//------------------------------// // The Rising // Story: Strange Bedfellows // by BRBrony9 //------------------------------// The vast majority of Chaos forces in the city did not react to Celestia's booming broadcast. A few raving maniacs charged to try and get a clear shot at her, but were gunned down as they left cover. She did not expect any serious response; her message was more for her ponies than the enemy, and it had the desired effect on them. They were fighting for their homes, especially the Royal Guard, most of whom were barracked in Canterlot. They redoubled their efforts, inspired by her words and by watching her hover above the battlefield like a guiding star, her white coat and multicoloured mane catching the moonglow and shining like a beacon. Her mere presence created courage where there had been none before. Faith, for humans and ponies alike, could do amazing things. The Pegasi infantry stormed the palace, flapping down and lanidng upon its rooftops and balconies to join the humans already inside. With other troops forming a barrier, the palace would be cleared, floor by floor, room by room, until it was cleared of the taint. Similar actions were taking place across the city, as the smaller City-Class airships delivered their passengers, two companies of infantry apiece. More Imperial dropships brought a second wave of guardsmen into the fray as the fighting spread to consume the whole of the city within the walls. A confusing street fight developed in a hundred places, as the defenders fought street by street to defend what they had taken. Sporadic mortar fire from one of the city plazas was silenced by a rocket barrage from a Valkyrie. A sniper in a belltower found himself on the receiving end of a taste of his own medicine as a long-las flashed and cut him down. A squad of traitors were ambushed and massacred to a man by a rooftop Pegasus ambush. The occupying force had not been expecting a full-scale assault, and had not been properly reinforced due to the sudden and unexpected arrival of the Imperial fleet in low orbit and the consequent scattering of their own ships, with the resultant loss of overall command and control functions. With no ships and no satellites for relay, Chaos forces separated by considerable distances found communications patchy at best. No relay meant the only way to communicate with those beyond the horizon, and thus out of vox contact, was to bounce the signal off of the planet's ionosphere, which would redirect it back down toward the planet. Such a freely broadcast message, however, left itself completely vulnerable to both interception and jamming by the Imperials. Messenger aircraft were another option, but with both orbital and ever-increasing airspace superiority, the Imperials could limit such activities also. As a result, Canterlot had sent out numerous messages asking for support and orders, but received only garbled replies from the Chaos forces concentrated out to the east thanks to jamming distorting the signals. No reinforcements had been sent- the enemy in the east were focused on their own defences and declined to spare any forces to secure the pony capital any further. Not that the city was poorly defended. There were still several thousand enemy infantry of the occupying force fighting fiercely, now that they had had a little time to organise. Some buildings had become fortresses, and despite Celestia's urging about keeping collateral damage to a minimum, at least two large mansions and a public library had been leveled by well-trained guns aboard the Starswirl and the Luna. A necessary evil that cleared the way for further advances deeper into the city, and the humans obliged, pushing in and routing the enemy from the entirety of the Old Quarter. Having delivered their troops, the City-Class airships flew high cover patterns in case of enemy air attack, though nothing was forthcoming. Chaos troops across the city were succumbing to the surprise and numbers of their enemy. The suddenness of the strike, the early capture of the curtain wall, the loss of most of their air defence batteries and the artillery barrage all combined to render coordinated defence of the city all but impossible, even if their commanders were still alive. But some had been killed by the bombardment, and others by the landing Imperial and pony forces, compounding their problems. Lacking air support, artillery, armour, and effective command and control, the Chaos occupying forces were slowly but steadily being overrun, but that did not mean they were incapable of putting up a fierce resistance. Sergeant Argan ducked into cover behind a statue of a horned Xenos as bullets chipped holes in the ornate marble figure. The large chamber was, according to the briefing they had received before the operation, the throne room of the princess. The high golden structure at the far end must be the throne, and perhaps the statue was of the princess herself. Argan couldn't spare a moment to check even if he wanted to, and in any case the enemy fire had rendered it all but unidentifiable as any particular creature. Forest Gamma 1-1, along with the rest of the platoon and elements of the 2nd platoon, had swept the floors above, and were now engaged in a firefight for the throne room itself, the heart of pony government. Though the room lacked much in the way of normal cover, the occupying forces had seemingly gathered large quantities of furniture and other detritus, either for storage, for later burning, or to sort through to identify and steal anything of value. Most of the furniture offered little resistance to either bullets or las-fire, which was why Argan had chosen a far more substantial pillar to hide behind. Gunfire whizzed across the high-ceilinged chamber. At least a platoon of enemy infantry held the far end of the chamber, rising from cover to blaze away with strobing las-fire and hails of bullets. Several members of Gamma Company already lay dead. Argan risked a peek around the pillar. A few shouts went up as another enemy squad poured through the heavy wooden doors at the far end of the room, adding their firepower to the chaos unfolding. Argan squeezed off a few shots before ducking back into cover as las-rounds struck the pillar and the floor, leaving burning holes in the marble. He glanced around. His squad were in cover behind several pillars and stacks of furniture, but even as he watched a las-round blew straight through an ornately decorated cherry-wood wardrobe and sent a man sprawling. The palace had proved to be a maze, with twisting corridors, staircases connecting to intermediate floors that did not stretch the whole length of the wing, let alone the entire building, and a mass of rooms, some interconnected, some not. The fight in reaching the throne room had been as much against the building as against the enemy. Though there was no truly alien architecture in play, as there might have been inside an Eldar Craftworld or Necron tomb, the palace proved to be an enigma to those not used to its layout. Even having been given a broad overview by the pony Royal Guard commander Shining Armour prior to departure, the platoons assigned to its capture had not found it easy to navigate. They had, however, finally reached the throne room, and were struggling against the defenders, dug in as best they could among the pillars and the throne itself, which seemed strangely resistant to gunfire. Shots rippled back and forth, each side almost taking it in turns to pop up and unload before ducking back down, not willing to risk prolonged exposure. Argan fired a few rounds again and ducked back down to reload. He had just slammed the fresh powerpack home when a shout went up. 'Contact rear! Contact rear!' He turned and brought his lasgun up. Sure enough, half a dozen enemy soldiers had suddenly appeared at the doorway behind them, opening fire and scything down two unsuspecting guardsmen. Now they were caught. Several men turned and tried to maneuver to engage the new threat, only to be gunned down by the entrenched enemies around the throne, who seemed uncaring of the potential for any crossfire and continued to shoot. Argan fired a short burst, felling one man, but even as he died another squad of traitors burst through the doorway. Las-rounds flashed his way, and the sergeant ducked down, rolling toward a small nook in the wall that might shield him. We're frakked. The Imperials suddenly found themselves both outgunned and outmaneuvered. The enemy had somehow found a way through the maze to attack them from behind as well as from the front, and the platoon-and-a-half of guardsmen were trapped, fire coming from both sides. They started falling, dying. Argan could only watch in anger and, as the enemy pressed on, the certainty that he would be dead soon. He took aim and blew a traitor's head apart. The rest of the man's fireteam turned to engage him. That was when she appeared. A brilliant, blinding flash of light erupted from nowhere in the middle of the room. Even facing away from it, Argan was half-dazed. The Chaos troops he was facing to the rear stumbled, covering their eyes or firing blindly. Argan took aim again, but before he could squeeze the trigger, golden lightning flashed, sending colours dancing and blazing across his vision. The lightning leaped from man to man, striking the heretics, singeing, burning, killing, even as the voice of the princess roared, filling the room. 'Leave this place! Leave this place and never return. You were given one chance, and you ignored it. Now you will suffer!' Men screamed and thrashed, agony consuming them, their cries drawing flame into their throats, cooking their lungs. Men died in their dozens. But only the enemy. Only the heretics. Argan ducked down in a surely futile attempt to avoid the lightning, but somehow remained untouched. He looked around. His men were unhurt; the platoon, those that had survived the enemy's attack from the rear, were still alive. Argan turned and looked up, equal parts astonished and, in a surprise to himself, afraid. It was the pony princess riding to their rescue once more, floating above them, mane and tail ablaze with colour, horn shining with an auriferous glow. Argan spared a moment to glance around the chamber. There was no more gunfire from the other end, only a number of small smoke plumes rising almost lazily from behind the cover of the furniture and the throne. Argan felt fear, something he had long since been conditioned by his combat experiences to not feel at all. The power she had unleashed had been enough to kill them all, of that there was no doubt, the evidence all around. Yet the precision she possessed meant that not a single Imperial had been harmed, even as their enemies lay dead and burning around them. Given the exposure Argan had to Imperial psykers during his service, such a combination was nothing short of incredible. Add to that the possibility that the rumours were true, that she had been responsible for the fleet's triumphant return... Even as Argan felt fear directed toward Celestia, however, he knew somehow instinctively that he did not need to. He had heard her earlier exhortations, both to her own ponies and to the Imperials, somehow echoing through the building despite her not being present inside until moments ago. Words could, and usually were, hollow, but Argan somehow felt his fears were unjustified, though he didn't know why and couldn't explain it if asked. If she had wanted to, she could have killed every man in the throne room, and the loss of a few dozen guardsmen would have made little difference to the capture of the city. There were none of her ponies present in the chamber that she would wish to protect, and therefore no reason for her precision other than that she genuinely did not desire to harm her allies. And precision it was- an uncontrolled psychic attack would have killed indiscriminately, friend and foe alike, but she had the ability to pick her targets, to hit what she wanted to hit and nothing else. That did not mean, of course, that she harboured no ill intent toward the Imperials. It may have simply been a show of her pragmatism; after all, every living human who could fight would be one less pony who needed to fill a gap in the line. But there was that instinctiveness again- Argan somehow knew, deep in himself, in his mind, in his soul, that the princess meant them no harm, so long as they meant no harm to her kind. 'Forest Gamma Actual to any Gamma unit, sitrep, over!' The crackling vox brought him back to reality. The company commander was calling. Argan strode over to Merkev, who was staring open-mouthed at the princess, and grabbed the handset. 'Forest Gamma Actual, Forest Gamma 1-1 actual. The...the throne room is, uh, is secure, sir. I say again, throne room is secure.' 'Copy that, 1-1 actual. Did Gamma 3 link up with you?' the Captain questioned, referring to the third platoon of Gamma company, who were detailed to push through the west wing to the throne room at the centre. Argan glanced up toward the rafters again before replying. 'Negative, sir. It was the princess.' It was shortly before dawn, with Celestia's sun threatening to rise in the east, the peaks of the Foal Mountains glowing purple and red, that the palace was declared secure. The rest of the city was still a warzone, but the major prize, at least as far as the ponies were concerned, had been taken. Much remained to be done, but the Old Quarter and now much of the Royal Quarter had been cleared. There were still large numbers of enemies within the New Quarter and Unicorn Quarter, but there was no chance of their surrender. However, cut off from any reinforcements or from their fellow defenders in other areas, it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to the pressure being exerted by the Imperials and ponies. The third wave arrived, reinforcements for the assault forces, dropships landing uncontested in the now-cleared palace grounds. Hundreds more fresh men were thrown into the fray, directed through the streets by pony guides to the correct locations. With a large amount of the city secured, the plan was to launch a large-scale assault on the New Quarter, home of Canterlot's financial district, upmarket hotels, and high-class stores. Forces were quickly marshaled and built up at the jump-off points in preparation. The EAS Luna moved into position to provide spotting and fire support, while Imperial Valkyries circled around waiting for targets. As the sun crowned the mountaintops, bathing the city in a golden haze, the assault began. Men weaved through the alleys and streets, a shock attack with little time for precise planning in the confused confines of the city. The New Quarter was laid out rather more sensibly than the warren-like Old and Royal Quarters, with wider streets and more modern buildings, as the name suggested. The roads would allow for the deployment of armour, if the Imperial attack had included any, but even the most heavily-armoured tanks in urban settings were extremely vulnerable to mines, booby traps, missile launchers, emplaced lascannons, melta-teams appearing out of nowhere and disappearing as swiftly as they came. Not that urban combat was any safer for the infantry. Anti-personnel mines, snipers, flamers, collapsing buildings, gas gathering in shell craters and basements. A single stubber or heavy bolter could hold up an entire battalion for days, if it was dug in at the right position. An apartment building, hab-block or manufactorum, properly fortified, could hold out for weeks, provided it could not be leveled by artillery or orbital fire for whatever reason. Such a reason existed here- Celestia had decreed collateral damage be kept to a minimum, and Lord-General Galen had agreed, within reasonable parameters. Buildings, especially major ones, were not to be destroyed unless absolutely necessary, a constrain not normally imposed on Imperial Guard operations, even on Imperial worlds. Only Ecclesiarchy structures were usually given such disposition, and even that was quite rare, relying on the possession of some relic, the continued occupancy by Ecclesiarchy staff, or being the site of some miracle or other, to qualify. The application of such restrictions to Xenos structures for reasons other than preservation for Mechanicus study after the inevitable victory had been won was all but unheard of. Yet for the most part, the guardsmen were abiding by the imposition, either due to the blind obeyance of orders or some unknown compulsion to do so, and calls for artillery fire or airstrike within the city had to be relayed to the princess or her military commander, Shining Armour. An exception, however, was likely to be the main rail station. Constructed nearly a hundred years ago and located, despite its age, in the New Quarter, Canterlot Central was a vast work of steel and stone, wrought iron fences surrounding the stylised portico. The sides were brick, the front was metal, the roof, mostly, was glass. Or rather, the surviving roof was mostly the metal spine of the building, as precision gunfire from Valkyrie door gunners had shattered almost all of the glass. It held just six platforms but carried a remarkable number of trains per day, as the capital city was located almost in the centre of Equestria and served many local destinations. The rack-and-pinion final section of line that led to the city was unlike any other mountain railway on the planet, as it could carry not just short tourist trains but full twelve-car mainline express services complete with double-header locomotives and their associated tenders, with the addition of a bank engine at the rear if required on the steep gradient due to a particularly heavy load. Services connected Canterlot with every major Equestrian city, either directly or indirectly, and a good half-dozen foreign stations also. The station had restaurants, bars, lounges, a spa, shops, a movie theatre and even a bowling alley. It also had at least two reinforced companies of Chaos infantry holding the perimeter, with another company on the upper floors. As the Imperial attack swept in, they encountered heavy fire from the station. Las-fire and plasma greeted the soldiers attempting to advance, all but wiping out two squads, forcing the survivors to retreat to cover. The loyalists fired back, engaging the traitors, but the station was large and the enemy were dug in. Calls went out for fire support but were refused due to the historic nature of the building. Other companies moved around it, outflanking the defenders, cutting them off from support in a textbook example of envelopment, but the occupants cared not for their perilous situation, pouring fire on the guardsmen attempting to storm the building. The first attempt was tried immediately upon arrival to catch the enemy unawares, but was repulsed with heavy casualties. They tried again, with the same result. The defenders were stubborn and the building provided them good protection from small-arms fire. A third attempt under cover of smoke was attempted, but thwarted after hand-to-hand fighting in the station concourse. A stalemate had been reached. The building likely couldn't be taken without heavy casualties, but with the station having good sightlines across much of the New Quarter, the only realistic alternative was to pound it into rubble. Another call went out over the vox. Celestia, now back aboard the Starswirl, received the message through the human spotter team, Atter and Mons. 'Spotter Team One, Command, message relay, Sigma One Rho. Assault force requests artillery strike, coordinates 652, 005. Target is main rail transit station. Large structure, metal and brick construction. Enemy infantry in cover. Request clearance for battery release, over.' Atter looked at Celestia, offering the vox handset in her direction. 'Your Highness, the assault force is again requesting...' Celestia interrupted him. 'I know. The answer is still no.' Atter frowned. 'But Your Highness, the whole assault is being held up in that sector. They have a vantage point that will prevent our forces from making significant progress in that quarter of the city.' 'I am well aware of that,' Celestia responded. 'But the building should be preserved unless there is absolutely no other option.' The call was repeated over the vox and Atter eyed the princess expectantly. 'Your Highness, there appears to be no other option available to us.' Celestia glanced out through the flickering shield bubble and spoke simply. 'Tell them I will deal with the problem.' And with that, she was gone. The squad of Chaos infantry had found themselves busy since the attack hit. The station had been used as a storage depot by the occupation force, with large quantities of small-arms ammunition, rations, and other supplies stored in crates throughout. The group of eight men had been ferrying ammo boxes to the defenders at the perimeter for the last hour as they successfully repulsed three attempts by the servants of the Corpse-Emperor to storm the building. Despite the lack of contact with any other friendly forces, the confidence of the men in the station was growing. They had thrown back the enemy with fire, they had thrown him back with the bayonet. The bodies of the Imperials lay scattered across the plaza outside and the edge of the concourse within. Whatever the enemy might throw at them, they knew they were ready for any Imperial force. Imperial, but not pony. The men carrying heavy crates of ammunition found themselves blinded as they crossed the rail tracks. Those that recovered quickest from the searing white light found themselves looking up at a most striking creature, a large horse-alien with both a horn and wings, floating effortlessly above them below the metal roof beams of the station. Where had it come from? How had it got inside? None of them knew. They shouted the alarm, rallying their fellows. Some raised their weapons, a couple of others sprinted for the doors to the concourse to fetch backup, but none managed to complete their actions. Golden lightning flashed, cutting them down, burning them. Alerted by the shouts, more defenders entered from the concourse and from maintenance areas. They opened fire, hundreds of las-rounds and bullets, a hailstorm that no mere mortal could survive with no protection. But the horse-alien did have protection, and their shots had no effect, absorbed or disappearing by some unknown force before even striking it. The horse-alien swooped down, its horn glowed, and men died screaming. Troopers ducked for cover behind the crates and train cars. More support was arriving now, alerted by the gunfire from within their own perimeter. Several missiles were hastily fired, but, unguided, they sailed well clear of the target, who was making a broad, almost lazy circuit around the station. Every few moments its horn glowed or flashed, and lightning or a beam like a plasma cannon would reach out and kill. Another missile, well aimed this time, struck the target and exploded, but the horse-alien burst through the smoke unharmed, and turned its ire on the man who had fired it. A flash of the horn, and the man all but vaporised, the half-melted hunk of his missile launcher clattering to the ground. Men were pulled from the perimeter defences, having little choice given what was unfolding inside the station. A dozen men crouched in cover behind one of the brand-new heavy diesel shunting locomotives. Normally used for pushing and pulling freight cars weighing many tons, the engine found itself on the receiving end as with a simple horn glow it found itself practically punted across the twin track and into the concrete of the other platform, crushing the squad hiding behind it and leaving a large bloody stain on the tracks. More las-fire and bullets found their mark, but did nothing to stop the assault from within. The horse alien swooped down again, horn glowing with a precision beam like a laser cutter, and sliced a man clean in half. The survivors began to pull back, fleeing the trackside area and retreating into the concourse and back rooms, where the horse-alien couldn't use its mobility to full effect. Hasty barricades were set up, furniture being shoved against the doors of the restaurant while men kept a close watch on the plaza outside. A squad waited, crouching, hearing gunfire elsewhere within the building. Repeatedly there was gunfire in a different area for a few seconds, then silence. Nerves began to play on the supports of the Dark Powers, but still nothing came, just more gunfire, then more silence. Five minutes passed, then ten. Still nothing. And finally, from nowhere once more, it appeared, the foe within the walls. An incandescent flash and there it was, standing in the midst of the room. The squad turned to confront the sudden threat, some kind of teleportation device evidently in use despite the relative primitiveness of the native's technology. Only a few men managed to fire any shots before golden lightning filled the room. A few seconds of gunfire, then silence. A short while later, the assault force moved in, facing no resistance. They swept the building room by room, and declared it secure, for they had found only death.