggles up to glare at the Fireblade. “Instead you bring all this? I don’t even see the walkers!”
“Shas’el Wraithstar has demanded that additional forces and equipment be transferred to Black Point to aid our combat readiness. Is that a problem?” the alien snapped.
“When you do it without telling anypony, yeah, it is!” the equine snapped back.
“Give it a rest, would you Cutlass?” the human guard grunted. He held up a dataslate. “Fireblade, I’ve cleared all your equipment and re-activated your security passes, but some of your crew haven’t been here before. Take those without security cards to be registered before proceeding to the Xenis barracks.”

The gates yawned open, and the convoy started moving into the fortress proper. Most of the Devilfish APCs followed the cargo haulers down the main avenue, while several peeled off toward the structure used to register newcomers that didn’t arrive by train.
One Devilfish coasted off to the side, and then its entry hatch swung open. A pair of hovering drones, each one equipped with a small array of welders and transmitter uplinks, slipped out and then zipped away. The hatch closed and the APC accelerated away.

“What are they doing now?” the pony groused from the guard kiosk. “What are those drones for?”
“I think they’re the Earth Caste units. They use them for maintenance and stuff. Relax, Cutlass.” The mercenary tossed aside his dataslate and leaned back in his seat. “Seriously, you’re too jumpy around the grays. What do you think they’re going to do?”
“I don’t trust them,” the stallion huffed. “They’re twisted, back-stabbing, evil aliens!”
“So am I, but you and I get along.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s because you give me ear scratches.”
“Hah! C’mere, you!”

As the mercenary rubbed the pony’s head, the engineering drone floated higher and higher, rising next to the massive macro-cannon towers on top of the gate. It stopped at a seemingly arbitrary point, and several antennae unfolded from its shielding. Then it flipped 90 degrees, attached to the side of the tower, and then fixed itself in place.
The drone’s optics dimmed, and it went into stand-by mode.

****

Ponyville
Train station

Applejack and Big Mac trotted down the road, their heavy greaves leaving deep indents in the dirt. Behind each of the two siblings was a huge metal cart full of bright blue apples. Four more farmers, including Braeburn, were hitched to a third cart behind the power-armored Apples and following along, but the others struggled to keep pace with the sheer mass of their cargo.
“Awright, our first big order!” Applejack laughed while pulling up next to the station. “The blue moons’re sellin’ like cider!”
The tail of her armor was clamped onto the cart hitch, and it snapped off as soon as the hauler came to a complete stop. Applejack turned around while Big Mac pulled up next to her.
“Braeburn, ya got everythin’ ya need?”
“Sure do, Cuz!” Braeburn hopped free of his harness and then started digging under his vest with his nose. A moment later he raised his head again with several train tickets held tight in his teeth.
“Manehattan, here we come! When Ah bring these trailers back, they’ll be haulin’ bits!”
“Ya’ll sure ya don’t need servitors or Big Mac’s help to deal with the load?” Applejack asked.
“Naw! They’ve got them fancy cranes and trucks t’do haulin’ now!” Braeburn winked. “Ah gotcha covered, Cuz! Ya leave the sale t’me an’ take care o’ them apple spires while Ah’m gone!”
The frontier pony leaned his head to the side, spotting a fast-approaching gray blur. “There she is! Right on schedule!”
“Well, o’course it is. If them Chaos boys were late somebody’d probably die fer it,” Applejack giggled, trailing off with a snort.
She spotted a servitor staggering across the passenger platform – wearing a train engineer’s hat, bizarrely enough – and Applejack stamped her hoof. “Hey there! We got cargo!”
The cyborg shuddered to a halt, and then twisted its head toward the farmers. “Designate destination.”
“Manehattan Bastion Primus. The big station.”
“All cargo cars are reserved on designated vehicle.”
“Yeah, Ah know. I reserved ‘em! Braeburn, give ‘im the ticket!”

The train started to slow it approach into the station, and a loud hum came from the single rail it was hovering over. Lashes of power snapped and flashed from the rail to the repulsor anchors, and the vehicle shuddered while its speed fell dramatically.
The servitor’s optics pulsed over the ticket pinched in its claw. “Registration confirmed. Cargo verified. Beginning loading sequence in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”
The train slid to a complete stop, and a series of hissing noises erupted from the vehicle before it was secured to the station dock. Doors opened, access bridges extended, cranes started shifting, and a gruff, angry voice started yelling from the vox caster for the passengers to disembark.
“Awright, looks like ya got this well in hoof,” Applejack said. Cargo cranes swiveled over the carts and lowered, clamping onto the heavy steel boxes. “Me an’ Mac are gonna head back, now. Bloom should be back from Temple soon.”
“G’bye, Cuz!”

Applejack and Big Mac began trotting away. The former glanced over to the station platform. Then she lightly banged her boot against Big Mac’s bionic leg.
“Hey, Mac. Get a load ‘o the new visitors!” she chuckled. “Ah guess they ain’t never seen a pony in these digs before.”
Big Mac stopped and turned his head around. Five figures had stepped off the train platform and were staring at the Apple siblings in bewilderment. They were obviously human, and were dressed in long black robes and hoods. One of them was a slightly taller woman, with locks of bluish-green hair poking out from her cowl.
Applejack called out to them. “Hey there! Y’all new to Ponyville ain’tcha?”
The hooded figures jolted in surprise, and most of them turned toward the tall one. She glanced at the others, and then nodded to Applejack.
“Well, Ah’m guessin’ ya ain’t Sunsworn, so the Chaos Temple’s thataway!” Her tail swiveled up over her head and pointed off to distant pyramid. “Big black thingamajigger on the far side ‘o town. Skulls hangin’ off it, shoots evil into the sky, can’t miss it.”
The stranger hesitated, then nodded again. “Thank you, pony,” she rasped.
“Think nothin’ of it! And if y’all get hungry, consider stoppin’ by Sweet Apple Acres fer some fresh blue moon apples!”
The farmer grinned and started trotting away again. Big Macintosh tilted his head to the side, staring for a few seconds, and then eventually turned away to follow her.

“… Ignorant hicks. I can’t believe humans actually give these useless animals their weapons.” Chrysalis hissed to herself while watching the farmers leave.
She pulled her gaze away from the heavily armored equines. The Nethalican was as easy to spot as Applejack suggested; a big, black structure, totally out of place, that loomed over the rest of the village. Chrysalis wasn’t sure what she meant by the “shoot evil into the sky” part, but it didn’t matter.
Now that she had gotten this far, the changeling Queen felt an uncomfortable sense of foreboding. This all seemed too easy. The disparity of military power on display in the badlands versus that of Ponyville seemed too vast for them to be concealing such an important font of power. And on top of her purely strategic concerns, there was… something else. A hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Without question, she had set out for this temple with far less intelligence than she usually insisted upon. All she knew about the Nethalican was that it was a source of some sort of planetary defense, Tox had claimed it was a source of infinite power, and Tox had returned to her a diseased, mutated traitor. Was she putting too much faith in this lead? Could it be a misunderstanding? A diversion? Or even a trap?
The distant temple pulsed. A bright, white aura swam around it, and then condensed into whips of lightning arcs that crawled up toward the peak. The energy vanished, and then a moment later a beam of sheer power screamed into the sky.
“… I must have it,” Chrysalis hissed, pushing away her doubts. “I WILL have it.”
She gestured sharply to her entourage, and her servants rushed ahead toward the distant temple. Chrysalis followed them, her eyes glittering from underneath the shadow of her hood.

****

Black Point
Containment center

“EEEEEYAAAAA!!”
Wraithstar winced as a feminine shriek of pain came from the cell next to him, and the ex-Commander clenched his hands tight. He banged a fist on the wall between cells, and a growl rose in his throat.
“Would you STOP that? How many times do you need to test the blasted restraint collar? YES, it works! Quit it!”
In the cell in question, Rarity lay in a twitching heap on the ground. Smoke curled around her badly frayed mane, and thick bandages covered her hind legs.
“Th-That wasn’t a test!” the unicorn groaned while she pushed herself up. “It was an accident! I’m used to levitating things! How am I supposed to eat without manipulating the spoon? I don’t have hands, or even wings! It’s impossible!”
Gear Works tilted his head to the side. “Us earth ponies manage well enough.”
Rarity’s eyes narrowed at the only other equine in the containment block. “Yes, of course. You manage so well that you went and got an extra limb installed in your back first chance you got.”
“Ah. Touché,” Gears mumbled, straightening again.
Rarity gingerly tapped a hoof against the collar around her neck. It was a thick ceramic ring with coils of metal threads twisted around it, and a hefty box attached to the circumference that held both the power supply and the sensors that detected any nearby psionic activity. The collar emitting an intensely painful shock every time she tried to use even the tiniest bit of magic, which she hated almost as much as how ugly it looked.
“Why do your people even have things like this?” she asked weakly. “I thought you didn’t even know anything about ponies when you came here!”
“We have those collars for general hostile containment. The psionic-detection settings are fairly unique, but only because the Lamman Sept spends a lot of time capturing and studying psykers.” Wraithstar turned his head as a gun drone hovered past outside his cell, doing an automated patrol circuit. “You should be thankful. If we didn’t have them, our only choice would have been execution.”
“I am LESS than thankful,” Rarity hissed. “This is a complete disaster! We have hundreds of your people crawling around Ferrous Dominus and no one the wiser! What’s going on, Wraithstar?! What is Voidsong plotting?!”
“Shas’o Voidsong is plotting a heroic last stand among a pile of human corpses. Beyond that I don’t know.” He sighed. “I do know that she isn’t going to sell her life cheap. Her current forces are trifling in terms of total combat power, but she’s in an ideal position. She will sink the dagger deep, and the Company will not see it coming.”
Gear Works turned his head as another drone passed through the hall, following its movement.
“Do you think, Shas’el…” one of the other Tau prisoners started to speak, but then trailed off nervously.
“I am Shas’el no longer,” Wraithstar said. “Speak your mind. What punishment do you have to fear at this point?”
“Do you think the Shas’o could be right, Wraithstar?” the other alien laced his fingers together, his expression grim. “Are we the ones who disgraced Tau’va? Are we the traitors?”
The cell block was silent for several seconds. Rarity mumbled to herself about needing a mirror, while Gear Works watched another drone pass by his cell.
“… There is no good answer to that question. For our entire lives, we are taught the ways of Tau’va. To subordinate all other loyalties to The Greater Good. That our lives are meaningless in comparison to the destiny of our empire.” Wraithstar sighed. “I’m not sure when I started to doubt that creed. It was long before I’d reached this world and had to choose between survival and empty martyrdom. Years of war – of seeing zealots die painfully and uselessly – may have disillusioned me. I’ve been fighting for over a decade, always in the most dangerous, brutal conditions. I haven’t even seen an Ethereal since before I ascended to the rank of Shas’el. So maybe I am wrong. Maybe war has simply exhausted my trust in our leaders.”
He chewed on his lip for a few seconds. “But it’s possible… possible that I learned the truth, instead. A truth that most other sentients seem to acknowledge from birth that needs to be washed out by propaganda, lies, or psychic enslavement in order to make them into ‘proper soldiers.’ That we’re not just mere components in a great war machine. That we’re more than currency to be expended for the sake of some abstract triumphalism and deluded dream of empire. That our individual survival matters. That our lives are important.”
He shifted in his cell, peering through the bars at the worker who had asked the question. “The humans working for Chaos sell their lives for glory, wealth, and power. What do we sell ours for? An illusion. A dream that we are told, flatly, we will never see realized in our lifetimes, but which is more important than we are. And for this dream, this goal that is still hundreds or perhaps thousands of years in the making and will inflict trillions of deaths more, we are told to lay down and perish. Lest our survival inconvenience the Empire.”
He shook his head, chuckling wearily. “No. I do not think us wrong, or selfish, or evil to object. But then again, I’m the one who’s lost our traditional purpose and guidance; Voidsong has not. And – not to put too fine a point on it – I’m also the one locked up for insubordination and treason.”
“Not for long,” Gear Works said. “The drones have stopped.”

Everyone in the cell block was startled by the announcement, and they scrambled to look. The gun drones that patrolled the facility in lieu of living guards had frozen in place, hovering silently with their optics lights blinking.
“What? How? Why?” Wraithstar stammered in surprise.
“Gears, you bionic devil! You disabled the drones?” Rarity asked, grinning.
“No, of course not. I can’t do that.” Gear Works turned around in his cell, and his spike-tipped tail slithered out from beneath his robe.
Wraithstar still seemed confused. “But… Fio’el Fennin mentioned you could access the control nexus and-“
“Yes, he did. He was lying. I cannot access the Tau’s encrypted networks without a manual uplink,” Gear Works admitted. “And while he was lying about that, he set up an unusually long update cycle for the gun drones that would be guarding us. They’ll be out of action for several minutes, at least.” The Dark Acolyte’s tail slipped between the electrified bars of his cage, managing to clear the sparking conduits with mere millimeters on each side.
“Several minutes? Can we escape in several minutes?” Rarity asked, looking back and forth anxiously.
“Since all the live guards left with the assault force, yes!” Gears chirped. “Or rather, I can escape, at least.” His tail started twisting around, aiming the dataspike tip at the control console. “Fennin’s most crucial deception was telling the guards that my augments wouldn’t work on their systems. They do. And he knew that.”
The metal tendril suddenly snapped toward the console, piercing the case and stabbing into the internals. Sparks blasted from the contact, and the lights under the Acolyte’s hood dimmed and brightened seemingly at random.
“Data feed accessed… register access protocols disabled… locating primary control node… confirmed.”
A loud click came from his cell, and the bars suddenly sunk into the floor.
“Splendid!” Rarity cheered, shifting into a sitting position and clapping her front hooves together. “Now we have to get to-HEY! Where are you going?!”
Gear Works flinched. He had turned toward the exit, and started creeping in the opposite direction of Rarity’s cell. She had noticed.
“I have to get out of here! The update cycle will only disable the drone combat tracking subroutines for 80 seconds longer, maximum! If I’m not gone by then, they’ll re-activate and vaporize me!”
“Then what are you going to do?! You’re not going to leave me here, are you?!” Rarity demanded.
“Uh… well… I mean, ideally-“
“GET BACK HERE AND OPEN MY CAGE, YOU CYBERNETIC GHOUL!!”
Wraithstar sighed and slammed a fist onto the wall to get the equine’s attention. “Dark Acolyte, does your interface system work on all our systems? Would it work on the drones themselves?”
The cyborg pony hesitated, glancing over at the nearest automated gun platform. “I… think? But I can’t possibly reconfigure its friend-or-foe identification subroutines in time for-“
“Seize direct control of a drone and shoot the others,” Wraithstar ordered. “Hurry!”

Gears flinched again, and then turned his optics toward the nearby combat drone. His tail extended again, the dataspike freezing in place briefly while the tendril mounting it coiled like a waiting viper.
The spike punched through the drone undercarriage, and it wobbled unsteadily in the air. Gear’s optics dimmed, and then started blinking on and off again in sequence.
“Okay, let’s see here… this network is a little more complex than the last one…” The drone quivered, and ribbons of electricity danced over the top of its armor dome. “Ugh, so much layered code! I always told Fennin that branched code pathing is much better for access routing!”
“What? No, that’s a terrible idea,” interjected one of the Earth Caste prisoners.
“So you say from behind the bars of a cage while I’m trying to re-order a horizontally stratified codex schema as quickly as possible so I don’t die,” Gear Works retorted. “As somepony who has great need for cracking your control algorithms at the moment, I assure you, they’re terrible.”
The worker was unconvinced. “In ANY other situation aside from needing you to manually interface with the primary core drivers, the codex scheme would be much-“
“STOP ARGUING AND SECURE THE BLASTED WEAPON!” Wraithstar shouted.
The drone connected to Gear Works shook in place, and then its optics blinked on fully.
“I’m in! Targeting systems linked! I’m opening fire!” the stallion shouted.
The drone swiveled, aiming its twin pulse carbines at its nearest twin. The weapons screamed and released a stream of crackling blue particles, every one of which missed the top of the target by several inches and splashed against a wall.
“… Okay, wait, I think the linking algorithm was off,” the Dark Acolyte mumbled.
“GEARS!” Rarity screamed, pointing a hoof through the bars of her cage. “The lights on the drones are blinking! Hurry!”
The drone attached to Gear Works fired another volley, and this time the burst struck true. The automated guard was ripped apart, and the pieces of polyceramic armor fell to the floor in smoldering chunks.
“Four more! Next target, right flank!” Wraithstar barked.
Gear Works turned his head, his optics glittering in the shadows of his cloak. The next drone was blasted apart by shrieking bolts of power, and the Kroot in the nearby cell flinched away in annoyance.
“Next target, ten o’clock!”
Another drone burst apart under the fusillade, and an electronic cackle came from Gear’s vocalizer.
“Gears! They’re moving!” Rarity warned.
One drone quickly pivoted in place, wobbling slightly while it lined up its carbines toward the escapee. It was a split-second too late, and a trio of shimmering blue energy pulses ripped it apart in the air before it could fire.
There was, however, one more drone in the area, and Rarity gasped when it turned its guns on the Dark Acolyte. Gritting her teeth and squinting her eyes, Rarity directly all her focus to a single telekinetic push, as strong as she could.
The very moment her horn lit up, a nerve-shredding electric surge stabbed into her. Rarity screamed, but through the pain she managed to at least set off the machine’s aim. The drone tilted sharply, and its fire screamed over Gear Work’s head.
The cyborg stallion yelped, and he immediately flattened onto the ground while shifting the gun drone over his face to protect it. The remaining guard drone steadied itself, and then a burst of pulse shots crashed into the makeshift shield.
“Acolyte! Fire back!” Wraithstar ordered.
“But I-it can’t with the-MEEP!” Gear Works stuttered helplessly while his drone was ripped apart under the barrage. Eventually the fire became so intense that the hijacked drone burst around Gear’s tail, coming apart in a puff of smoke and raining smoldering bits and pieces onto the pony’s robe.
The active drone paused briefly while its sensors adjusted to the smoke, angling a new firing arc down on the prostrate stallion.
Then a pulse bolt struck it square in its sensor array. The drone rocked back through the air, sputtering sparks and blasts of smoke. Then its anti-grav booster died, and the machine fell onto the floor with an anticlimactic thud.

“… Is it over? Did we lose?” Rarity moaned. She was lying on the floor in a fetal position, still feeling the lingering agony of her restraint collar.
“Acolyte! Behind you!” Wraithstar barked. Unlike the unicorn, he’d been watching the entire confrontation. He couldn’t see behind Gears due to the angle of his cell opening, but that pulse shot definitely hadn’t come from the pony.
Gear Works jerked his head up, surprised and amazed at still being alive. Then he stumbled around to looked behind him. “Fennin! Fennin, you’re here!”
The engineer was panting, and his hands quivered as they held a pulse pistol in a double-handed grip. “Yes, well… I would have been here a little earlier, actually, but I heard the pulse fire and assumed everything had gone completely wrong. Rather than just mostly wrong.” He glanced at his wrist, which held a small datascreen. “I managed to re-route some sub-routines so that the main drone dispatcher core won’t be able to process the losses and deploy a hunter-killer team immediately. But we don’t have long.”
Gear Works ran over to the nearest cell and stabbed his tail into the control console. “Fennin, you free the others on that side. I’ll take this one!”
“They don’t actually give me the brig override codes, so I’ll need to access the root file,” the engineer mumbled once he reached his own console. “Just bear with me for a few seconds…”
“Couldn’t you have just deactivated the drones entirely and spared us all this horrid drama?” Rarity huffed.
“Oh, what a fantastic idea! I can tell you’re one of the smart ponies, since you present mind-numbingly simple solutions to people whose job it is to know better!” Fennin replied acidly. “I can’t just ‘turn off’ the drones! There are numerous failsafes and alerts that prevent network-wide failures or interference, many of which need Shas’o verification codes to modify! If I were any LESS brilliant than I am I wouldn’t even be able to disable them for a few minutes at a time!”
The first two cells opened, freeing Wraithstar and a clutch of Earth Caste Tau. Wraithstar clapped Fennin on the shoulder as he stepped out of his prison.
“You did well, Fio’el. I’m not completely sure why you took this risk, however. You never seemed that fond of the humans, nor did I imagine that my earlier lecture to Voidsong moved you.”
“It’s a friendship thing,” Fennin said dismissively. “Anyway, should we free the Kroot? If they’re on our side, great, but if not...”
One of the Carnivores snarled a response, and the other Kroot replied in a cacophony of enraged growls.
“Yes, Fio’el. You may free them. I think they’ll be cooperative. More so than the unicorn, at least.”
“I heard that!” Rarity snapped. “Don’t you even THINK of leaving me here! After what I’ve been through, I’m not going to sit here waiting for everyone else to finish off that treacherous harpy!”
Fennin replied to her while he unlocked the Kroot cell. “I already checked on your armor and weapons. The former is damaged beyond immediate use, and the latter is locked up in the armory. Which is, incidentally, the one place still guarded by the handful of Fire Warriors still on base. I’m not sure how you’ll be of more use outside of your cell.”
Despite Fennin’s explanation, Gear Works trotted up to Rarity’s cell and stabbed his tail into the console.
“Gears, darling, how long would repairing my armor take?” Rarity asked.
“With access to every tool I could want and a quiet place to work where all the inhabitants aren’t all trying to kill me, it would take about a day,” the Dark Acolyte confessed.
“Which is to say, it’s not happening,” Rarity grumbled.
“Not in enough time to make any kind of difference, no.” The console sparked, and the bars retracted. “Although, speaking frankly, I’m not at all sure what we’re supposed to do from here. I didn’t really have a plan aside from getting out of my cell if and when Fennin managed to stall the guard drones.”
“Do we even know what Voidsong is attempting? Is it just a surprise attack?”
“It is not just a surprise attack,” Fennin replied. “Using stolen data from the Company noosphere, the Fio’o managed to modify our communication disruption drones to broadcast oscillating IFF signums ripped from the Company datastacks that artificially converge on sensor pings. The plan is to spread them throughout Ferrous Dominus in preparation of the main assault.”
“Uh… and that would do… what, exactly?” Rarity asked, glancing toward Gear Works.
“It would disguise every single sensory intercept as a friendly,” Gears explained while he observed the collar around Rarity’s neck. “Every automated defense system and the majority of cybernetic combatants would be unable to detect hostiles. Brilliant, if somewhat unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary?”
“Voidsong and her team are all Tau. Tau are already permitted in Ferrous Dominus. The tactical benefit of being continually flagged as friendly after bypassing the most impressive defenses is somewhat marginal.”
Wraithstar grimaced. “I don’t quite understand, but I believe there’s more to it than that. In any case, we should send a dispatch to Ferrous Dominus immediately.”
“Not happening,” Fennin said curtly. “All communications are locked down, and I’d need the Fio’o to unlock them. That’s in addition to a vox-dampening field to foil any unauthorized devices anywhere near Black Point. Voidsong made sure no one staying behind and out of her reach would be able to warn the Company.”
“Devilfish? Or any other vehicles?”
“Already taken or also locked down. We could probably unlock those eventually, but not before the drones figured out what was happening and sent that hunter-killer team.”
Wraithstar groaned and clutched at his forehead. “Useless. This was all useless, then. All we can do is hide from the drone patrols and hope everything works out without us!”

“Almost… got it… THERE!”
Rarity gasped as the collar around her neck suddenly popped open on a seam and then tumbled to the floor. Her horn flashed with magic immediately; not because she had any particular need for it, but just to enjoy the sensation without it being accompanied by a severe electric shock. Gear Works withdrew his dataspike from the unicorn’s throat, and a sigh came from his respirator mask.
“Thank you, darling! It feels so good to be a free pony again!” Rarity gushed, running a hoof tenderly across her throat. “I dearly wish we had time for me to correct the absolute MESS these traitors must have made of my coat, but we have a job to do!”
“In all seriousness, the base’s showers are a pretty decent hiding spot if we just want to wait this out. You could clean yourself up there, too,” Fennin replied.
“But we’re not going to wait this out,” Rarity sniffed. “Tell me, Mister Fennin: how well guarded is the battlesuit garage?”
“It’s not guarded at all,” Fennin admitted. “But given that Voidsong took every battlesuit in Black Point, I don’t know how that helps.”
“I highly doubt she took EVERY battlesuit,” Rarity tittered. “A Tau can’t pilot a Strider, darling.”
Wraithstar and Fennin seemed startled at the revelation. Gear Works perked up instantly.
“Of course! Voidsong probably doesn’t even know the Striders exist!” Gears said. Then he paused. “Although that only explains how you and I are going to leave, Miss Rarity. The Striders can maintain long-distance sprints, but we have no other vehicles.”
“Correct. If anyone wants to come with us, they’ll just have to ride on top.”
Fennin immediately raised his hand. “I volunteer to not do that.”
Wraithstar slapped his hand down. “Denied. You and I will go with the ponies. I need you to disable the disruption drones while I get my battlesuit.” He turned toward the few Fire Warriors and the Kroot that had been imprisoned with him. *You will secure the base. Take out the guards around the armory, then arm yourselves. If the drones start getting aggressive, start culling them.*
*Yes, Shas’el!* barked the Fireblade prisoner.
*Not Shas’el, no. That title was stripped from me. I am no longer an agent of Tau’va.* He smirked, and then continued in Gothic. “Now I am only Wraithstar, outcast and survivor of the Emerald Dawn. Commander of the 38th Company Xenis contingent and – so some would claim – servant to Chaos.”
“It’s lovely to have you, dear,” Rarity said with a smile. “Now let’s get going, shall we? It’s a long gallop back to civilization, and we’re running a bit behind!”

****

Changeling hive

“Contacts sighted. Three. No, four. Threat level minimal. Incoming.”
“Confirmed. More captures?”
“Negative. We’ve taken enough of these xenos wretches. Eliminate resistance.”

The changelings skittered across the ground in long leaps. Their wings buzzed loudly with every jump to keep them aloft, and spears and short swords were clenched tight in their jaws or carried along in a cloud of bright green magic. The defenders of the changeling hive zeroed in on the intruders, and then charged with an angry screech that echoed through the caverns.
And then, in the blink of an eye, they perished.
The bark of bolt pistols quickly drowned out the battle cry of the shape-shifting insects. Three of them were ripped apart by mass-reactive rounds in short order. The fourth staggered to the side, its flank torn open by shrapnel. Before it could make much sense of what happened or formulate a response, it found itself staring up at a giant in gleaming silver and gold armor.
“These are the hive defenders? This is what passes as a warrior among this species?” Dest clutched a bolter in his claws, but didn’t aim down at the creature.
The changeling snarled and stabbed its spear toward his abdomen. Dest slapped the weapon away with one hand, tearing it from the changeling’s grasp and throwing it across the tunnel. Then he reached down and seized the guard changeling by its neck.
Another Iron Warrior bearing a flamer walked past the Rhino driver. “These creatures are shape-shifters, no? Clearly their only skill lies in deceit. Falsehoods and trickery will not save them now.”
The changeling in Dest’s grip struggled and thrashed, beating against his vambrace with its twisted, malformed hooves. His grip tightened, and the carapace cracked. The changeling’s struggles ceased, and a faint green glow seemed to seep from the body into Dest’s gauntlet.
Oh man, these little guys are delicious! For real, gut as many as you can because we’re talking SERIOUS soul power, bro! Vel said cheerfully.
“These creatures are psykers and infiltrators… why do they charge at us with sticks and knives?” Dest wondered. “This is too easy.”
Don’t harsh my buzz, roomie. Ork souls are great, but getting them takes so much WORK! These little bug things are tasty, filling, and easy to kill! Don’t sweat it!
“Please stop talking,” Dest begged under his breath.

A Dark Techpriest followed behind the Chaos Space Marines, his mechatendrils hovering near the walls of the cave. Dark green eggs the size of a man’s fist were stuck to the rocks in a thick, wax-like substance, and the tendrils plucked the largest ones from their resting place. Several white changeling grubs were crawling about the ground as well, apparently oblivious to the fighting and the death of their protectors. The Techpriest leaned down, and then picked one up in his augmetic hand.
“The larval changelings show minimal sensory awareness. Unusual for a species of psionic sensitivity. Perhaps psykant traits emerge during the gestation period.”
The Techpriest held the grub closer. It twisted its head and blinked its pale blue eyes, fixated on the cyborg’s green optical lights.
An Acolyte held a glass tube behind the Techpriest. The Techpriest turned and dropped the larvae inside the tube, and then placed a lid on top. The lid sealed with a click and a hiss, and then numerous diagnostic lights and indicators on the top facing came on.
“That is the last sample canister,” the Acolyte said, turning to a servitor who was storing the numerous tubes and a case of eggs. “We may hold specimens and request more from the requisitioner temple, or improvise containment cells from spare materials.”
“Negative. We possess sufficient bio-samples,” the Techpriest advised. His mechatendrils placed the changeling eggs in the large metal case attached to the servitor’s back, and then sealed and locked it. “My lord, we have completed our work. This nest may be cleansed.”
The Iron Warriors took up their flamers on either side of the Tech-cultists, facing the clusters of eggs and obliviously squirming larvae. Dest mag-locked his bolter to his leg, and puffs of Warpflame started leaking from his palms.
“Purge the alien,” growled the driver.

****

The caverns echoed with the screams of pulse discharges and the crack of lasbolts. Followed by the crack of splitting carapace and the screams of dying changelings.

The insect-like quadrupeds scattered, stumbling away from their dying siblings in a confused haze. Another pulse shot ripped through one, searing away its wings and toppling it on its side. Another charged recklessly toward the line of humans, only for a rail rifle shot to strike it in the chest, nearly splitting it in half. The changeling shuddered, and then collapsed into a pile of ichor.
Daniels saw another pair limping away behind a stalagmite formation, and he snatched a fragmentation grenade from his belt. “Watch the right side!”
He flung the explosive against the wall, and it bounced off and landed behind the rocks. A moment later it detonated, and a fan of green slime splashed across the ground.
“… That the last of them?” Daniels asked.
Jerriha tapped the side of her helmet, and then snapped her pulse rifle up into firing position. “Negative. Got two more hiding around the bend.” She raised her pulse carbine, switching on the photon grenade launcher.
With a gentle pop, the stun grenade sailed toward the wall, and then bounced off and landed out of sight. Most of the mercenaries looked away anyhow before a fantastic flash and panicked screeching came from the next tunnel.
“Move!” the Fireblade barked, sprinting to the end of the passage.
She turned the corner and spotted two changelings with helmets stumbling about and screeching. She took aim with her carbine.
In a single burst, both insectoid shape-changers collapsed onto the ground in smoking heaps.

“Huh. Sure aren’t putting up much of a fight, are they?” Daniels mumbled. Despite Jerriha’s order, he showed no particular hurry in joining her. “At least the pones had the good sense to surrender when they were being invaded and had no chance of victory. Why do the bugs keep coming at us like this?”
“I’ve got a bad feeling. This is going too well,” grumbled another man. “Feels like a trap.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too. I believe I was mistaken,” Jerriha said. “This is no trap. This is no defense. This is a nest of animals taken completely by surprise and fighting out of its element.”
“Completely by surprise? How? We practically parked our tanks on their front door!”
“And yet nothing like a barricade or a concentrated counter-charge has materialized.” Jerriha glanced toward Daniels, the optic lens of her helmet gleaming in the dim light. “Tell me, Daniels: Have you ever fought Tyranids?”
“Unfortunately.”
“If your officers at the time were anywhere close to competent and well-informed, they’d know to target the psychic organisms first. They direct and bolster the swarms that give Tyranid armies such relentless staying power.”
She leaned down and nudged a changeling body with her carbine. It twitched.
“Without their leaders, Tyranids become weak. Directionless. Easily startled and incapable of coordinated offense. Some will attack, some will flee, and none of the units will act in concert or with useful timing. That’s what we’re dealing with here.”
She slammed a boot into the changeling’s neck, cracking it and putting the creature out of its misery.
“So, wait, you’re saying these things are controlled like Tyranids?” Daniels asked.
“I don’t know. Swarm dynamics are common evolutionary social structures, and don’t require actual hive minds or psychic networks. But these creatures are used to being guided, and their individual behavior is useless in fending off a concerted attack.” Jerriha turned to face Daniels. “Most importantly, this means their leaders aren’t present. This Queen we’re supposed to capture is not here. This defense is a panicked sham.”
“Sounds like good news to me,” a mercenary mumbled. “I mean, too bad we might miss a mission objective, but it’s rare that a battle turns out EASIER than expected!”
“Maybe…” Jerriha grumbled. “But if the Queen isn’t here, defending her hive in its hour of need… where is she?”
“Excuse me? Hello there!”

Several guns went up as a man wearing the usual long red coat of the Company mercenaries stumbled out of an adjacent tunnel.
“Greetings, fellow space primates! And also this other creature that is not a primate, as I understand, but is also from space!” He waved awkwardly at the soldiers, none of whom stopped aiming at him. “I’m glad I found you! I got lost in these tunnels and I barely managed to avoid the changelings! What a relief!”
Jerriha looked over at Daniels. Daniels pulled up his optics visor and stepped up to the newcomer.
“You seem to have lost your wargear, friend. No rifle, no sidearm… You should be more careful!”
“… Uh, yes! Yes, I should. Sorry about that. I should probably go get a weapon right now, in fact! Where are they?” the man asked, looking unreasonably pleased.
Daniels smashed the butt of his rail rifle into the stranger’s face. The man cried out in pain and stumbled onto his rear, and then his entire body seemed to burn up with green fire. A moment later, a changeling lay on the ground, twitching and bleeding slightly from his head.
“Somebody drag this bug back to the supply line,” Daniels said, stepping over the writhing shape-shifter. “If this is really the best defense they have to offer, then I say we take our time and do a thorough search. Maybe this Queen isn’t here. Or maybe we caught her asleep or something.”
“Sure, whatever. Nothing better to do, anyway,” Jerriha grumbled as she followed.
She paused only briefly, glancing down at the cringing changeling. It seemed so perfectly helpless; a small, weak creature with no weapons which was too stupid to competently use its most impressive natural ability. Yet its leader thought to attack the Iron Warriors? It thought it could overcome Chaos? The thought was hilarious.
But somehow Jerriha didn’t feel much like laughing.

****

Ferrous Dominus – palisade perimeter
20 meters below the surface

Four minotaur trudged through the tunnel, carrying the excavation charge between them. Their steps were stiff and overly deliberate, and their pacing could be generously described as “cautious.” Between the hulking bovines the bomb wasn’t very heavy at all; any one of them could have dragged it through the tunnel. But they were more than a little nervous about hauling a massive explosive charge.
The environment didn’t make them feel any safer. Small, magical glow crystals were stuck into the ceiling of the tunnel, casting a dim but workable light over the interior. The soil around them looked obviously strange; the dirt was black and wet in some places, while seams of some kind of red silt cut through it in a pattern that looked suspiciously like veins. The moist spots tended to ooze slime onto the ground that stuck to everyone’s feet or hooves and smelled terrible. The diamond dogs hadn’t handled digging through such strange soil very well, so the dimensions of the tunnel varied at random and the scaffolding placed through it got visibly shoddier and more haphazard as one advanced toward the fortress.
But what the minotaur found most uncomfortable – even more so that towing a giant bomb – was undoubtedly the Orks.
Green-skinned warriors sat in the siege tunnels approaching Ferrous Dominus or leaned against the walls, glowering at any non-Ork that passed by. Some of them caressed their choppas or licked their lips, always with their eyes locked on those that they considered their inferiors.
In truth the Orks had been surprisingly compliant so far, what with the promise of violence so close. The plan for getting into the fortress was just simple enough for even the famously dim aliens to understand and appreciate, and having the “squishy races” take care of the annoying non-fighty work suited their tastes just fine. There was also the surprising rapport they had found with the yaks, some of which were still acting as mounts for several Nobs… but nobody really wanted to delve too deeply into that subject.

Finally, the minotaur reached the end of the tunnel.
This area had been dug out more widely to act as a staging area, and most of the largest Orks – and their yak mounts, if they had one – were waiting impatiently to deploy. Very few of the other insurgents were waiting along with them. Mostly because of all the greenskins that were to make up the first wave, but also because they knew what the next phase of the invasion was. A huge stretch of flat, solid metal blocked off one side of the cavern, and the demolition of such an obstacle would be dangerous, at best.
The leaders of the insurgency waited near the wall. Mox, Nox, Sox, and Rox all brightened at the arrival of the bomb. The Orks also stirred, several of them coming to the conclusion that the time for action was nigh. When they started hooting and cheering, however, one Nob shouted them down.
“Kwyet, ya gitz! Ya wanna scroo dis up ‘fore we even in da front door?” Gox growled. Several Orks growled back, irritated at having to be lectured by someone of similar size. None of them objected, however.
“Here! Place the charge here!”
Nox pointed to several metal crates that had been set up in a row next to the metal wall. The minotaur moved the explosive into place, and then slowly set it down.
“We ready now?!” Rox shouted unnecessarily. “We clear out, make big boom, then start war?!”
“Uh… might this thing collapse the tunnel?” Nox asked nervously.
“The explosive is a shaped charge,” Sox explained, slapping a large arrow embossed on one end. “When it explodes, almost all the destructive force will go this way, burning through the wall. It shouldn’t reach the ceiling or kill anyone nearby.”
“’Shouldn’t,’ huh?” mumbled a minotaur.
“Yes, well… we’d best still give it some space. But whatever else you can say about the humans, their machines usually work as advertised.” Sox pressed several buttons on a small activation panel.
“This is it, then.” Mox nodded sharply to Nox. “Let’s get the others. It’s time.”
“We’z gotta fight, boyz! WAAAAAAAAAAGH!!” In blatant defiance of her earlier caution, Gox led the battle cry of the Orks, and the greenskins started thumping their melee weapons against the ground.
“T-minus fifteen minutes,” Sox grinned, and then turned the arming switch.
The bomb beeped, and the numbers to the right of the decimal place rapidly went from 99 to 0. The number on the left switched to 14, and the process began again in an eye blink.
“I mean… seconds? Fifteen… no, wait, twelve? Oh dear.” Sox started backing away.
“You damn fool! Run!”

The changelings and the minotaur haulers scrambled away, barely keeping themselves from screaming in terror. Gox likewise broke for the tunnels, shoving her way through the greenskins to get to a safe distance.
The Orks she shoved aside growled at her in irritation, but she didn’t hold their attention for long. The greenskins did not flee. They caressed their blades and hoisted their guns, all the more pleased that they should not have to wait a full fifteen minutes more before the slaughter could begin. Those that could see the timer rapidly counting down from their angle stomped their feet with each second, laughing.
The timer reached zero.

Those Orks closest to the bomb were knocked off their feet by a pressure wave. The massive shell flashed brightly, and a jet of superheated gas speared through the wall and then spread outward in a series of controlled blast rings. Bare bulkhead armor several inches thick gave way to layered ferrocrete, and that too crumbled under the atomizing heat. Clouds of metal vapor burst from the hole, washed against the ceiling, and then rapidly cooled into shards of crystalline debris.
The initial, understated hiss of the detonation built higher and higher with the rapid bursts, eventually culminating in a fantastic roar that washed over the aliens behind a rush of oven-hot air. The Orks looked away briefly, shielding their eyes. The yaks that served some Nobs as mounts shook and growled, their thick nostrils filling with tangy chemical fumes.
And then it was over. The bomb was a scorched husk, with one end of the device completely gone. In front of the excavation charge was a big, almost perfectly round hole put through nearly four feet of durasteel and concrete, and spilling out into an unlit bombardment shelter.
“Sumwun tell da squishy gitz!” barked a Nob near the front. “We’ze in! Get in dere! KILL ‘EM ALL! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!”

****

Ferrous Dominus
Sector 21

*Detecting an energy surge… Hmm. Surprisingly small. Was that a detonation? An underground breach? Interesting choice.*
The Tau Fio’o looked up from his engineering tablet, glancing at the pair of drones hovering just inches away from him. Behind him, dozens of Fire Warriors checked their weapons while pilots started up their battlesuits.
One Heavy Stealth Suit peered over his shoulder, briefly reflecting a crimson light over the screen. *Then it’s begun. Are the drones ready?*
*They are, but, Shas’o…* He hesitated. *The energy surge seems small enough that it may be missed or dismissed by the gue’la entirely. They will not fail to notice our drones once active. Are we sure that this… other assault force succeeded in creating a path?*
*No. We’re not sure,* Voidsong admitted. *I don’t trust our “allies” at all, much less trust in their ability to launch a successful attack on a target like this. But this is the plan. It either comes together or falls apart now. Activate the drones.*
The head engineer took a deep breath, then tapped his tablet twice. After a swipe of his finger, it was done.
*The drones are active, Shas’o. Network augurs are already picking up a dramatic increase in friendly signums just from the terrain interference alone… The entire fortress is blind now. Anything without an organic brain and the sense to use it won’t be able to tell friend from foe.*
*Excellent. How long will it last?* Voidsong demanded.
*The signum emitters are easy to identify once one has all the transmissions sorted out and analyzed. That will take time. I’m not sure how much time, but more in the scope of hours rather than minutes. Assuming the Techpriests aren’t distracted from being invaded and killed, of course.*
A Broadside battlesuit stepped up behind Voidsong. *Do we have our targets yet? When do we deploy?*
*Patience, soldier.* Voidsong’s battlesuit twisted its head around to stare up the black spire of Nightwatch. *Let’s see how the foe turns before we decide where to plunge the blade.*
*Noosphere traffic has jumped considerably… I can’t interpret their chatter. They keep using obscure forms of that absurd code language and would never let me observe the encryption algorithms,* the Fio’o complained.
*We can make a guess. Let their engineer-cultists panic. We’ll know soon enough if our allies came through for us.*

Voidsong turned toward her army. Or rather, the glorified platoon that served as her army. Less than seventy Tau were gathered to act as her strike force, a laughable number even compared to the 38th Company’s Astartes component. Luckily, a considerable fraction of the force was composed of battlesuits, and much of the light infantry were the most experienced and trusted warriors of Wraithstar’s detachment. Even so, she had no doubt they’d be hopelessly outnumbered if her team had to fight the garrison on their own, and it was only through sheer luck that the bulk of the fortress’s troops seemed to be away on an engagement at the moment.
But such a situation suited her just fine. The point of covert operations, of prioritizing deception over strength, was to do more with less. To circumvent unfavorable odds and impossible battles. If Chrysalis managed to assemble an actual assault force, then Voidsong would play her game, moving while the enemy was occupied and striking when their backs were turned. If the insect’s plan fizzled, as she expected…
Well, a heroic end gutting the city’s fusion core would be a fitting final contribution to the Greater Good. Much better than decorating an alien city as a showpiece, at any rate.

“Geez, what’s with all the grays? Is there a deployment today?”
“Shouldn’t they be helping the humans break up that changeling nest? Ugh, they’re so useless!”
“The Iron Warriors should keep those big suits locked up. I don’t trust these guys with that kind of ordnance.”
Voidsong looked up. A trio of pegasus ponies hovered overhead. She could only imagine the equines were sneering from behind the respirator masks and goggles while they openly talked down to them. Such an attitude wasn’t exactly unfounded, of course; she imagined that the horse Princesses would come to dearly regret not having her executed after today.
Several Fire Warriors looked over to her, tilting their rifles ever-so-slightly at the equines. A silent, subtle way of asking for permission to fire. They could always ask in their own language, and the ponies would almost certainly be oblivious to a calm discussion of their murder. But discretion was the watchword for now.
In respect to that discretion, Voidsong’s battlesuit shook its head. The equines were unarmed and clueless. There would be no benefit to slaying them other than venting their righteous indignation.
“Hey! Who’s in charge here? Is this some kind of military drill?” barked one of the ponies. “… Hello? Do any of you guys even speak Equestrian?”
“It’s called Gothic, Circuit.”
“I’m pretty sure everyone in those battlesuits are supposed to speak it. Remember that time Warsmith Solon killed one for lying about it?”
“Ha! Good times.”
Voidsong started to reconsider the value of venting her righteous indignation.
Then the explosions started.

****

+Re:signum transmission malfunction. All receptors have been diagnosed. Zero system errors have been detected.+
+Noosphere contamination and atmospheric disruption have been similarly ruled out.+
+Run alternate diagnostic pathing 293-71196. Verify data is consistent with archive still 772.+
+Maintenance call for sub-sector 7-2. Unusual energy emissions detected. Require observation team.+
+Augur station Lambda reporting additional contacts. Friendly.+
+Redundancy. EVERY augur station is reporting additional friendly contacts. Identification impossible.+
+The data is flawed. However, the timing of the intercepts does not correspond with the initial disruption.+
+Cache 1.83 to 6.89 cleared. Diagnostics have returned minimal signs of corruption. Initializing memory dump…+
+WARNING: Uncontrolled detonations detected in sector 16.+
+Re-route all sector defense teams to checkpoint 46-112. Activate all automated sentries and place emplacement network on high alert.+
+Error. No enemy contacts registered. Multiple sector breaches detected. Containment failure imminent. Alert status elevated to beta-primus.+
+Dispatch a warning to command. Ferrous Dominus is under attack.+

****

Canterlot Castle
Sitting room

“I’m telling you, Tigeraan isn’t going back to her. Not after last week. He’s been burned too many times.”
“How many times have you said that, your Highness? He always finds some excuse. Or rather, the writers do.”
“This would just be too much, though. After Fillydelphia, it’s over. They should just retire Angel Wings from the show entirely, to be honest. I think she’s had enough amnesia-inducing knocks to the head to be interred in a psychiatric ward by now.”
Princess Celestia lounged among a pile of silken cushions while the ending credits for All My Horses scrolled down the holovid screen. Raven sat behind her, a notebook floating in the air next to her head.
“I admit they could stir it up a bit. There are rumors that they’re planning to add a changeling character next season,” Raven mumbled.
Celestia sipped from a hovering tea cup, and then levitated a slice of chocolate cake from a dish by her hooves. “A changeling, hmm? That would be interesting. I wonder how hard it would be to mimic their shapeshifting with special effects.” She took a bite out of the cake.
“Oh, they’re not talking special effects. Apparently they were thinking of using an actual captured changeling for the role.”
Celestia stopped chewing, favoring Raven with an incredulous look.
“That fell through when the Iron Warriors killed it, though. But I guess they think they might get a new one soon?”
Celestia swallowed her cake and then washed it down with a mouthful of tea. Once she had delicately wiped her lips, she turned back to her assistant.
“Where do they think they can find changelings to keep as… slave-actors? Is that even a thing? Can you enslave that profession?” the white Princess asked.
“Leave it to the Company to try,” Raven sniffed. “As for where… well, turn on CNN.”

Within a swirl of golden light, the vid selector floated above the cake, swiveled toward the holovid projector, and then clicked. The screen flickered, and then an image of a black-robed cyborg appeared.
“-but even with home sector advantage, the simulated probability of the Buzzers emerging victorious in the semi-finals remains an abysmal 18.6137 percent.”
Next to him, a hoofball was balanced on the tip of an upraised mechatendril, kept just barely in frame. The Dark Techpriest reached a finger over and calmly spun it while he talked.
“The injury of Bouncer will continue to severely limit team performance. Far inferior secondary goalies reduce defensive efficiency by an average of 13.917 percent. This tactical obstacle has correspondingly raised recruitment concerns, as the franchise is extremely reliant on its elite players to the detriment of the field unit as a whole.”
The Techpriest bowed his head, and the mechatendril suddenly vaulted the hoofball away. “This has been Dark Techpriest Leverin, with your sports coverage. Glory to the Dark Gods. Omnissiah bless our viewers and grant victory to our sponsors.”

“Why do they have those half-metal priests as their specialist correspondents?” Raven sighed while the CNN logo – with the “C” superimposed over a Chaos Star – flashed across the screen. “You could get identical performance from a servitor, and at least they wouldn’t have to pay it.”
“I don’t mind the Dark Techpriests so much,” Celestia replied. “I can’t stand that Kilroy person, though.”
“Kilroy? What? Everypony loves Kilroy!”
“Raven, the man is a psychotic maniac.”
“I know, your Highness, but he’s so funny! Remember that Blackthorne interview? Hah!”

The screen finally changed to the main CNN news desk. Scoops and Kilroy sat in their usual places; the former with a bright smile, and the latter with his expression hidden by the dirty sack he used as a face mask.
“Greetings, weak and feeble viewers! We have updates from the inexorable march of the Dark Gods’ chosen!” Kilroy snarled.
Raven snickered. Celestia frowned at her.
“As we reported earlier, the bulk of the Company garrison is currently engaging the changelings!” Scoops said while the words “Changeling Menace!” appeared over her head. “Thanks to the 38th Company’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques, our army has located the central hive of Queen Chrysalis and even now lay siege to the xeno nest! The assault is in the earliest stages, but initial reports sound promising!”
“Indeed Scoops!” Kilroy barked. “Before the might of Chaos, the outermost defenses crumbled in moments! Our warriors stalk the caverns of the treacherous xenos, slaughtering them without mercy!”
“Not QUITE without mercy, Kilroy!” Scoops chirped, winking at the vid recorder. “The assault teams have orders to take prisoners and bio-samples from the target, as Dark xeno-biologis Techpriests have shown considerable interest in the shape-shifters!”
“Bah! It is true. Our engineering cultists are fascinated by these cowardly beasts! They demand prisoners, scrapings, and other detritus of the battlefield for their tiresome curiosities.” Kilroy admitted. “But the military objective remains paramount! This ‘Queen Chrysalis’ sought to turn the extremely punchable races of your wretched world against Chaos through guile and deceit, so that we might slay them for her convenience! But we have uncovered her manipulations, and now she shall pay the ULTIMATE price for her hubris! Ha ha ha! HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!!”

Celestia blinked repeatedly, surprised. “Chrysalis… was trying to get the Company to kill all the griffons, diamond dogs, and others? How odd.”
“Who knows what goes through that twisted witch’s mind?” Raven sniffed.
“Queen Chrysalis is twisted, certainly, but her motivations aren’t usually cryptic.” Princess Celestia shook her head. “She attacked Equestria to get our love. What does she have to gain from genocide?”
“Revenge, perhaps? Changelings are terribly unpopular across many different species. I would be surprised if she didn’t have some scores to settle we weren’t aware of.”
“Maybe. But then it’s strange that the one score we ARE aware of is the one she’s left untouched. Have the changelings made no attempt to drive a wedge between Equestria and the Iron Warriors? I’ve seen or heard nothing of the sort.”
Raven tilted her head to the side. “I can’t think of anything… Our relations have been better than ever, what with most of the actual Chaos Space Marines gone. Why, Hope Springs very nearly has Warpsmith Kessler wrapped around her hoof!” She smirked. “Do you think an attempt to start a conflict between us would even work?”
“Yes. I think about the prospect frequently,” Celestia grumbled before turning back to the screen. “Sometimes I have nightmares about it…”

“With the source of the native insurgency firmly in the crosshairs of our noble warriors, some have asked whether the elimination of the changelings might end our military conflicts with Yakyakistan and the dragon territories, which are still subject to ongoing combat operations,” Scoops said.
“Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaa!!” replied Kilroy.
Scoops slapped a hoof onto the desk. “Despite my co-anchor’s amusement at the prospect, knowing as we do now that the insurgency was a changeling plot against the insurgent races generates new possibilities for peace! Surely it is not in the Company’s best interest to serve as a murder squad for upstart Queens!”
“Why not? Is that not our relationship to your insolent Sun Goddess?” Kilroy asked with a snort.
“No it isn’t!” Scoops retorted. “It’s different in Princess Celestia’s case!”
“How?”
“For starters, she isn’t-“
A klaxon blared in the background, startling the two news anchors out of their argument.
“That’s… what? What is that?” Scoops mumbled.
“The siege alarm? Impossible,” Kilroy scoffed, looking off to the side.
A muffled boom came from the background, barely loud enough to be heard between the rapid rise and fall of the alarm’s noise. Scoops looked in the same direction Kilroy was facing, and she squinted her eyes.
“Is… Is that…”
A louder boom and a flash came from the holovid player, and the feed turned to static.

Celestia and Raven’s eyes were wide as they stared at the holovid screen. The static churn continued for a few more seconds before suddenly switching to a still image of the Legion’s Iron Skull emblem. Celestia’s tea pot hovered in the air, tilted sharply to one side and leaking into her cup. After a few seconds the tea cup overflowed, and the Princess yelped as the scalding liquid spilled on her leg. Both cup and pot dropped onto the floor, bouncing across the plush carpet and spilling their contents everywhere.
Raven eventually turned to her Princess. “Is this some kind of publicity stunt? Can Ferrous Dominus really be under attack? Who would even do that?”
“There are many who would try. I can’t think of any who would manage enough success to warrant more than a brief mention after the fact in the CNN newsroom,” Celestia mused while wiping off her leg with a cloth. “Perhaps they’re actually in the field? Might this be happening somewhere near the Company’s attack on the changelings? It’s hardly beyond their ability to build a mobile broadcasting center.”
“It seems quite off-brand for them, if you ask me,” Raven mumbled doubtfully. “And Kilroy clearly said it was a siege alarm. A field base wouldn’t have something like that, would it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But the newscast being interrupted is unusual, right?”
“I’ve never seen that before. But then, CNN has only been around for-“
The screen crackled again, and then the feed resumed.

Scoops stared nervously into the vid-recorder, her hair askew and several loose feathers scattered over the desk in front of her. The rattle of automatic fire was coming from just off-screen, and a constant stream of bullet casings kept flying into the frame before dropping down below the desk.
“He-Hello! Loyal viewers! Um! So, we have some, uh, breaking news right now…”
“Alien scum!” Snarled Kilroy’s voice. The frame suddenly tilted its angle, revealing the newscaster firing a heavy stubber out the window. “You dare encroach upon corrupted ground?! Your souls will feed our gods, and your agony shall birth a hundred snarling daemons!”
Scoops chuckled humorlessly, and a few droplets of sweat crawled down her brow. “In t-tonight’s special report, blood spills in the streets of Ferrous Dominus! An unlikely alliance of insurgent soldiers and-“
The sound of a nearby detonation came from the background, and Scoops flinched. Her ears pinned to her head, and she ducked lower in her seat and waited for the booming to subside.
“… and… and Orks… have descended on Ferrous Dominus.” She gulped, and stared hard into the vid-recorder. “That’s right, loyal viewers! The treacherous rebel defectors from the Protectorate have BETRAYED our world, siding with the monstrous Orks against the 38th Company! Is there any limit to their craven-“
Again she was interrupted, this time by a bullet ricochet off the wall. Scoops instantly ducked under the desk and out of sight.
“Meep! It, uh, it seems there are currently some problems with our active defenses! B-but details are hard to establish at the moment!” she shouted from beneath the desk. “W-We will try to keep you, our loyal viewers, advised of the situation as it develops! I’m sure that soon enough our noble warriors will push the aggressors back to… uh… wherever they came from! Wait, how DID they get past the walls?”
Kilroy’s stubber clicked empty, and he roared wordlessly before tossing aside the weapon. “Scum! I will tear you all apart!” He drew a laspistol and started firing it out the window. “I shall recount your final moments in a special report of RUIN!”
“We can at least confirm that the invaders have breached sector 22, home of the CNN headquarters!” Scoops continued. “It seems that whatever has disabled our active defenses is also making it difficult to tell where the enemy is! At the moment we’re compiling reports of enemy activity in sectors 18 through 26, but so far we haven’t found-“
Another explosion boomed nearby, and an armorglass window in the back, behind the news desk, was blown inward. A plume of fire washed into the room, and the image started flickering.
“YEEP!! Kilroy, stop shooting at them! They’re shooting back at the studio!” Scoops shouted.
“NEVER!!” the co-host roared, swapping out the battery for his laspistol.
Scoops poked her head out to berate her co-worker, but then spotted some movement by the window.
“GRIFFON!!” she screamed, right before a burst of lasers cut off the feed again.

Celestia stared at the holovid slack-jawed while the image switched back to the Iron Skull.
“… Well, that settles that,” Raven mumbled. “Rebels and Orks, huh? Didn’t see that coming.”
Princess Celestia jumped up, her eyes still fixed on the holovid. “This is an emergency! The base has been breached! There are hostile soldiers in the streets!”
“Yes. That’s a shame.”
Raven levitated some tea to her lips and then took a long sip. She smacked her lips, and then noticed Celestia was staring at her.
“What? Was there something else?”
“Yes! We need to do something!” Celestia growled.
“Like what?” her assistant asked.
“We can send aid! We have reserves!” the white Princess suggested. “With our new weapons and armor-“
“We’ll still arrive several hours after the battle is over, probably,” Raven interrupted. “Our new equipment doesn’t include transports. Rather long march to Ferrous Dominus.” She shrugged. “Of course, the pegasi could get there much faster, but on their own…”
Celestia clenched her teeth and sat back on her haunches. “No… there must be a way…”
“Well your Highness, I’m not sure what your limits are with your teleport spell, but I doubt you can take an entire army with you that far.”
Celestia rubbed the underside of her chin with a hoof.
Then the holovid player flickered.

“-the feed working yet? Hello? Is anypony there?!”
Scoops leaned over the news desk in a panic, waving her hoof at the recorder. A frenzy of screeching and shouting came from behind her, and one of the windows was blocked with flaming debris.
“If anybody can hear this: pony, human, daemon or whatever, send help! We need to get out of here!”
Kilroy growled a curse while he grappled with an enraged griffon warrior, trying to throttle the winged beast amidst a cloud of feathers. The griffon clawed ferociously at the furious cultists, but was unable to cause more than flesh wounds as it weakened.
“Orks and yaks are in the streets, diamond dogs keep popping up in the buildings from the siege tunnels, and griffons are covering them from the air!” Scoops cried, pounding a hoof onto the desk. “The guns and augurs aren’t working right! Nothing is working! We have a total containment failure in the entire North quadrant! Our troops are reliant on visual contact and have no fire support!”
The griffon shrieked, and then managed to plunge a knife into Kilroy’s arm. The cultist screamed in fury, and then slammed his forehead into the invader’s face.
“Additional contacts are approaching the fortress, but initial reports could not determine whether they were friendly! Defensive forces are grouping for a push into the compromised sectors, but many of our active fighters are at the changeling hive! Our strategic correspondent is occupied right now, but my assessment of the situation is that it’s-“
“USELESS!!” Kilroy lifted the griffon high over his head, and then swung the invader down into the desk, right next to Scoops. The griffon’s back hit the edge of the surface with a sickening crunch, and it released a feeble squawk and a spasm before it went limp.

The feed went to static again, but this time the disruption only lasted several seconds. Soon it was restored, and Celestia and Raven were treated to the sight of Kilroy laying across the news desk while Scoops pressed a bloody rag against his knife wound.
“Kilroy! Hang in there! You’re going to make it!” the mare sniffled.
“These wounds… are nothing…” Kilroy grumbled, shifting slightly on the desk. “Khorne has not… summoned me to his side… just yet!”
“Medicae! Is there a medicae officer anywhere?” Scoops shouted into the recorder. “Please send help!”
“No! If you are hearing us, warriors of Chaos, see to the destruction of the enemy!” Kilroy demanded between weakening coughs. “If the foe… breaches the heart… of the manufactorum, then all… the Warsmith’s machinations shall be… for naught.”
“Kilroy! Kilroy, I can’t stop the bleeding!” Scoops sobbed.
“I will… return! After a word… from our… sponsors…”
He coughed again, and a dark stain spread through the dirty rag he used as a face mask.
“KILROY!! NOOOOO-“
The holovid clicked off.

Raven seemed startled from the screen going dark, and she quickly rubbed away a tear that was crawling down her cheek. Princess Celestia was levitating the remote controller with her magic, and the white alicorn gave an irritated grunt before dropping the device.
“I don’t think we’ll get any more useful information from that broadcast,” Celestia said sharply. “Besides, we must act quickly.”
“Right! Yes.” Raven paused. “… Act to do what, exactly? Are we going to go with the ‘sending pegasi to their doom’ plan?”
“No. I may have a better one. Do we know exactly where the Company’s assault force is?”
Raven blinked. “Uh… well, I can get that information. Dark Techpriest Carmed is still available at Canterlot General Hospital. He should have the exact coordinates.”
“Good. Get their location immediately and bring it back to me. I need to write a letter to Cloudsdale,” Celestia said firmly, turning to head to her study.
“ACTUALLY…”
Celestia paused, and then glanced back at her younger assistant.
“Techpriest Carmed also has a vox feed that can contact Cloudsdale directly. So, you know, that could save an hour or two if time is of the essence. Which I’m guessing it is?” Raven ventured. “Oh! Also, he’s part of the biologis temple, so if we need medicae assistance…”
“… Maybe you should simply bring Techpriest Carmed here,” Celestia said. “I must consult with the mages. Hurry, Raven!”
“Yes, your Highness! Right away!”

****

Changeling Hive
Siege operations perimeter

“There’s two more from squad Delta. Squad Lambda reports a capture, but it’s injured. Omega Squad has another one, and they’re falling back. Not due to enemy fire; traps. Some of the deeper tunnels have defenses.”
General Harlin nodded absently, tapping at a dataslate. “That makes forty-six prisoners so far. Quite a take on the first push.”
“All squads are reporting the same thing, Lord General: enemy attacks are infrequent and uncoordinated. We’ve had no casualties thus far. Delta ran into some heavy resistance in a particular chamber and fell back from the sheer numbers, but even they got away with all their men. These defenses are a joke. The ponies could do better.”
“Good. This is a nice break from scouting Ork encampments and having mobs popping up on our flank,” Harlin grumbled. “Has there been any problems with their shape-shifting abilities?”
“No, Lord General. Not yet, anyway. I’ve heard some units have run into disguised changelings, but none of them have put up a convincing ruse so far. Mostly they take up the disguise after running away, hoping we’ll mistake them for one of ours. It hasn’t worked.”
“Excellent. Of course, we can’t let our guard down,” Harlin said with a nod. “Every soldier that emerges from that mound needs to be checked with a gene-key. And they can expect a brief psychic check once we return to base. I’ll not allow any spies into Ferrous Dominus.”
“Yes, Lord General.” The Lieutenant replied. “And the Astartes?”
“The Iron Warriors are exempt, of course,” Harlin said quickly. “All our data suggests the changelings cannot mimic them, and their power armor has unique bio-markers.”
“Right. Of course.” The lower officer paused. “But I meant to ask what we’re going to do about ‘that’ Astartes, Lord General.”
Harlin quirked an eyebrow. “What are you talking abo-“
Shouts of surprise and terror suddenly erupted from the front line.

Men dove to the side and covered their heads as a trail of flame streaked over them. Nobody bothered firing back, simply hugging the ground in fear while a whooping cheer came from above. The men recognized the lunatic laughter coming from the air overhead immediately, and soon General Harlin did, too.
“Oh. Right. HIM,” the General sighed. “What does he want now?”
The Lieutenant gulped when he saw two gleaming suits of armor arc up through the sky and then start descending as if to land nearby. “I think he wishes to tell you in person, Lord General…”

Tellis tilted backwards as he approached the ground, spreading the jets of his flight pack more evenly to slow his descent. It was an unusual maneuver for him, but he had reason not to crash onto the ground as he usually did. Two reasons, actually.
A changeling was tucked under each of the Chaos Lord’s arms, held tightly against the torso of his armor. The creatures were obviously terrified, but apparently unharmed. After a relatively soft landing, one of them started struggling and screeching, while the other made some insectoid approximation of a whimper. Up above, Rainbow Dash zoomed up behind the Chaos Lord with another prisoner hugged tight against her chest with her power-armored forelegs.
“Hey, General! I have some prisoners! Go find a place to put them!” Tellis shouted. A slight flexing of his arm caused the noisier changeling to yelp in pain and fall silent. “This one on the left is Bugsy. The one on the right is Krom! The one Dash’s got is named Spines!”
“Those… Those aren’t our-“ another slight flex silenced the changeling that had started to speak.
General Harlin nodded hesitantly. “Of course, my Lord. I’ll have the prisoners restrained and secured for transport.”
“Good! Also, make sure they’re kept separate from the other prisoners. These ones are mine!” Tellis dumped the changelings in a heap in front of him, and Rainbow dropped her own captive next to them.
“… They’re… yours, Lord? As in, you’re taking them as slaves?” Harlin asked.
“No, no. Not slaves. Pets,” Tellis clarified, waving a hand. “Anyway, make sure there’s room, because I’m gonna go get more. We need like thirty or forty of these guys. Oh! And make sure you don’t detonate the nest until I’m done!”
“Seriously?” Rainbow asked. “Why so many?”
“I want to build a giant changeling farm out of two huge panels of armorglass and some sand and then put them inside,” Tellis explained, spreading his arms and gesturing to the dimensions of such a structure. “I’ll take the Queen too, if I can get to her before the Tech-nerds do. I want a full colony.”
”Hah! That’s awesome!” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Let’s do it!”
One of the changelings started whimpering again.
General Harlin restrained a sigh. “My Lord, have you considered-“
“The answer to these questions is usually ‘no,’” Tellis interrupted.
“… It’s just that the Queen was specifically requested as a prisoner by Lord Kessler and Serith,” Harlin pointed out gingerly. “Her capture could be vital to ending the remaining conflict on Centaur III.”
“Yeah, but screw that. If they get her first, they’ll probably kill her, and there goes my colony.” He turned to the side, pointing down at the changelings. “Now you bugs be good and do what the weakling humans says! If I find out you’ve been bad, then off go the legs!”
He paused, and then looked over to Rainbow Dash. “These guys regenerate legs, right?”
“Pretty sure you made that up just now, actually,” the pegasus replied.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
The whimpering graduated to terrified quaking.
“My Lord, the operational objective is-“
Suddenly the Iron Warrior was looming over him, and Harlin’s breath caught in his throat.
“Look here, ‘General:’ we’d all prefer I was busy killing things right now, but this assault is pathetic! I can’t fight these things! Just look at them! Quivering weaklings, every one!” He poked the General in the chest with a single armor-encased finger, almost knocking him over. “Either you do your job and find me something fun to murder, or you start finding room for my new pets.”

General Harlin surely would have started running the logistics of transporting a swarm of changelings, but a burst of static interrupted the exchange. His command post included a vox pylon and a bank of communications equipment, and several instruments jumped to life as a feed linked to his command signum.
“General Harlin! General Harlin, come in! We need immediate assistance! All units need to withdraw from the assault area and return to base! Ferrous Dominus is under attack! I repeat, Ferrous Dominus is under attack!”
Harlin glanced over to the vox unit, and then up at Tellis. Tellis and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, and then the Chaos Lord marched up to the device and spoke into the receiver.
“The fortress is being attacked? Like, for real?”
“Yes! We have hostiles in the streets and the subterranean facilities! All defensive systems have failed! More contacts are on the way, but we can’t even tell friend from foe without visual contact! We need reinforcements!”
“Hostiles? What kind of hostiles?” Rainbow asked suspiciously, swooping in closer to the vox system. “Like, are we talking Orks?”
“ALL KINDS of hostiles! Orks! Dogs! Griffons! Beastmen! Even the bloody yaks are down here! They have our weapons and they’ve broken into the munitions stores under the Fortress! They’re tearing the entire city apart!”
“AWESOME!!” Tellis bellowed, clapping his gauntlets together with eardrum-rattling clash. His flight pack spread its jets, and a rising whine came from the central engines. “C’mon, Rainbabe! We out!”
“Right behind you, Tellis!” Rainbow Dash shouted. A short burst of her impulse blasters vaulted her into the air, and her own engines started building power.

General Harlin turned his face away as Tellis rocketed into the air, whooping loudly. A wave of intense heat washed over the General and everything else nearby, and one of the changelings nearby actually caught fire on its wings from sitting too close. The insectoid creature started screeching and jumping around, its wings buzzing desperately to escape the flames.
Harlin grunted in annoyance and drew his laspistol, blasting the howling shape-shifter through the head. It collapsed into a burning heap, and the other changelings quickly reconsidered trying to escape in the confusion.
“Someone get these filthy insects stowed with the other ones!” the General shouted. Then he approached the vox station and picked up the receiver.
“Command, I didn’t realize we were transmitting, but I appreciate the diversion. Just make sure you have a good excuse ready for Lord Tellis once he gets there.”
“…… What? Diversion? Excuse? General?”
“When Lord Tellis gets there, he’ll be expecting a fight,” Harlin said. “Did you already have something in mind? It would be best if you actually did have a few scraps of alien to entertain him.”
“Does this mean you’re not coming? Lord General, we need more than just Lord Tellis! We’re looking at a complete containment failure!”
General Harlin frowned, his eyes darting to the comms instruments. “Wait… you were being serious? There’s really an enemy assault occurring?”
“Yes!”
“Consisting of a combined force of… Centaur natives and Orks? Armed with our wargear?”
“YES!”
“And this assault force has somehow disabled our defense network, breached the wall, and is undetectable to our augurs?”
“It would be more accurate to say that our augurs are experiencing some strategic sabotage which has rendered the defense network useless, but essentially YES!”
General Harlin clenched his teeth, turning to look at the changeling hive. “It will take some time to clear out. We have not placed charges yet, but our vanguard-“
A booming noise came from the vox caster, and Harlin flinched away when the voice on the other end screamed. The feed turned to static, and then several meters on the vox pylon sunk to zero.
“… By the Dark Gods… He was wrong. Lord Serith was deceived. We all were,” he growled, the vox receiver shaking in his hand. “The shape-shifters aren’t using us to wipe out some petty resistance. The bastard xenos actually managed to raise an army against us. They got into the damned city the moment our backs were turned!”
He switched the frequency to the local spectrum channel. “This is General Harlin to all units! All units, fall back immediately to the siege lines and submit to gene-key verification! We are abandoning mission! I repeat: consider all mission objectives null and retreat immediately! Ferrous Dominus is under attack!”

****

Ferrous Dominus – sector 18
Psyker dorms – Hope Spring’s quarters

“Oh, this just HAD to happen when I was almost on leave, didn’t it? Ridiculous!”
Hope Springs muttered irritably to herself while she levitated a steady stream of objects into her suitcase. Her ears were pinned to the side of her head, but that hardly did much to block out the screech of the siege klaxons.
“Warning! Containment failure level alpha detected! Siege lockdown engaged! All units, report to battle stations!”
Hope glared at the vox caster attached to her room cogitator. She felt like shouting a tirade of profanity at it, but her diplomatic inclinations kept her in check. Even though the electric growl was almost certainly a one-way communication, venting her frustrations wouldn’t do anything to help right now and could still land her in trouble.
“It’s going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.” Hope floated a pair of dataslates into the case, and then closed it. A few pulses of magic secured the latches. “The Company can handle this. They’re MADE to handle this.”
She heard a booming noise through the walls, and an object on her desk rattled slightly from the vibration. Her eyes darted toward it, and her breath caught in her throat.
The tremor lasted only a moment, but her eyes remained locked on the object. A laspistol sat atop the only desk in her room. It was a simple, ugly, gray device; standard issue, built from recycled scrap, with no spare ammunition. It was a small and weak enough weapon that the Iron Warriors would hand one to any visitor that wanted one. Hope HADN’T wanted one at all, but Warpsmith Kessler had demanded that she take it after they had been attacked at the diplomatic conference.
The unicorn took a deep breath and touched her magical aura to it. Slowly, inch by inch, her magic spread over it, as if too much pressure would cause it to go off or explode. She knew better, of course; she had lifted the laspistol before, even if she had never fired it. But somehow the gun seemed… heavier and more sensitive now.
The crack of lasguns firing came from the hall. Hope felt her heart leap into her throat.

“Okay… Everything’s going to be okay.” The mare whispered to herself again while she levitated the laspistol in front of her. “We’re on lockdown. Nothing can get in or out.”
Another explosion. She could hear shrapnel screeching against the metal corridor walls.
The vox caster near the ceiling briefly cut off the siege alarm for an announcement. “Warning: Hostile presence confirmed. Security breach in sector 16, sector 18, sector 19, sector 21, sector-pfffshgt!”
Another explosion, and another vibration trembled through the building. The vox caster was just transmitting static now.
Hope slowly backed away from the door to her room, and then sat down behind the bed. Just in case.
The door opened.

Hope was frightened enough when the sound of lasfire started washing into the room unencumbered by the walls. She almost wet herself on the spot when two diamond dogs ducked into the room.
“Gugh! Human vermin!” shouted one of the canines, staggering inside and collapsing onto the floor. He had a deep lasburn on his arm, and was clutching his bicep in pain.
The other diamond dog was unharmed, and he whirled about and fired his lasgun back into the hall, using the doorway as cover. Neither of them had noticed the quivering unicorn behind the bed. Spears of crimson light zipped down the hall, ensuring Hope that at the very least she wasn’t the only resistance faced by the insurgents. It was a small comfort.
“Do you have any grenades left?!”
“Just one!”
“Well, use it!”
The wounded canine unhooked the fragmentation charge from his munitions belt and held it up. Taking several deep, haggard breaths, he gripped the handle and pulled the pin. Then he caught a spot of color out of the corner of his eyes.
The diamond dog whipped his head around, and his blood ran cold. A pink pony was peeking over the top of the bed, her horn alight with white magic. That magic was currently levitating a laspistol up above her head, aiming unsteadily at the injured rebel.
“UNICORN! LOOK OUT!”
Hope Springs had been working out whether or not to fire, and that shout pretty much sealed the deal. Her magic curled around the trigger, and the first lasbolt stabbed through the air over the diamond dog’s shoulder.
His partner whirled around with his lasgun, and Hope squeaked in fright. She ducked her head completely beneath the bed below a burst of suppressive fire, hearing the lasers sizzle as they bored into the wall behind her. She fired the laspistol again and again in return, sending a hopelessly inaccurate spread of laser blasts across the room.
The wounded diamond dog hit the floor on the opposite side of the bed from the pony diplomat, and an enraged growl escaped his throat.
“Hey, pony! CATCH!” barked the insurgent, hurling his grenade over the bed.
The grenade sailed across the middle of the room in a graceful arc. Then it was swallowed by a glowing white aura. It promptly reversed course, arcing back toward the two canines.
“I said catch! You didn’t catch! You were supposed-“

The diamond dog’s terrified blubbering was cut off by an explosion that had Hope’s ears ringing painfully. Bits of sheeting and mattress filler jumped into the air and rained down across the room, and Hope also felt the magical grip of her laspistol shake loose as the weapon was knocked away.
After a few seconds, however, the ringing subsided. The first thing she heard was the door closing, as the cogitator no longer detected any living bodies near the door.
“That… went okay,” the diplomat squeaked. Her voice was very high-pitched, and she felt her legs quivering under her.
Hope Springs wasn’t new to the sights of war. The bodies of the diamond dogs, shredded by shrapnel and oozing blood into an ever-expanding puddle, were hardly any more grisly than the many pictures she’d seen of horrible battlefields. Never mind the diplomatic conference she had attended with Warpsmith Kessler that ended with most of the other diplomats murdered in front of her.
The knowledge that she had done this, though, shook her to her core. She had taken a life. She didn’t feel that her actions had been unjustified in the slightest, but the enormity of wiping out two living, sentient creatures with a brief act of will left her nauseous.
“… I… I have to get out of here,” Hope whispered to herself. “I don’t know how those guys got in, but it’s not safe.”

She levitated her suitcase onto her back, settling the weight as well as she could. She fixed her laspistol – battered, but still functional – to a metal strap on her leg. Then she approached the door to her room and slapped a hoof against the access button. Her understanding of the security measures in place was that the siege alarm locked all fortress doors for non-combatants such as herself, while allowing friendly soldiers access as normal. That understanding was challenged, obviously, by the diamond dogs that had raced into her room without a problem.
Sure enough, after pushing the button, the door console sputtered for a second before the doors slid open. Was lockdown not in place? Hope couldn’t imagine why. The alarm had triggered, and there were obviously enemy soldiers in the base. She couldn’t imagine a situation where such a safety precaution would be more appropriate.
“H-Hello?” she yelled into the hall, not daring to poke her head out just yet. “I’m friendly! Please don’t kill me!”
The laser blasts had stopped soon after the diamond dogs had perished, so she had assumed that Company soldiers still held the hallway. At one end of the building, at least. After a few seconds, a voice shouted back to her.
“Come on over, then! We have a barricade set up!”
Taking a deep breath, Hope burst into a gallop, curving into the hall and sprinting toward the sound of the voice. Her horn glowed as she ran, holding her suitcase on her back.
Ahead of her were two mercenaries aiming lasguns down the hall, crouched beneath a retractable shutter barricade. The metal shields were common installations in Ferrous Dominus, located in most areas that didn’t have regular standing defenses. They were cheap, simple plates of metal that could be pulled up from the flooring and locked into place, and were installed in many strategic locations such as this hallway intersection.
Hope leapt the barricade, landing unsteadily past the two crouched soldiers. There was another soldier covering another passage, and yet another on the ground with a blanket covering him. The man was clearly alive, but the placement suggested he was wounded. A lasburn, judging by the lack of blood.
“Does anyone here know what’s going on? How did enemy soldiers get in the base, and why aren’t we on lockdown?” the unicorn asked.
“No, nobody here has a bloody clue what’s happening,” spat the soldier in front of her. “All I know is that we ARE on lockdown. For some reason the doors are opening for everyone anyway. Including the damned enemy!”
“We’re trying to gather enough men to head on outside, but these damned dogs keep popping up from the lower levels!” growled another man.
“What? They dug their way under Ferrous Dominus?” Hope asked.
“Impossible. Where did they enter from? There are no siege lines and they have no digging machines!” sneered a mercenary. “And you can’t just dig into the fortress! Even the blasted sub-decks are armored like ship bulkheads!”
“How they got here is really besides the point by now, don’t you think? They’re obviously in the sub-decks! If we can’t lock them out, they can get into almost every facility from there!”
Hope furrowed her brow. “Almost? Which buildings aren’t-“
A laser blast zipped overhead and seared a nearby wall, and Hope yelped and ducked.
“Contact! I see one!” Two of the soldiers moved to the correct barricade and started firing back. The third active warrior hugged the corner next to them, giving him a good view of the other halls.
“You’d best stick with us, lass! As far as I know the only safe place in Ferrous Dominus right now is probably the manufactorum or Nightwatch!” the man shouted over the crack of laser bursts.
“The manufactorum? That doesn’t extend underground?”
“It does! But the Techpriests have a hundred ways to secure their facility in a lockdown! You’ve gotta figure one of them works against whatever this scum did to disable our guns and augurs!”
“Frag out!” yelled one of the other soldiers, arming a grenade and hurling it down the hall.
“And Nightwatch doesn’t have a sub-level! Both of those should be safe against the dogs, at least!”
The grenade explosion marked the end of the firefight, and Hope risked a glance over the contested barricade once the mercenaries stopped shooting. A dark shape was lying in the hall, next to a lasgun sitting within a slowly spreading pool of blood.
“… The problem is, there’s more than just dogs about. Griffons and Orks are running rampant through the streets.”
“Some of the Orks are even riding yaks. However THAT works…”
“It’s like a small army bubbled up underneath us. So I want a few more guns behind me before I make a run for it.”
Hope pursed her lips and glanced down at the laspistol strapped to her leg. “Well… I do have a gun. I’m not any good with it, but if you could use a panicked spray of laser blasts, I can provide.”
“Actually, yeah, a few more stray lasbolts would help plenty. Settle down here for now, lass.”
“Oi! Hold your fire! I’m on your side!” shouted a new voice from down the hall.

A mercenary wearing a full optics mask jogged down the hall toward the barricade. The soldiers holding the hall shifted their aim to cover him, while the third man stood up to greet the newcomer.
“And that makes five. Not a bad start. I figure if we can get eight guns together we can make a decent run of the streets. We’ll need to get Marthas settled in a room first and hope the beasties don’t find him, though.”
The wounded man on the floor groaned.
The new soldier stepped over the barricade and stopped in the middle of the intersection space, looking back and forth.
“This all you got?” he asked, his voice muffled considerably by his rebreather mask. He hefted his lasgun, searching the surrounding corridors for any signs of movement.
“For now, yeah. A lot of other guys rushed outside once the siege alarm broke. I was about to follow them when a few of the damned dogs popped up in the building.” The mercenary wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Where were you holed up? Do you know where the Cabal went?”
The new soldier ignored his questions. “So nobody else is coming here, as far as you know?”
“Nah. Vox is an absolute mess right now, but right now we’re trying to either barricade critical areas and regroup to push the scum off the streets. Nobody’s going to be coming up here for a while.”
The new soldier nodded. Then he shot the other man in the face.

Hope screamed as the soldier’s corpse slumped onto the floor, scrambling backward in terror. The other soldiers turned at the sound of the discharge, but the traitor was one step ahead of them. A spray of lasers sliced into the men, cutting across their chests and easily burning through their flimsy body armor. The rogue paused after they collapsed, switched the lasgun back to single-shot mode, and then fired another shot into each body for good measure.
Hope’s rear bumped into the blast shield behind her, and her horn flickered as she tried to draw her laspistol from its sheathe. “Ch-Ch-Changeling! You’re a changeling spy!”
“And you’re a dead mare,” Mox said simply, swinging her aim over to the unicorn.
Hope instantly switched her levitation focus. Her laspistol tumbled away onto the floor, while her suitcase suddenly jumped up and intercepted the first lasbolt that had been directed at her head. She squeezed her eyes shut as another shot burned through the casing, and then another. Her luggage wasn’t bulky metal or made of anything similarly durable, but it at least contained enough personal possessions to act as a shield. What she would do once the suitcase fell apart or when the infiltrator got tired of trying to shoot through her luggage was a quandary that escaped her under the steady beat of laser fire.
“Stop! Please! Why are you doing this?! What do you hope to accomplish here?!”
“Ha! Are you for real?” Mox laughed, firing the rifle with one arm while leaning back against the wall. “I’m not telling you anything, equine. You made yourself the humans’ pet, now die with them like a good slave!”
She stopped shooting and took a step forward before kicking the suitcase out of the air. The fabric casing, already full of scorched holes from lasbolts, came apart from the blow. Assorted books, papers, dataslates, and a few formal outfits tumbled onto the floor in a scattered heap, leaving their owner exposed. Hope stared up at the Guardian, her eyes wide and her muscles frozen out of sheer terror. Mox chuckled and aimed her lasgun at the pony’s forehead.
The next discharge came before she pulled the trigger. A spear of red light stabbed into Mox’s shoulder from the ground, and the changeling reeled back and howled. Her own weapon tumbled from her quivering fingers, bouncing onto the metal flooring.
In the corner of the barricade space, The wounded mercenary clutched his stomach while trying to line up another shot with Hope’s pistol. Sweat dripped down his forehead and his hand shook, pain wracking every twitch of his muscle.
“RRRRRAAUGH!!” Mox lurched forward, and the green lights of her optics mask flashed brightly as she snapped her head toward the man. The laspistol was torn from his hand and hurled down the corridor, smashing against the wall along the way with enough force to dent its barrel.
“Human SCUM,” Mox hissed while her body started to deform. A shroud of green flame washed over her, leaving the changeling’s true form exposed. One leg was raised gingerly to avoid putting pressure on her wounded shoulder, but despite her injury she had clearly endured the lasburn better than any of the humans had suffered theirs.
Her weapons, freed of her formerly bipedal anatomy, lay on the floor around her twisted, hole-ridden hooves. A combat knife was suddenly encompassed by emerald-colored power, and it pulled free of its sheathe.
“Dark Gods curse you, you filthy insect,” gasped the soldier on the floor. “You’ve led all your little friends into a killing field… You’ll never escape Chaos!”
“Useless. Stop sniveling and die,” Mox sneered. Her knife arced down through the air and into the man’s throat.

This grisly sight seemed to snap Hope Springs out of her fearful paralysis. Screaming, she turned and leapt over the ballistic shield, racing down the hallway toward the elevator doors.
Mox didn’t bother to pull her knife from the soldier’s neck, turning her angry gaze onto the fleeing mare. She briefly considered taking up one of the dropped lasguns, but she hadn’t practiced firing the weapons with telekinesis. She had more precise methods available.
Her notched and jagged horn flickered, and a lash of green lightning blasted across the hall. Hope shrieked in pain, and her legs seemed to turn to rubber underneath her. The unicorn collapsed onto her side, sliding to a stop barely more than a meter in front of the rumbling elevator.
“You… You don’t know what you’re doing!” Hope gasped. Her legs felt like jelly, and her vision was slightly hazy now. “There could have been an accord! We could have had peace!”
“Peace? You idiot equines want PEACE?” Mox growled. Her telekinesis swept up one of the lasguns on the floor, holding it up in the air. “Look around you, fool! The humans, the Orks, even the Tau! All these aliens are only good for killing! All these monsters know is war! So just as you corral the freaks and use them as your weapons, we’ve done the same! The only difference between you and I is that I admit it!”
“What about all the others?” Hope asked. Her paralysis was slowly fading, and sweat crawled down her face while she tried to push herself upright. “The diamond dogs? The griffons? The minotaur? You’ve doomed all your allies, and for what? WHAT do you think you’ll accomplish here?”
“I’ve had enough of your blubbering,” Mox sneered, slowly lining up the lasgun in front of her so that she could use the iron sights. “If you have questions, then you can die curious.”
The elevator beeped. A console lumen changed from red to green. The door in front of Hope opened.
Suddenly the diplomat found herself staring at the greaves of an Iron Warrior Warpsmith.

Mox felt her heart stop and her muscles freeze. Her levitation magic flickered, and the lasgun wobbled in the air unsteadily.
Warpsmith Kessler showed no such hesitation. He surged forward, and in two strides he was between Hope and the quivering lasgun. The weapon fired, and a laser splashed across Kessler’s greaves harmlessly.
Mox dropped the levitation and whipped around, stumbling slightly when she accidentally put pressure on her injured leg. Her wings buzzed desperately, slowly lifting her off the ground and relieving her injured leg.
She didn’t get very far before a mechatendril bit into a rear leg and yanked her back. The length of the tendril slithered around her leg once it got some slack, swinging the Guardian about in the air. Mox’s world spun for a few terrifying seconds, and once it stabilized, she found herself hanging upside-down and staring into the optics cluster of Kessler’s helmet.
“Hello, insect,” the Iron Warrior said, his greeting emerging in a perfectly calm, static-laced voice. “I am displeased to find you here.”
“L-Lord Kessler!” Hope shouted. She pushed herself upright, her breath heaving. “Wait! Don’t kill her! She may have valuable information about what’s happening!”
Kessler’s helmet tilted slightly to the side. “Councilor Hope makes a logical point. Even after you attempted to slay her, she vouches for your survival. What say you, insect?” Several other mechatendrils surrounded the changeling, hissing like enraged snakes or breathing puffs of fire.
Mox was hyperventilating. She had heard plenty about the Iron Warriors, of course, but for her first actual encounter with one to occur under such extremely unfortunate conditions – injured, exposed, and alone – brought her over the edge of panic. She screeched as loudly as possible, and her horn lit up like a magical torch.
Kessler grabbed the Guardian’s horn with his free hand, and with a brief twist he snapped it off. Mox recoiled, shrieking even louder, and a shock wave of green-tinged magic burst from her severed horn and rolled down the hallway. Hope flinched when it rolled over her, feeling a distant echo of pain in her own horn. It was nearly debilitating, despite it no doubt amounting to a fraction of what Mox was suffering.
And suffering she was. The changeling howled and thrashed, kicking and biting at the mechatendrils around her. Kessler waited silently for several seconds, and then he tossed the broken horn onto the floor.
“I have the distinct impression you’re not going to cooperate,” he murmured. “So be it.”
Kessler shifted his tendrils, lifting Mox higher in the air. Then he hurled the Guardian onto the floor in front of him, slamming her into the metal surface. He raised a foot and stomped on the shape-shifter, reducing Mox to a dark green smear across the flooring.

“It seems we have infiltrators among all of our other enemies,” Kessler mumbled, turning away from the mess of changeling bits. He approached Hope Springs, his every step leaving gooey footprints behind him. “The situation is approaching a critical point.”
Hope stared forlornly at the corpses in the hallway, and then meekly looked up at the Warpsmith. “Did you… come to get me, Lord Kessler?”
“I did,” he replied simply. “Follow.” His optics blinked, and the elevator opened.
Hope didn’t know what to say at first as she walked into the lift next to the Chaos Marine. The last few minutes had been so bloody, so terrifying, and so thoroughly exhausting that it had already blended together into a miserable blur in her mind. She didn’t realize she was crying until her vision became too blurry for her to see.
“Th-Thank you,” she stuttered, wiping at her face with her forelegs. “I’m… I’m sorry, I… I just… thank you so much! I don’t know wh-what’s happening or why you c-came to save me, but… b-but…”
Kessler turned to look down at the mare as her stuttering descended into sobs. “I came for you because I wanted to. I need no other reason.” He looked up again, returning his attention to the thousands of data nodes sending tactical information across the noosphere. There were many large holes in the datastreams already, and more kept appearing as the enemy damaged transmitter nodes and power relays. “You may weep until we reach the building exit, Councilor. Then I require your full attention.”
Hope Springs didn’t ask for his permission, but she took enthusiastic advantage. Her restrained sobs became hysterical bawling, and she curled up on the floor of the lift while it descended.
“She… She was… She was going to kill me!” Hope gasped through the sobs. “Why?! Why did this have to happen?! I tried to stop this! If… Maybe if I… If I had just…”
“You were given the task of procuring peace from those who desired war,” Kessler interrupted. “A nigh impossible task, and yet our enemies feared your success so much that they sought to intervene. You claimed that the assaults by the insurgents were a clever, deceptive ploy rather than forthright resistance. You were correct, yet I dismissed you. This failure is not yours.”
The mare sniffled, rubbed at her nose, and then looked up at the Iron Warrior. “I actually think the bomb didn’t doom the diplomatic effort so much as you killing most of the diplomats.”
A booming noise came from outside, and Hope felt a slight tremor in the elevator. The lumens flickered, and Kessler’s mechatendrils snapped and snarled in irritation. The elevator shuddered to a stop, and then started descending again at a much slower rate than before.
“… I have come to regret that particular decision,” Kessler grumbled, fingers tightening around his axe. “I was given command of the Warsmith’s army in his stead, and entrusted with the safety of his city. I fear that I have failed him.”
Hope sniffled again. “How… How bad is it? I heard that there were enemies in the streets, but...”
“The enemy emerges from below us at will. They are unskilled, but decently equipped. And while our own defenses have been somehow sabotaged, they know their targets well. Too well. Many vox spires and noosphere hubs have been destroyed, and we have barely begun to counter-attack. The command complex is under attack and there have been attempts to breach the manufactorum. They have begun a direct assault on the armories in order to capture additional weapons to use against us. All while the vast bulk of our fighting strength is away.”
“It’s that bad?” Hope whispered.
“It’s worse,” Kessler said. “Before they were shut down by the Dark Techpriests for analysis, the augurs detected several large aircraft inbound, and one ground-based unit of Titan-class mass displacement. Due to the sabotage we were unable to identify them, but it is… unlikely they are friendly units.”
“The dragons,” Hope whispered.
“Highly probable,” the Warpsmith agreed.
“What is our plan in case we need to evacuate? Where do we go? I didn’t see it when I reviewed the security stratagems.”
“You didn’t see it because there is no such plan. There will be no evacuation. There is nowhere to escape to that is more secure than Ferrous Dominus. If our enemies can strike us here, no bulwark or security measure can stop them. We face our enemies and triumph, or we perish.”
Hope sprang to her hooves. “That was certainly our operating assumption, but we were not prepared for this! There must be another way! We will find another way! You have the equipment and the operational capacity! So many lives are at stake.”
“Every life in this fortress is inconsequential compared to the manufactorum,” Kessler said blandly.
Hope pursed her lips. “… You don’t believe that.”
Kessler’s fingers twitched around his axe. He turned his head to stare down at the mare. His optics cluster pulsed, briefly splashing a pall of red light over Hope’s light pink fur.
“… If you did, you wouldn’t have come for me. You didn’t know the changeling was here before you arrived, and I’m of limited help to you in the middle of an assault,” she continued. “I know you value your pride, Lord Warpsmith, but don’t lose sight of everything else. Too many people and ponies are counting on you.”
The elevator emitted a screeching noise as it approached the bottom levels, scraping its outer walls against the walls of the shaft that had been deformed from explosives. The doors rattled, and the lumens flickered again.
“… I do not know what to do,” Kessler finally admitted. “Even if I were to hold the fortress against this invasion, there are a great many non-combatants, and the damnable sabotage has foiled our lockdown procedures. How would we initiate an evacuation under these conditions?”
“The train!” Hope said. “We can use the train to move civilians to the gate station. Open the rail gate, and they can escape right out onto the main road. Those that can’t fit in the trains can go by hoof; as long as they can escape the perimeter, they should be okay. It’s safe outside the walls, right?”
“… We had never conceived of a scenario where the fortress exterior would be safe but our facilities were not. It is a crude plan, but it may spare us unnecessary losses,” Kessler said grimly. “As I said previously, many vox spires have been damaged or destroyed. I will need to get to one of them to relay orders across the city. You may wish to flee for the gates when we leave this structure.”
“I’d rather stay with you, if that’s all right,” Hope replied.
The elevator ground to a halt. The doors sparked and shuddered, but did not open. Several warnings popped up on the elevator control console, and Kessler glanced at it briefly. The warnings immediately subsided and the lock disengaged, as if the machine had been frightened into compliance with the Warpsmith’s gaze.
“Very well. Stay close, Councilor. We march into the teeth of the enemy.” The door finally opened. “Iron within. Iron without.”