//------------------------------// // Hunt's End // Story: Iron Hearts: Book 2 - Ferrous Dominus // by SFaccountant //------------------------------// Iron Hearts: Book 2 Chapter 4 Hunt's End **** Ferrous Dominus - manufactorum relay stacks Warsmith Solon tilted his head to the side, wondering why all the ponies had frozen in aggressive stances. "I shaid, that'sh fine. Your termsh are acceptable." Twilight was obviously stunned by the admission, and her friends were little better. "... Really?" the alicorn asked incredulously, her horn dimming. "Wow. This is going WAY better than these things usually do," Rainbow Dash admitted, scratching her head with her hoof. "Well, it'sh not like you're ashking ush to do anything we weren't planning on doing anyhow. We never planned to shtay here permanently. Ash shoon as our shipsh are refitted and repaired we'll depart the planet and the shyshtem, and likely never return." "Oh." Twilight's eyes glanced down at the floor. "Huh. That's convenient." "Did you think we meant to stay for some reason?" Gaela asked, having dropped out of combat mode herself. "I described the objectives of our fleet to you. How would we accomplish that by staying here? Even if we conquered this entire world, with the technology levels present here the gain would be negligible." "Okay, I need something clarified," Rarity said, raising her hoof as she let her boltgun fall to the metal floor, "do you seriously mean to tell me that all THIS is only a TEMPORARY base?" She gestured to the room before them with her hoof, although her meaning clearly extended beyond the manufactorum and out to the fortress beyond. "Ah, well, that'sh a bit complicated, actually," Solon admitted, turning to stare at the relay towers, "technically, yesh. But everything we've built here ish indeed 'permanent'. It'sh a function of our circumshtancesh and habit to build shtructuresh that lasht. If a wall can't shurvive the onshlaught of time, then what hope doesh it have againsht a cannon?" The massive Iron Warrior turned back to the ponies, and then backed his clanking torso away from Twilight. "When we're done conshtructing our Warp drivesh we'll dishmantle what we can and abandon the resht. Sho ultimately, ash long ash your demand doesh not require our IMMEDIATE departure, your ultimatum doesh not conflict with our objectivesh." "Oh, no, that's fine. You can take all the time you need!" Twilight reassured him quickly. "That's more than fair!" "In that cashe, the only real choice I'm faced with ish whether or not to kill you for your mishplaced impertinence, and that doesh not shound like a good ushe of my time," Solon admitted, summoning up a hololithic data screen in front of him as he spoke. "Wait, so... this means we get to stay friends with the humans?!" Pinkie Pie said, lighting up with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. "And we get to hang out with them and help them all we want until they leave?!" Applejack and Rainbow Dash seemed equally excited at the prospect, Twilight noticed. "I don't see why not," Twilight admitted, "I mean, we've already made enemies with the Tau, to the point that they shoot us on sight now, so I guess we really don't have a good reason not to ally with the Iron Warriors explicitly." Then she added quietly, "Except for all the Chaos stuff, maybe." "ALL RIGHT!!" Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack all cheered the decision, clapping their hooves together in the air. "I'm glad that thish could be resholved to everyone'sh shatishfaction," Solon said, sounding distracted as the hololith vanished, "but now that it'sh done with, I really have to go. Shome idiot let the daemon enginesh out of the kennelsh without programming them firsht, and they're ushing the ground batteriesh ash shcratching poshtsh. I have to go round them up before we loshe even more buildingsh and equipment." "Oh, wow, really? Th-That's awful," Fluttershy stuttered nervously as Twilight and Rarity glanced at her silently, "uhm, please be nice to them though, okay?" Her voice was quiet enough that Solon seemed to miss it entirely, and the Warsmith's spider-like chassis banged noisily against the metal floor as he lumbered toward the blast doors. "And after I shee to the bashe'sh repair shchedule, I'm going to get thish damn vox grille cleaned," the Chaos Lord grumbled. "Aww! But it's really funny!" Pinkie insisted as he left. A dusty snort was her only reply as Solon stepped through the exit, his legs pounding a few of the scattered Tau corpses into a bloody pulp on the way out. As he passed through, the Warsmith noticed something off on the side of and intersection in the hallway as he passed by. Serith was leaning against the wall, his halberd resting in the crook of his arm. "Sherith. Good job keeping the xenosh alive during the attack. Ashuming that'sh what you've been doing all thish time," Solon said as he walked by, his torso pivoting about to face the Sorcerer, "but you sheem to have losht track of them near the end, there. You should work on that." "Of course, Warsmith," Serith drawled, his visor lenses glimmering as he watched the mechanized Chaos Lord stomp past. It was mere seconds later that Trixie stepped through the hall after him, the bolters still floating around her head. "Well, THAT didn't go as Trixie expected," the unicorn mumbled as she magicked the nearest munitions crate open and dumped the guns inside. "Tell me about it," Serith mumbled, stepping forward, "but these things happen. Shall I escort you back to your room? The Tau have called a full retreat and siege lockdown should end by the time we return... assuming the entire structure hasn't been demolished since we left." "Trixie certainly hopes not! Poor Suuna was still in there!" the unicorn said, gritting her teeth and walking past Serith. "Hateful creatures, these Tau! What did Trixie ever do to them?" Serith moved to follow the unicorn down the hall, although they took a different path out than Solon did. "Well, you did join a military company devoted to hunting and pillaging them," the Iron Warrior reasoned. "Trixie meant besides that!" the unicorn spat, obviously irritated as Serith chuckled in that dark, mysterious manner that described almost EVERYTHING he did. The two walked in silence for several more seconds, and the heavy tread of Serith's boots became the most prominent sound echoing in the cavernous halls. Eventually Trixie cleared her throat to speak once again. "So... just how long have you known that Sparkle was planning to confront the Warsmith like that?" Serith tilted his helmet down to meet the unicorn's gaze. "Since last night, actually. Your race does not excel in the art of deception. How long have you suspected me of knowing, Lady Trixie?" "Since you first offered to bring us here without asking why. You're a weird one, Serith, but you're not stupid. Why would you let a bunch of naïve ponies lead you around by the nose without telling you anything?" "Your words flatter me, Lady Trixie," Serith said with considerable amusement. "Of course, that would normally beg the question of why you led us right here to your leader and what you planned to do if he hadn't accepted Sparkle's demands..." Trixie trailed off with a sigh. "But Trixie is quite tired of this, and it's enough that everything was resolved without violence. Or, any MORE violence, at any rate." "Understandable. Although I must say, for a creature who's rarely tasted combat, you acquitted yourself quite well," the Chaos Sorcerer admitted, drawing the topic further away from his actions. "Was there ever any doubt? But Trixie really does want to know how to do that thing where you broke up the tank with your mind. Trixie's levitation doesn't work on anything that big!" "Ah, of course. The secret is in knowing the internals of the machine in order to spoil them. The more complex and powerful the device, the more sensitive it is to interference. For example..." **** Ferrous Dominus - manufactorum relay stacks "Well, that was quite enlightening," Gaela said as her helmet cracked open, folding down into its open configuration, "I hadn't thought you capable of such guile, Sparkle." Twilight immediately winced, her ears falling to the sides of her head. In her haste to find and confront the Warsmith of the 38th Company, she hadn't given much thought to how she might smooth out the aftermath. "I'm sorry Gaela, I really am," the alicorn said, dipping her head, "but I-" "No apology is necessary," Gaela said as she stared studiously at Twilight with her biological eye, "I know why you did it, and your reasoning is sound. Were I tasked to eliminate your sovereign, Celestia, I might have done the same. Although I must admit such a tactic would not have occurred to me." Twilight was quite surprised by the cold acceptance of her betrayal, as if they were talking about a sneaky chess move. "Yeah, Ah've noticed that subtlety ain't really yer strong suit," Applejack mused, walking deeper into the power relay room curiously. "But, I mean... we still LIED to you," Twilight stressed. "Yes, obviously. So?" Twilight wasn't sure whether Gaela's indifferent expression made her feel relieved or even worse. "You completed your objective without harming ours, and all of us are still alive. Given the outcome, your decisions were clearly correct. Am I mistaken?" "Hey! Hey! I have a question!" Pinkie said, happily leaping up onto the Dark Acolyte's chest and somehow clinging to the pieces of her disengaged helmet. "I'm sure the answer is 'no'," Gaela deadpanned. "If Mister Solon told you to smile, would you have to smile?" Pinkie asked. "First of all, Warsmith Solon is not a 'Mister'. You will refer to him by an appropriate title," Gaela said stiffly, "as for your question, as I expected, no." "Awwww, why not?" Pinkie asked, making her sad puppy dog face. "Because 'shmile' isn't a word." Pinkie burst out laughing again, falling from Gaela's armor and rolling onto the floor. She didn't seem to be the pony most surprised by the answer, however. "Gaela... darling, did you just... crack a JOKE?" Rarity asked, an intrigued expression on her face. Gaela raised her eyebrow. "No, I was just... wait..." The Dark Acolyte immediately slapped her left hand over her mouth, turning away from the ponies. "Khorne's teeth, I really did. What the blazes is wrong with me?" she mumbled quietly through her armored hand. Twilight found it odd that she should be so alarmed, but then a lot of things about her was odd. Rainbow Dash sensed an opportunity, however, especially since the dramatic tragedy of turning against the humans had finally been put behind them. "What? It's just a little joke!" the pegasus grinned, hovering in a circle around Gaela to look her in her eye/optics. "That's good! You could really stand to loosen up a bit, you know?" "My work is important, and levity is a useless diversion of the weak-minded and idle. If I were to 'loosen up', it could cost the Company resources, or even a battle," Gaela snapped. Twilight had rarely seen her so furious, although the Acolyte was clearly trying to restrain herself. Rainbow Dash floated up to her and poked a hoof against her chest. "C'mon, a little more fun wouldn't kill you! I know! Next Rarity can paint your not-hooves and you can stay up late talking about colts!" The servo arm made a sudden grab for the pegasus, but Rainbow rolled out of the way almost lazily before darting away, leaving the augmetic limb to clamp noisily on air. "R-Rainbow, maybe you should stop," Fluttershy said meekly. "On the contrary, I like where this is going!" Rarity opined, placing a hoof against her chest, "I would LOVE to take another shot at making that arm presentable, and you DID keep the dress!" Gaela's face was bright red as she fought to keep her emotions under control, and finally she pulled her power axe close against the neck of the disarmed Tau prisoner (who had absolutely no idea what was going on all this time). "I'm leaving. I have to intern this creature, and then I will report to my superiors for a repair detail. There will be MUCH to do, and a much-reduced roster of available workers. Entertain yourselves from now on." Her helmet hissed as it shifted back up into place and pressurized, and Gaela shoved the alien in front of her as she walked off without the ponies. "Wait, Gaela! I wanted to talk-" Twilight said, but was cut off. "That's ACOLYTE to you, alien. I'm busy. Waste somebody else's time." Twilight glared at Rainbow Dash as the stomping of power armored feet became more distant. "Rainbow! You embarrassed her! Go apologize!" "Apologize? For what? Suggesting a make-over?" the blue pegasus scoffed. "If she's gonna stick to her 'woman of steel' shtick she can't be that sensitive!" "Huooooh... my laugh muscles hurt," Pinkie Pie informed the others, "also, I'm hungry." "Ugh, me too. With all this nonsense about aliens and corruption and such we COMPLETELY forgot about breakfast," Rarity complained. Spike promptly put away the box containing the Elements of Harmony and withdrew a can of nutrient paste. "Okay, no, I'm not THAT hungry," the unicorn said with a grimace. "Yoink!" Rainbow Dash promptly flew by and snatched up the tin. She hadn't tried the stuff before, but if Twilight had choked it down then it was good enough for her. "Shouldn't we go after Gaela though?" Twilight asked, worried. "No. She just needs some time back in her comfort zone to calm down. And possibly also deal with any other messy emotions that come from having your home razed and compatriots killed in a terrifying alien assault," Rarity reasoned, "the best thing we can do is give her some of her precious solitude rather than walking all over her bare nerves." Twilight looked unsure, staring down the hall, but eventually relented. "All right. Let's wait for lockdown to end and then get out of their way. I'm sure the humans have a LOT of work to do." **** Manufactorum - power control center "Yeah, okay, I might be a bit in over my head here," Daniels mumbled. He was currently in a tight hall run over with cogitators and cabling that led to the reactor core. The doors to proceed to the core had been closed, and in fact required a higher level of security clearance than he had, as well as a passcode requirement specifically to ensure an invader couldn't just swipe some soldier's ID and then get into the most sensitive areas. Which was probably why he was looking at the pieces of a security door lying in front of him. The door mechanisms as well as the lock had been gouged out by something, and the actual door pieces had been wrenched out and left on the floor. Daniels took a good look at the damage, noting how deep and rough the cut was. That hadn't been done with any sort of engineering finesse, nor were there signs of energy weapon use. "Rail rifle. Blast. Not going to survive one of those." Not that he had a prayer of surviving a hit from ANY Tau weapon, really, but some were still more dangerous than others. Staring down the corridor beyond, he could also see that there had been several heavy bolter turrets in the way. Now they were all carved-out hunks of metal leaking sparks. Still, whatever he was chasing seemed to be in enough of a hurry that it had left some things unwisely intact. A servitor was manning a control station nearby, its sunken eyes blankly fixed upon the readouts and its body unharmed. That left him with some options, at least. "Servitor, confirm xeno presence in the power core." The bio-automata turned toward him. "Xeno presence confirmed in sub-section 7-D. Visual contact estimated two minutes, fourteen seconds previous to present time. Play audio intercept?" Daniels quirked an eyebrow. "Sure." A crackling noise came from the servitor's artificial voicebox. *Blasted gue'la! Blasted monsters!* A shrieking noise erupted from the servitor, presumably from the door's metal being shot through. *The Commander was right, these aren't Imperial gue'la... the Imperium would never build something like... like that THING back there! Aun'va, I can still smell it, even through the helmet!* Another gunshot, followed by more shrieking metal. "All right, you can stop. Nice audio quality, but I can't understand a word it's saying," Daniels mumbled, deep in thought, "hmm... is there any way we can just raise the core temperature in there? Just cook the alien on the spot, or at least flush it out?" The servitor made a rude buzzing noise. "Insufficient security clearance detected. Unit lacks authority for engineering controls." Daniels groaned. "Good ol' Iron Warriors. Only Chaos Legion that builds multiple, sophisticated chains of command right down to who can touch the bloody thermostat." The mercenary sighed. "Nothin' for it. In we go." He started walking into the hall access to the core, but then hesitated for a moment at the doorway, glancing back at the servitor. "Hmmmm..." **** Ferrous Dominus - manufactorum fusion core beta Jerriha breathed heavily as she pulled open the last of the security doors, its lock all but shredded into metal splinters. The heat that assaulted her as soon as she got into the core area was significant, but tolerable. And the least that she expected. A noisy hum came from the chamber as well, almost oppressive in its intensity and loud enough to swallow all lesser noises entirely. Two automata, a pair of skittering things with servo arms and welders coming out of their large, spherical bodies, shrieked angrily as she stepped into the core area, rushing toward her with pincers snapping. The Tau Fireblade fired her rail rifle from the hip, spearing both the machines before they could even hope to touch her and shredding their internals. *Hmph. Not combat drones. Not that it would be safe to have those in here...* The more she saw of these humans, the more uneasy she became. She'd fought Imperial troops before and even had the mixed pleasure of commanding some Imperial units when Lamman Sept had helped the Tau Empire recover systems lost in the Damocles Gulf campaign. These ones were... different, to be sure. Particularly the Astartes. She never liked fighting Space Marines - in the same sense that most people didn't enjoy juggling live frag grenades - but the few she had encountered here made her skin crawl. Putting aside that... THING that had ambushed her team in the power relay stacks. Jerriha shook her head, realizing her mind had been wandering. She had a power core to dismantle. Taking off the belt of heavy charges she had taken off of one of her engineers, she wondered how, exactly, she was going to do that. The actual core of the reactor floated above her in a blazing orb, shimmering within a shell of metal and some clear material that was almost certainly some enhanced form of armorglass. Giant pylons hummed as they rotated around the core, and a complex array of servo-assisted arms hung down above the entire thing. The entire room was full of meter-wide pipes that ran from ceiling to floor and sometimes into the wall, and quite frankly none of it made any sense to her. *'Take gue'la logistics instead of gue'la engineering,' they said. 'It's much easier, and more applicable for a commander,' they said. Bah.* Jerriha moved into the core area and selected a pipeline close to the sphere. *Whatever. The big important-looking thing goes down.* The Tau Fireblade moved up next to the piping, once again hoisting the charges over her shoulder. "Hello? You in here, xeno?" Jerriha almost groaned under her helmet, and put her back against the pipe. "Come on out, now. Save us both some trouble. You're in the heart of the hornet's nest now, grayskin. No way out except with me. So do you want to do this with lasburns or without?" Jerriha remained silent, listening to the idiot soldier's shouting as he approached her position. He had just entered the core area, and seemed to be walking past her. "Hello? You in here, xeno?" Jerriha turned out of cover and fired a rail right into the servitor's actuator backpack, blowing out its chest from behind and knocking it onto its belly. The Fireblade blinked as she stared at the body in front of her. A servitor? Then where had that voice come from? "Come on out, now," said the dying servitor, its electronic voicebox sputtering weakly in Daniels' pre-recorded voice. A lasgun burst cut into the Fireblade's arm and shoulder, and the Tau veteran dropped her rifle in pain. Daniels stepped out from behind another of the massive pipes, his breath light as he watched the Tau soldier fall and clutch her arm. "Well, this looks like a capture! Good for me; there's a bonus for that, you know." He approached the seething alien slowly, his bayonet lowered and ready to finish her off if necessary. "Now just stand up nice and sl-" The moment he got close enough, Jerriha's hand lashed out with surprising speed and seized the muzzle of the lasgun, wrenching it out of Daniels' grip and flinging it away. She followed it by slamming a foot into the mercenary's shin, bowling the man over before she struggled to her feet. "Augh! Who the hell actually taught you to fight?!" Daniels howled as his hand went for his stub pistol. Jerriha staggered toward another massive pipe as a stub round smacked into the back of her armor, deflecting off of it. She ducked behind the obstruction just ahead of two more shots that went wide. She still had her pulse pistol and sword, but her dominant hand had been the one that was wounded. Jerriha didn't especially like the idea of going against a human soldier with a melee weapon, even if this one didn't seem all that skilled. "Damn xeno bastard!" Daniel hissed through clenched teeth as he stood up. Tau had relatively poor upper-body strength, as any slavemaster knew, but he had never realized how much pain they could pack in those hooves of theirs. If she had a better angle for that kick she could have broken his leg. Drawing his knife with his free hand, he warily approached the pipe he knew his target was sheltering behind, his breath coming much heavier than before. He was quite surprised to see his target suddenly emerge on her own, and utterly shocked to see her swinging the heavy belt of demolition charges with her good arm like a flail. Daniels managed to snap off another pistol round before the explosives smashed into his side, but it's doubtful it did any good before he was sent flailing to the floor again, flat on his back and with the bombs lying on top of him. His stub pistol, for all the help it had been in the combat so far, bounced away out of reach. The man grunted painfully as he started to get up, only for a booted hoof to stamp down onto the demo charges and pin him to the floor. "Well, I think this turned out to be quite a surprising encounter for the both of us. Really, I'm impressed," Daniels rasped as the air was pressed from his lungs. "You acquitted yourself well enough, fool," Jerriha admitted as she placed her other foot on his wrist, preventing him from making any attempts to use his knife, "just keep mumbling to yourself. Soon it will all be over." "Are you going to blow me up? Please tell me you're going to blow me up. I don't want any evidence left behind that I was beaten into submission by a grayskin. That's just embarrassing." "This is the end of the road for both of us, human," the Fireblade admitted solemnly, leaning over so that she could arm the chain of explosives, "there's no escape from here, but at the least I'll take you with me and cripple your power supply while I'm at it." "Naw, Ah think ya won't." Jerriha had to admit that after seeing the oddities of Ferrous Dominus and being outsmarted by a lowly human foot soldier, she felt like it would be pretty hard to be any more surprised at the obstacles that had threatened her mission in this accursed place. And then a little orange horse threw a rope over her head. *What in the name of-* Jerriha's exclamation was cut off as Applejack's lasso tightened around the her neck, yanking her off of Daniels and pulling her to the floor. There were a hundred things Jerriha wanted to say at that point - mostly expletives - but rather than waste her greatly diminished breath her good arm drew her pulse pistol. She didn't get to aim it before an orange leg stamped down on her arm, eliciting another muffled cry of pain from the Fireblade. "Daniels, ya all right?" Applejack asked, her voice curiously tense. The mercenary groaned and sat up, throwing the belt of demo charges off him. "Yeah, I'll be okay. Those hooves of theirs are surprisingly heavy, though." The farmpony snorted humorlessly as she dropped the lasso from her mouth. "Ya'll call those hooves?" Then she raised her foreleg while her eyes gleamed with the promise of violence. "Lemme show ya'll some hooves." **** Ferrous Dominus fortress perimeter The retreat had been called and the assault aborted. Dozens of skimmers clustered around the gap in the palisade, guarding the empty transports as they filled up with desperate humans and the last of the Fire Warriors that had been guarding them. They came surprisingly close to taking them all. Which spoke darkly of how many soldiers had failed to return. Only those slaves which outright refused to board the transports were left behind. Some were so leery of associating with aliens that they preferred the well-known misery of slave labor. Some were already so broken by their servitude that they saw nothing of value in the attempt to seize freedom. But the majority of those that abstained wondered just how far the Tau would go to protect them from their former masters, what the price of that protection would be, and how long the aliens could hope to evade or stand against the Iron Warriors. Until the 38th Company left this world, they knew that there would be no hope for them, and ultimately they gambled that they'd rather stand before the coiled whips of the Traitor Legion than their guns. So it was that when the last of the Devilfish closed its entry hatch and sped off in front of its escort piranhas, the remaining slaves watched it leave not with hope or regret, but fear... and pity. The palisade guns made a token attempt to fire upon the departing aliens, but the disruption to supply lines within the fortress meant that most of them were on their last few shells, and the armored skimmers had ample room to dodge incoming fire on the way out. Following the train of blue and black was a much more concentrated, and altogether slower, convoy of dirty iron and gold, and the vehicles pushed out of the palisade gap while their guns roared furiously at the retreating targets. Ultimately such a show of force was futile, however, and the tanks and APC slowed to a halt against the heavily scarred carcass of the Tau cruiser. APCs were unloaded, and the vengeful Iron Warriors began the miserable task of removing the dead, recovering the wounded, and re-manning the shattered defenses. And through it all, long columns of smoke rose from the city of iron and flame, flooding the sky with ash. Precious little of it came from the manufactorum exhaust vents. **** Badlands - 8 kilometers from Ferrous Dominus *Yes, Shas'el. All units have been accounted for, and we are safely out of reach of the enemy's main guns. It is feasible that they might attempt to use their artillery against us, but the effect would be negligible.* A squad veteran spoke wearily into the communications panel in the troop compartment of their devilfish transport, his battered helmet on the floor of the vehicle. *Give me an overview of the damage caused, Shas'ui. Have we crippled the foe?* buzzed the communicator. *The attack went worse than hoped... but better than expected. We have caused grievous damage to the gue'la infrastructure and their ability for construction. They lost water supplies, their fuel depot, internal transport, comms stations, numerous power relays, construction yards and repair bays. However, the choicest targets were too heavily protected, and our losses were great. Wherever we stayed to fight rather than flee, we died.* *I see... is this why Shas'vre Jerriha is not reporting?* asked the voice pensively. *... Yes, Shas'el Wraithstar. My apologies, but her team took much of our forces and regrouped to assault the gue'la factory. We lost contact with her team, and the forces protecting her escape route were surrounded. We presume a total loss.* *I... I see. And yet her mission was a success. She and her soldiers fell for the Greater Good, Shas'ui. Her loss will buy us precious time.* The Fire Warrior doubted that; her loss had been a classic example of overreach against an enemy that easily ranked among the most dangerous and pervasive threats to their entire empire. Still, it was hardly his place to critique her tactical errors; she had paid for them grievously. *Do the gue'la pursue?* *They do not. And a good thing; our armored support is barely half of that which set out with us.* *Then return to base. We will prepare to receive the freed gue'la and arm them. There are many struggles still ahead, Shas'ui. The gue'la will not take this attack lightly.* *We will not lose, Shas'el,* the veteran warrior said firmly. *No, we will not. Far, far too much is at stake here. We need... wait, why are some transports slowing down?* The squad leader quickly switched his attention to a tactical readout on his wrist, which did indeed show several APCs breaking off from the general retreat and slowing as if they intended to disembark. *I'm not sure, Shas'el. Please stand by why I contact them for an explanation.* As the formation began to slow to accommodate the unexpected stop, the remaining Hammerhead and Skyray tanks peeled off to act as a rearguard. The afflicted APCs slowed to a full stop, and then their hatches opened over the sun-baked ground of the badlands. After a few seconds, several bodies were flung from the access points and onto the hard-packed dirt, rolling across the wasted ground. Then the hatches closed up again and the transports sped off, allowing the entire convoy to start moving again once more. *Shas'el Wraithstar, we are on the move again.* *I see that. What happened? Engine trouble?* *Not at all,* the veteran Fire Warrior's lip curled, *we found out there were Eldar prisoners among the humans. They look so similar we didn't realize it at first.* *Eldar? Did you execute them?* *No, Shas'el. We just let the freed slaves beat them and then threw them out of the transports into the wastes without any supplies or aid. We figured a slow death relatively close to the fortress where they were enslaved was more... appropriate.* *Ha! Nice.* **** Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 The Iron Warriors stared at their new prisoner, their expressions of confusion and growing amusement thankfully hidden behind their helmets. It wasn't just that the brutalized Tau officer had been brought to them by a lowly mercenary and an orange pony, though that was pretty funny on its own. It was more that the Fireblade had been secured with a length of rope, and that her armor was covered in U-shaped imprints. "Is there a story behind this sorry sight?" one of the Chaos Marines asked as he seized Jerriha by the arm while the other removed the lasso. Daniels was behind the alien, lasgun aimed at her back and the alien's weapons secured on his coat. "Oh... no, not really. Just, you know, doing my duty as a member of our glorious company," the human soldier said unconvincingly. Applejack held a small smirk. "Any o' you big fellers know where Ah can drop off these here bombs?" The string of demolition charges were hanging on the mare's back, although she seemed untroubled by the weight. "Yes. I will contact a Mechanicus aide to relieve you of the xeno wargear," the Iron Warrior said, apparently not at all concerned with being referred to as "big feller", "remain here until they have met you. You are then relieved until further notice, mortals." The two Chaos Space Marines stomped off with the Fireblade between them, though Jerriha's gait was weak and clumsy after being so badly thrashed. Daniels sighed as he sat down onto an empty metal crate, pulling his mask off. "Well that was an adventure, wasn't it? Damned xenos sure did a number on us." "Ah think ya'll did just fine, considerin' the circumstances," Applejack said with a smile, "but that aside, is there somethin' ya wanna say to me?" "Yes. Please don't tell anyone that a grayskin beat me up," Daniels begged. Applejack snickered. "Is that all?" "Well, it's very important to me. A mercenary's career is his reputation," the human grumbled. Then, after a few seconds, he added, "Oh, also, thanks for saving my life." "No sweat, sugarcube. Thought ya might need a hand after old man Solon sent you in on your own." Then the farmpony grinned at him. "Although if ya wanna make it up to me, Pinkie said somethin' about some really good moonshine 'round here." Daniels quirked an eyebrow. "I assure you, such rumors are completely false. The booze on offer among us spacefarers is awful, foul-tasting garbage more appropriate for cleaning heavy equipment and disinfecting wounds. Its ONLY saving graces are being exceptionally strong, and suspiciously cheap." "That sounds like a fine evening to me," Applejack said with a sigh, some of her good humor fading, "Ah could use something to simmer down a bit. Meeting yer boss was a bit... nerve rattlin'. Even if things turned out okay in the end." Daniels gave her a look. "Turned out okay? You mean getting to him in one piece?" Applejack didn't respond, and her eyes started darting around elsewhere just to avoid looking at him. He might have pressed the issue, but it was at that point that a figure broke off from the train of people moving along in front of the manufactorum and approached them. The figure stood out a lot in its own right, being bizarrely tall and wearing the black rubber robe of the 38th Company's Dark Mechanicus, but was also flanked by a half-dozen armed servitors and followed by a pair of Black Praetors. Quite an impressive escort, even if the siege lockdown had only recently ended. Daniels stood up and saluted uncertainly, wondering who the Techpriest was. The Iron Warrior had said he'd contact an aide, but if he'd had to guess from such extensive body augmentation and heavy security, he'd place the individual approaching him as a Dark Magos; far too important a person to be bothered collecting loot from foot soldiers. "Introductory: I am Dark Magos Kaelith, Mechanicus Executor. Directive: Lower your arm and present the xeno wargear," the figure crackled. Wasting no time in speculating on the accuracy of his guess, Daniels quickly removed the rail rifle from his back and held it out. "I didn't expect them to send a Magos to deal with me. I'm-" "Rifleman Wyatt Daniels, contract mercenary," Kaelith interrupted, a metal tendril snaking out of his robe and snatching the gun, "the only survivor of squad Epsilon 31, pending reassignment. Conclusive: I know who you are." Applejack gave a worried look at Daniels, but the mercenary didn't seem at all concerned as he removed the pulse pistol from his coat. "Well, not the ONLY survivor, no." Kaelith's optics flickered. "Explain." **** Ponyville "All right boy, now get the frisbee! Go get the frisbee! Here it comes!" Lyra said with a grin as she levitated a red plastic disk into the air. Building up her magic power for a second, the green unicorn launched the toy skyward across the open green space that dominated the park. The crack of a lasgun issued from behind her, and then the frisbee was neatly carved in half by a laser bolt, sending both halves plummeting to the ground as wisps of smoke came from the burning plastic. "GOOD BOY!" Lyra said enthusiastically, turning to the soldier behind her and then standing up on her hind legs to give him a hug around the waist. "Who's a good boy? You are! Yes you are! Yes you are!" Bon Bon laid on a bench nearby, nervously looking around at the other ponies who were using the park to walk their own pets. "Lyra, ponies are STARING!" "Pft. Whatever. They're just jealous," the unicorn decided, nuzzling the soldier's hip. "Want me to shoot them, too?" Jacob offered, glancing about at the various equines staring at him in fascination and unease. "Nah, it's cool. Wanna go 'chase' the squirrels?" the unicorn asked as she dropped back onto her hooves. Jacob checked the charge on his lasgun. "I've still got most of a clip left. Sure, let's go." **** Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 "No Magos, I'm afraid I can't explain it. But I'm still pretty sure he's alive," Daniels said with a shrug. "Irrelevance, then. A soldier that is no longer under the command of the Company is effectively a casualty," Kaelith said, his body leaning over to bring the glimmering green optics closer to Daniels' face. Applejack quickly put down the explosive belt and then backed away, thoroughly creeped out by this new person. Aside from Gaela, she hadn't had cause to closely observe the twisted cyborgs of the Dark Mechanicus that she had seen so far, but having one stop to talk brought an unwelcome level of attention to the grotesque engineer-cultists. And Kaelith was definitely a weird one. With his elongated body wrapped in jet-black rubber and curling around just to talk to shorter people (which was everybody), he resembled some kind of nightmarish caterpillar with metal legs and a dozen glowing eyes. "And here's the last of the photon grenades and the sword she was carrying, Magos. Anything else that she's got is still with her, but I'm sure the Astartes will catch it." Kaelith's tendrils snatched up the grenades and pistol, but ignored the sword. "Pre-emptive explanatory: Most Tau melee weapons are mundane and useless, reflective of their frequency of use. The blade is of little use to anyone, least of all the Company's Mechanicus. Expansion: It may have 'sentimental' value to you as a combat trophy." "Ah. Sure. A combat trophy." Daniels glanced furtively at Applejack, and then gave his attention back to the Dark Magos. "Will that be all?" "Negative. Explanatory: I am to debrief you in full." This surprised Daniels considerably. Why would a Dark Magos want to speak to him? "Expansion: The rest of your squad was perhaps an acceptable loss for the location of a Tau field base, but it was still in defiance of every projection and calculation as to the Tau's standing forces," the Dark Magos said, his static-like voice reaching something like a growl, "now that the xenos have launched a full assault, we cannot afford further miscalculation. I detected your identification clearance moving through the manufactorum after the signal identified as a xeno soldier. The same one that you defeated and captured." Daniels chewed his lip. "Well... I did have SOME help..." "Irrelevant," Kaelith snapped, "Interrogative: Between the Warsmith and automated defenses, sufficient force had been deployed to stop the xenos. I wish to know how it came to you to eliminate the threat before the fusion core was damaged." The mercenary scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I wonder that too, to be honest. Even Lord Serith had taken off by then." He shrugged. "The Warsmith didn't feel like doing it himself though, so it fell to me. And the automated defenses aren't worth squat against a single trooper with a gun like that. Not with all the cover in there." "Daniels, what's this crawly feller about, anyway?" Applejack asked, getting annoyed. Kaelith budged one of his optics lenses in her direction, but otherwise ignored the equine entirely. "Oh, this is just something they like to do. The DarkMech doesn't like it when their models and spreadsheets don't match our messy little reality," Daniels said with a shrug. Kaelith's optics swirled about on one side of his face. "Interrogative: Your own level of combat force is negligible compared to that necessary to breach the reactor core. Why did you not seek reinforcements?" This time the man smirked. "Well, the Warsmith gave me a task to do right then, didn't he? Besides, nobody else was sending troops into the manufactorum. It would have taken too long, and as a rule you don't let even one or two enemy soldiers run around in your base." "Logical flaw: If you had been dispatched with ease, as was likely in that engagement, then the enemy would still be able to sabotage the core regardless," Kaelith pointed out. "Sure. But then I'm dead, so what do I care?" Kaelith went silent at this, but Applejack clicked her tongue. "Hey now, don't be like that. You had a pretty good shot of taking that varmint down on your own. She was definitely hurt before Ah got to her." "Okay, but the Dark Magos is still right. It was a REALLY stupid thing to try to do. If the grayskin weren't wandering around our own bloody base I wouldn't have done it." Kaelith's body straightened significantly, lifting his head into the air. "Conclusive: Yet you carried out your orders anyway, based on the strategic principles of warfare, irrespective of estimations concerning combat ability and applicable force." Daniels raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Magos. So?" "Expansion: Such principles are developed due to the unreliability of predictive models in warfare. Example: Typical Iron Warrior doctrine would have seen to the completion of the defensive wall before committing any significant number of soldiers to an assault. Conclusive: These principles exist for a reason, and in violating them based on logical analysis we left ourselves vulnerable." Daniels nodded slowly. "Well, data can be wrong sometimes, Magos." "Affirmative: Our current difficulties vindicate your reservations." The mercenary chewed his lip briefly. "Not just that, actually. You see, this isn't a colonization drive we're fighting here. I don't care what the Tau themselves say, it doesn't match anything I've seen on the ground. And I'm not just talking about the assault force that plowed through Dominus." "Request: Observational analysis." "The ponies, for one," Daniels said, pointing at Applejack, "I could tell there was intelligent life on this planet five kilometers out from the drop site, and yet none of them even heard of the grayskins before the Company landed on the planet. That's not how the Tau colonize worlds. There should have been diplomatic contact before the first pulse gun landed on-world." "And WAY before they wrecked mah farm!" Applejack snapped. Once again, Kaelith favored the pony with merely peripheral attention. "Analysis: The Tau made planetfall immediately before the Company, and they did so under threat of annihilation. Hypothetical: They may have been forced to adopt unusual tactics to address their desperate circumstances." "Yeah, that's a fair assumption, but I'm not buying it," Daniels said, his arms crossed over his chest, "the grayskins came here PREPARED for this. They didn't just pitch their camp in the woods overnight or spread vox-killing drones around that they just happened to have on hand. I don't even believe they fled to this world out of desperation anymore. They're here to infiltrate this planet. And for all they've surprised us, it seems like we've surprised them just as much. I definitely think we've been wrong about their presence here, and not just in terms of their numbers." Kaelith paused briefly. "Analysis: Unusual hypothesis, but there is no immediate data to refute your observations other than the questionable testimonies of the xenos and purely circumstantial evidence. It may merit further investigation. Conclusive: This debriefing has yielded useful strategic insight. I will depart." "Yo, Magos. Before ya go, Ah got a question for ya," Applejack said, taking a step forward. For the first time, Kaelith's head swung entirely toward the pony, although the Dark Magos took several seconds before he reluctantly replied. "Request granted. You may speak." Applejack jabbed a hoof at Daniels' rifle. "Ya'll said that Daniels was too weak to take down that alien, right? Then why don't ya'll give 'em better weapons? Those Tau peashooters seem to pack a lot of punch, and there're a lot of 'em around, now." "I've always wondered that myself, actually," Daniels admitted, "if we were Imperial, shunning xenotech would make sense, and if we didn't fight the Tau as much as we did maybe ammunition supplies would be a concern, but since that's not the case I don't know why we don't all pack pulse rifles. I know the Iron Warriors haven't been taking the guns for themselves." Kaelith emitted a static-laced popping noise that was probably meant to approximate a laugh. "Explanatory: The Tau use a sophisticated system in their weapons that disables their guns when the registered owner is killed. There is a sensor in their armor plates that will link to their weapon and send out a signal when the xeno dies. This sensor is also necessary to fire a Tau weapon, as firing one without it will also cause their weapons to disable themselves. The majority of Tau weapons we scavenge are thus scrap material, not usable weapons." "But the grayskin that had that stuff is still alive," Applejack pointed out. "Conclusive: That is why it is valuable. End conversation." The Dark Magos turned around without another word, his long body curling about like an eel. The servitors all made a synchronized 180-degree turn to follow him, and the Praetors growled irritably before the entire party stomped off to care for the wounded base. "Ya sure seemed more at ease with that feller than the Iron Warriors. Did ya know him?" Applejack asked as she and Daniels made to leave. "No. But unless you mean them harm, you have nothing much to fear from the Mechanicus. They're here to help, and they're not soldiers. Even the Scavs are less hostile than your average Astartes," Daniels explained. Applejack nodded slowly. "Okay, Ah guess Ah can see that. Some of 'em are still creepy as all get-out, though." "What, the augments? It's just appearances, AJ. And most of that scrap is pretty useful to them," he said with a chuckle. She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay, Ah know: love and tolerate." "Love and what now?" "Love and tolerate. It's like our national motto or somethin'," Applejack said, "though Ah think it might need to be revised with an exception or two after we've gotten rid o' those dang Tau." "Oh, don't be like that. I think it's lovely," Daniels laughed, "now let's go find us a stiff drink." "Ah hear that, sugarcube!" **** Ferrous Dominus - command center The roar of flamers followed the heavy tread of a terminator suit as Sliver once again entered the command complex. In the room behind him, a pair of Iron Warriors in specially sealed armor suits were blasting his discarded chemical tank attachment with fire, removing the last traces of the otherworldly infection from the damaged vessel. After that, they would track his passage through the base, cleansing the plague spills and eventually the areas where the Viral Scourge had been used. Everyone showing signs of infection, Astartes or mortal, would be forced to swear their souls to Nurgle on the spot or be purged. It was a tiresome precaution, and one that Sliver himself thought grossly unnecessary. If it were up to him to dictate Company doctrine, the entire fleet would be sworn to the Plague God, and such useless and futile efforts would be moot. Then again, he was never really clear on why every Iron Warrior and mortal with something to lose hadn't already sworn themselves to Nurgle. Practical immortality and freedom from the ills and pains of living could be theirs with mere prayer and token rituals; compared to that, why anyone would cling to something as meaningless and transitory as their health was a mystery to him. Sliver reached the door to the strategium, casting thoughts of theology and divine gifts aside. It was a meager distraction from the tasks ahead, and his focus was necessary. The doors slid open, and as he trundled through he saw the assorted mortals rush to put on their masks and rebreathers. He restrained an annoyed snort as he once again approached General Gnoss across from the main tactical hololith. The man didn't seem to have budged from that spot since the last time Sliver had seen him. Which was to the mortal's credit. "Lord Sliver," the man said sharply as possible through his dark-lensed environmental mask, "I should inform you that I just received contact from Lord Kessler. The assault force has recently left the engagement zone and all elements are returning to base." A rumbling growl came from the Chaos Lord. "Were that force not deployed, we would have eassily turned asside thiss attack. We have ssuffered much for the Warssmith'ss hasste." Gnoss said nothing, which didn't mean that he disagreed. As a rule, human soldiers stayed out of the power politics of the Chaos Space Marines and followed their orders without deference to a particular Lord. It would be very unwise for the General to join the vice-commander in criticizing the orders of the Warsmith, even though they both knew that Solon would let him get away with it. "Damage reportss. Every esstimate you have," Sliver eventually demanded. "It's bad," Gnoss admitted with a sigh, "not critical, but very bad. We're guessing five hundred lost in soldiers, workers, and support, but that number can only go up. If we count servitors destroyed and slaves taken as well, it's easily twice that. As I mentioned before - and you saw in person - the xenos made a strong push for the armor lots. They seem to have prioritized transports against battle tanks, and we're looking at somewhere along the lines of seventy percent of our reserve transports out of action, including almost all of the reserve land raiders and flyers. Not all of them are a total loss, but with our repair facilities likewise demolished we have weeks worth of work to do before the surviving units are fit for action again." Sliver released another shuddering growl from deep under his mask respirator, but Gnoss was pretty sure it wasn't an actual sentence, so he continued. "Of course, the real damage was to base infrastructure. It would take less time to list all the sectors that WON'T need repairs. First all the wrecks and bodies will have to be moved out by scavenging teams, then emergency supplies moved to the sectors which need them. Then we'll need to transport new materials and construction equipment from the Harvest to replace that which was lost before serious repairs can begin. Being optimistic, we're looking at two weeks to get back to where we were this morning. Maybe another week to complete those structures that were still being developed, due to the slowdowns, damage, and lost manpower." The general shifted his posture slightly, sensing Sliver's already dour mood deteriorating even further. "And, of course, this will all come at a considerable cost to our surplus of supplies. The Warsmiths back in the Eye won't be happy about that." Sliver was silent, the large red eye of his helmet staring unflinchingly at the hololith. "My lord? What are we to do about the Tau?" Gnoss asked, determining that he didn't have anything else useful to tell the Nurglite. "The Tau?" Sliver asked, focusing his attention on the human once again. "I could not care lesss about the Tau. Worthlesss children playing with forcess beyond their ken. They lash out at uss becausse we showed weaknesss. I would expect nothing lesss of the deluded wormss that think themsselvess worthy to be our enemy." Sliver turned away, stomping back toward the entrance from where he had come. "To the Warp with the Tau, and with thiss planet. We will repair our fortresss, make our enginess, and then leave thiss place with all hasste. If the graysskinss want thiss rock, then it shall be theirss. It matterss not to me, nor to our misssion." General Gnoss bowed. Lord Sliver was well-regarded in the 38th Company as the tactical head of the Legion, the true leader behind their mercurial and curious Warsmith. He was hardly surprised that the man would ignore the impulse for retribution against the aliens for the sake of their true objectives. Suddenly a junior officer shouted, "General! We have an aerial sensor intercept from the tower guns! Coming in fast!" Sliver paused before the exit of the strategium as Gnoss spun toward the officer. "Identification! Ordnance or an enemy flyer?" Gnoss demanded. The officer paused, his expression shifting into a grimace as he stared at his instruments. "Neither, General. It's... friendly." He said the word awkwardly, as if he felt it was inappropriate. In an instant, Gnoss knew what was happening. There was only one friendly unit that could approach them at high speed through the air and would also be daft enough to do so without regular vox clearance. "Telliss..." Sliver growled as he stomped out the door. **** Ferrous Dominus - sector 20 He descended like a meteor, smoke billowing from his metal wings behind him as he lowered the power output to his flight pack. The air sang as he cut through it, and Tellis could FEEL the burning friction of his speed through his armor, as if the shell of ceramite braced with adamantium was another skin. Which it mostly was by now, but he still found the comparison profound. Just before his visor altimeter read ten meters he kicked his body up out of his nosedive, releasing the pent-up power of his daemonic wings in a furious burst just before his armored feet hit the ground. The impact effect was entirely too much like an artillery strike, and ferrocrete cracked underneath him as a shock wave of fire blasted in all directions. His armor strained under the pressure of the impact and the heat of his wings, but the daemon within the plate reveled in such reckless stunts and refused to break. The brief firestorm washed away into the winds, and with a triumphant screech the Raptor Lord thrust his hands into the air. "I'M BACK, BITCHES!!" the Khornate fighter roared, his trophy skulls rattling against his breastplate. Absolute silence greeted his proclamation, and this time it wasn't even the shocked or embarrassed silence from the other Company soldiers. There was hardly anybody around, and those few people that had witnessed his landing were ignoring him completely, rushing off to important tasks elsewhere in the fortress-city. "... Whoa, what happened here?" Tellis asked no-one, lowering his arms as he finally noticed that all the smoke in the sky wasn't coming from the manufactorum's smokestacks. The familiar sound of footsteps in terminator armor reached his autosenses, and the Raptor Lord turned to see a certain diseased hulk exit the command center. "Hey fatso! Wassup?" Tellis asked brightly, waving to Sliver as the much larger Astartes lumbered toward him. "Telliss... you arrive ahead of the resst of the asssault force," Sliver said simply. "Yeah, good to know your stupid-looking giant eye still works. So what happened here?" Tellis asked, pointing toward a chimera that was driving full speed away from a Maulerfiend that seemed to be chasing it playfully through the streets. Sliver stopped. "What do you mean 'what happened'? Ferrouss Dominuss fell under heavy xeno asssault mere hourss ago." "WHAT?!" Tellis screeched, causing Sliver to actually take a step back from the volume. "There was a fight here and I didn't know? Why didn't anybody tell me?!" "We DID," Sliver said, making a brief retching noise from within his helmet. Tellis was silent for several seconds, and then he tilted his head back and put his index finger against the side of his helmet. "Oh, wow. I have like 30 unheard vox messages," the Raptor Lord mumbled, "geez. This is kind of embarrassing." "It iss no matter. Your incompetence iss reliable enough to be factored into my battle planss," Sliver drawled, "but I musst assk, if you did not come here ahead of the resst of the army to asssisst with the defensse, why did you come back ahead of the otherss?" "Oh, I was just guiding a few pegasi here, that's all," Tellis said with a shrug, "there were a pair of 'em that wanted a guide back to FD, and it's not like there was anyone left there for me to stab. So I showed them in." Sliver stared for several silent seconds at the Khornate Raptor. "... Pegassi?" "Yeah, I decided I kinda like 'em. Though I'm digging the zebras too," Tellis explained with a negligent shrug as he walked off away from Sliver, "anyway, you're boring, so I'm going to find an active pict-capture unit and see if I can get any footage of the base blowing up. Laters!" **** Ferrous Dominus - sector 6 "I don't know what you were expecting, Rarity. Lockdown JUST ended, and a lot of the base is wrecked. Cooking probably isn't a big priority to them right now." Rarity didn't seem at all comforted by Twilight's logic as she stared down at the tin of gray, slimy nutrient paste in front of her. The ponies - plus Spike and minus Applejack - were sitting together just outside one of the cafeterias across from the barracks, atop an iron dining table peppered with lasburns and a few holes from pulse rounds. The other tables were similarly scarred, and many of them were still lying on their sides from having been used as makeshift barricades, but at least here all the corpses had been removed. "If I could get to a kitchen, then I could make us something," Spike pointed out, always eager to help Rarity. That said, he had already finished a tin of the tasteless gruel and was looking for a spot to discard the tin. "Yeah, it's probably not a good idea to go wandering around in places we don't belong while the Iron Warriors are still looking for any Tau that were left behind," Rainbow Dash reasoned before she gulped down the last portion of her second tin of nutrient gruel. She wiped her mouth with her foreleg, then continued. "Besides, this stuff is fine." "Rainbow Dash, I don't think you should eat more than one at a time," Fluttershy mumbled. "She's right," Twilight said between mouthfuls of her own ration, "these were formulated with a human's calorie requirements in mind. They're bigger than we are." "Well, I kick way more butt than the average human, so it's fine," the blue pegasus said decisively, bouncing her empty tin into the burnt, hollowed-out chassis of a chimera that lay nearby. Twilight rolled her eyes, and Rarity poked irritably at the can with her hoof. "They can cross the vastness of space and set up a fortress in a few days, and yet the science of decent food eludes them," Rarity decided in disgust. Then she glanced at Pinkie. "Wait, are you eating this too? I thought you couldn't stand this swill!" Pinkie grinned, her spoon still in her mouth as she held up the tin in front of her. "This isn't a human ration; it's a Pinkie ration!" Twilight raised an eyebrow and then looked more closely at the tin. "That is a can of cake frosting with a picture of your face taped over it." "I brought more in my bags! I'm going to give them out to the humans and teach them what food is supposed to taste like!" The pink pony's eyes burned as she described her mission, and she stood up into a heroic pose with the can balanced on her hoof. Twilight looked exasperated, but Rainbow suddenly looked thoughtful. "You know, now that you mention it, are we going to be staying here until the humans are gone? We only came here to get them to leave, right?" "Yes, you're right," Rarity said as she pushed her ration tin away with her hoof, "at this point I imagine all we could do is get in their way. You can hardly even enjoy the novel sights anymore after the Tau attack. Every flaming hunk of wreckage looks just like the next." Twilight hesitated, chewing her lip. "Well... sure, you can leave if you want, but at least ONE of us should stay... you know, to make sure they're really going?" Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy looked skeptical at the idea until Rarity leaned over toward them. "Our room is right next to the humans' futuristic space library." "Ohhhhh," they all said in tandem as Twilight flushed. "That place got blown up pretty good though, didn't it?" Spike asked. "Well, sure, but Serith did say it was a SECONDARY data center," Twilight said, "the point is, there's a wealth of knowledge here the likes of which we'll probably never see again, and it would be foolish not to take advantage of it!" Rarity rolled her eyes. "That's fine, darling. But there's no reason for any other ponies to be here." "So should we tell that to those two?" Pinkie asked, thrusting a foreleg out toward the streets. "Destruction! Carnage! Pandemonium! Everywhere we look lay hulks of twisted, burning metal! The bodies stacked like sacks of flour and craters decorating the ground like... like... uh..." "Like your face in junior high?" "Hey! Dang it, Snaps! I'm going to have to edit that out now!" A pair of pegasi mares were walking down the middle of the avenue, the first a rich ivory and the other a dark brown. They both had on saddlebags packed near to bursting, and the ivory pegasus had a voice recorder wrapped in a wing while the other was snapping photos with a heavy-duty camera. "Ahem! Craters decorate every street and sidewalk! This is devastation brought to life!" the first pony continued, waxing dramatic into the recorder. "Our trip to the human kingdom has turned into a tour of horror! What catastrophe has taken place here?" She clicked off the voice recorder, and the camera pony giggled. "The editor's gonna eat this up with a spoon. I'm getting some great shots." "This is the story of the century! Aliens! Warfare! Technology beyond our wildest dreams! It doesn't get any better than this!" the first mare crowed. "Hey, is that Princess Twilight Sparkle over there?" The ivory pegasus snapped her head around, and then she released a happy squealing noise when she saw a purple alicorn and several other ponies staring at them from some distance away. Twilight seemed startled as the pegasi galloped over to her and her friends, both of them looking way too happy to be here. "Princess Twilight Sparkle! I'm Scoops, of the Cloudsdale Times! Do you have time for an interview?" Twilight was reasonably surprised. "A reporter? How did you get in here?" "We followed the crazy flying guy with the claws," the brown pegasus said as she took a picture of the mostly dumbfounded group. "Awesome! Tellis is here!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "C'mon Fluttershy, let's go find him!" "But I don't-hey! Wait!" Fluttershy yelped as Rainbow snatched the gunmetal access card from her saddlebag and then took off, prompting the other pegasus to follow after her. "Anyway, enough about us, how did YOU come to be here?" Scoops said eagerly, clicking her voice recorder on again as she leaned in toward Twilight. "And how much of this havoc are you and the other Elements of Harmony responsible for?" Twilight recoiled. "We're not responsible for any of it!" "Well, maybe a LITTLE," Rarity allowed, placing a hoof on her boltgun. Unlike Trixie, she had chosen to hold onto her scavenged weapon. "Okay, look, we were caught in this place when it was attacked, but we had nothing to do with it," Twilight assured them, "another alien race called the Tau did this." "MORE aliens? Oi, they're coming out of the woodwork these days," the camera pony mumbled, "know where I can get a picture of one of these 'Tau'?" "Dead or alive?" Pinkie asked. "Whatever." "Sure! Follow me!" the pink pony promptly bounced away, and Snaps followed in close and eager pursuit. Scoops, meanwhile, was happily pressing the others for more information. "And when these 'Tau' creatures attacked, did you come to the noble humans' defense? Or did you watch the terrible humans get their deserved punishment?" "A little of column A, and a little of column B," Spike admitted. There was definitely more than one occasion in which Twilight could have saved a soldier's life if she had really wanted to. "The nation of Equestria does not take any side in the conflict between the 38th Company and the Tau Empire," Twilight insisted before adding, "although individual ponies may act on their own based on their conscience, of course." "Our conscience usually sides with the humans, incidentally," Rarity noted, "they're not nice people, but they don't shoot at us." Scoops flipped off her recorder briefly. "A bit too 'gray area' for my tastes, but I can make it work." Then she turned the recorder back on. "Alien wars aside, what is your opinion of Ferrous Dominus? Ponies in Cloudsdale saw the ship that built this place descend from orbit, and rumor and speculation have been running rampant ever since. I'm here to expose this place to the Equestrian public and show them what it's all about." "Well, just take a look around, dear," Rarity drawled, "because the view hasn't changed considerably since the battle. Ugly bare metal, smokestacks spewing filth into the air, and guns everywhere you look. The Iron Warriors can create vessels that move through space and trains that float over the ground, but there isn't a shred of class in this entire bastion. Never mind that its inhabitants are by and large violent killers." "Should I disregard the fact that you're clearly in possession of a human weapon?" Scoops asked, eyes narrowing. "Yes." "Done. Princess Sparkle, your thoughts?" Scoops asked. Twilight looked hesitant about speaking on this topic, but that was hardly on account of having nothing to say. "Well, their purely technological achievements are so far ahead of ours that we've barely even theorized many of the scientific principles that underpin their basic technologies. And the results of their mastery of physics and computing is obvious in the sheer efficiency and speed with which they operate, which is how they erected a fortress this size in a matter of days. So I think it's somewhat narrow-minded to judge them so harshly on their culture alone." "Isn't the entire reason we're here to see them off because we think their culture is awful?" Spike pointed out. "Chaos is not a 'culture'," Twilight countered sharply. "... Probably." Scoops nodded vacantly, more interested in getting Twilight's words on tape than understanding whatever she was babbling about. "And if I may speak candidly, what is the official ROYAL line on the 38th Company? Are they to be welcomed as potential friends or scorned for their dark and unambiguously evil nature?" She leaned in closer and then whispered, "I mean, the guy that led us here was wearing skulls as accessories. Have you seen him? Total freak. Answer the question, please." Twilight leaned away slightly, rather uncomfortable at having somepony ask her to speak for Equestria's royal house. "Uh... all I can say is that there is no immediate conflict between the Iron Warriors and ponykind." "Oh, come on, I'm sure you can give me more than THAT," the pegasus pressed, leaning in toward the alicorn, "the lizard said that you're here to 'see them off', didn't he? What did he mean by that?" Twilight winced awkwardly, leaning even further away from the persistent reporter. "Oh my, look at that!" Rarity said suddenly, beckoning behind the ivory mare with a hoof. "A giant mechanical crab is walking by with an even bigger mechanical crab!" Scoops' eyes darted over to glance at Rarity, although she didn't otherwise budge a millimeter. "Seriously? That's the best diversion you could come up with? Do you think I would... fall... for......" The pegasus trailed off as a rapid series of distant pounding noises grew louder behind her, and Scoops slowly twisted her head around. "I don't care what shome 'unidentified bio-form' shaid, you do not have authorization to change your deshignation! You are Ignish Ferrox, not Mishter Crabby!" Solon admonished as he walked along the avenue at speed. The Defiler screeched out a reply that sounded somehow disappointed to anyone who could stare at the scene without being scared witless. "Well, then I'll have to change their namesh back too! Bloody troublemakersh! If I ever find out who let you lot free, I'll feed the imbecile to the daemon forge!" Solon snarled as he walked toward the breached kennels. Scoops took several seconds to try and make sense of what she had just seen, and then finally shook her head, having failed at the effort. "Okay, well, giant mechanical crabs aside..." she began, finally turning back to Twilight, Rarity, and Spike. Or rather, the spot where they had been. At present, the only sign of them was an unopened tin of nutrient paste and a few twinkling lights left over from a magic teleport. "... Well played, Princess," Scoops grumbled grudgingly as she turned her voice recorder off, "oh well. Still plenty to see around here. Ooh, I heard that showpony, the Great and something-something was performing here! I'll bet she'll do an interview!" **** Sweet Apple Acres Big Macintosh placed an empty bucket under the large spigot attached to the Apples' new water extractor, and then pressed a hoof gently upon the pressure lever located next to the base. The tall, silvery cylinder made a humming noise, and several green-tinted lumen strips lit up as water was sucked out of deep aquifers and purged of contaminants and impurities before being pushed into the spigot. Within seconds the bucket was full, and Big Mac took his hoof off the lever to stop the flow. Then he dropped a dry towel into the bucket, took the handle in his mouth, and walked back toward the house. As he entered the doorway, several heads turned to look. Three of them were equine heads, and four were human... even if their faces had mostly replaced the recognizably human aspects with cybernetic parts. "Over here. I need some more rags, too." The Scavurel Core was sitting next to a pair of beds, upon which were the fairly mangled bodies of two of his soldiers. His own armored body was scarred, but mostly intact; only his servo arms were in any obvious disarray, having been shredded and twisted in the crash of his gunship. The other two Scavurel had not fared as well, and what mechanical components could still be removed from their bodies had been detached so that their flesh wounds and mechanical damage could be tended to. The one of the four that easily looked the worse off was the Mechanicus pilot, but that was mostly because her lower torso had been removed long ago and because Big Mac had broken her support housing free of the gunship to get her out. Besides having no ability to walk and a damaged life-support pod attached below her hips, it also meant that there were many torn cables and coiled wires that hung loosely from her body. Despite this she insisted that she was actually unharmed; apparently the pilot's pod was much better placed to survive a crash than the gunship's passengers. Big Macintosh walked up to the Core and placed the bucket down, and the man immediately reached his cracked metal arm into the water and brought up the cloth. Apple Bloom left the room to get the requested rags. "Do you think they're gonna be okay?" Scootaloo asked as the squad leader began wiping one of the Dreg's wounds. Crabapple beeped from the corner, where it had been stood next to the sort-of-disembodied pilot. +Analysis of life signs indicate stable heart rate and breathing patterns. Secondary life support systems are operating within minimal tolerances to compensate for weakening of primary organs.+ +You're a terrestrial probe, not a medi-bot,+ the pilot snapped back in Binary, +you're hardly qualified to judge the survivability of a wounded soldier. Humans are delicate.+ Crabapple made a rude buzzing noise. +Unit Crabapple is well-versed on the failings of bipedal bio-forms. Even so, the analysis stands.+ +Us 'bipedal bio-forms' are the ones that built you, you insubordinate lump of sensors.+ +Unit Crabapple is unsure why Unit Lenna includes herself among bipeds, given her total lack of locomotive extremities. OH! What now?!+ +Why you wretched, useless piece of...+ As the pilot and the probe bickered pointlessly the Scavurel Core had finished wiping down his subordinate's leg, having ultimately ignored Scootaloo's question. He took a pair of forceps and stared down at the bleeding tissue uncertainly. "Are you sure you don't want us to call a doctor?" Sweetie Bell asked, trying to hold her stomach at the sight of the bloody and torn flesh on display. "A pony doctor isn't going to be familiar with the human anatomy, which is a basic requirement for medicine," the Core buzzed, his voice crackling behind the shielded mask that made up his face, "never mind that our augmetic implants would confuse what little applicable knowledge might be useful. If either of the Dark Acolytes had survived, they would be a much better choice to help, but they didn't. Until we can get new transport to Ferrous Dominus, I'm the best option." "Eeyup," Big Mac agreed as Apple Bloom trotted back into the room with several old towels on her back. "Give it to me straight, Geth. Am I going to make it?" the Dreg on the cot said. His face mask had been removed, and his pale and withered face moved awkwardly, having forgotten life outside of a shell of metal. The Scavurel Core sighed. "You'll live, Polben. But your leg... I don't think we can save it. It'll have to come off." The fillies gasped, and Big Macintosh cringed sadly. Polben, on the other hand, whooped happily and raised a thumbs-up. "Yes! New augment!" he cheered. "Aw, really? What about me? My flesh-arm really hurts!" complained the woman on the other bed. "I told you, it's just a fracture. Those heal easily," Geth said. "Well, what if there were sudden complications, like-" "Karei, if you injure yourself further, then I'm going to put you right back in the wreck where the horses found you," the Core snapped. Scootaloo leaned in toward the other ponies. "These people are weird." "Eeyup," Big Mac agreed. "Macintosh," Geth said suddenly, turning toward the red stallion after placing a rag over Polben's bloody leg, "I... I'm not really sure how to say this..." The man trailed off, looking genuinely confused and embarrassed. +The response most applicable to this scenario would be 'thank you',+ blurted Crabapple. "Ah, yes. Thank you, Macintosh. And... thank you too, multicolored equine spawn," the Core said awkwardly, "our estimated chance of survival without your assistance was very near zero. You saved my life, and that of my surviving unit, when you were under no such obligation." "Think nothin' of it," Macintosh said, rolling his stalk of wheat from one side of his mouth to the other, "we're always obliged ta help out someone in need, 'specially after they built us a home. Ah'm just sorry we couldn't help the others." The Scavurel looked startled to hear it. "Huh. I guess he CAN talk," Lenna mumbled, revealing the cause of their surprise. "Such... indiscriminate aid is not practiced where we're from. I'm sure we're taking you away from a great many important, if utterly asinine and primitive tasks," Geth admitted. "That's all right. Y'all hungry?" Big Macintosh asked, taking the casual rudeness of the Mechanicus in stride as usual. "No, but I should operate sooner rather than later," Geth said regretfully, "do you possess a plasma cutter, by any chance?" "Nnope." The Scavurel Core shook his head. "Right, right, technology level. Then do you have any sort of strong cutting tool? I imagine you have something to tend to all those primitive flora groves of yours." Big Macintosh's expression shifted to look somewhat uncomfortable. "We have a hacksaw. But-" "Yes, anything with the word 'saw' in it should work out," Geth said with a nod. "If it's not heat based, then that means the wound won't cauterize..." Polben mused. "He should probably also bring a tarp, then." Big Mac turned to his little sister with a queasy expression she had never seen before. "Y'all should probably go play in the club house fer an hour... two hours." Apple Bloom nodded slowly, noting that Sweetie Bell in particular looked like she was feeling ill. "All right, Big Brother. Come on Scoots, help me with Sweetie." **** Ferrous Dominus - psyker dorms Twilight sighed as she took out a quill and parchment from her bags, placing it on the table in her room and then climbing onto a cushion. "This has been the most terrible day," Rarity moaned, levitating a hand mirror in front of her to stare at the shortened length of her tail, "really, between the attack and all the missed meals, this could be our most trying quest in the name of ponykind thus far." "I don't remember the last time a quest to save Equestria ended with the villain behind it all agreeing to back down and then walking away," Twilight pointed out as she stared down at the blank parchment. Rarity rolled her eyes. "Fine, so I suppose it could have been even WORSE. But I'll be happy to wash my hooves of this place regardless. The humans have their good points, but their city is an abomination, and so is their leader." Twilight nodded slowly as she levitated the quill into position. "Dear Princess Celestia: we have reached the fortress of the Iron Warriors and seen firsthoof the corruption of Chaos. This place seethes with a dark power, and the very walls of the fort seem to spread blight across the soil. We've met a human that practices Chaos magic; a cruel, manipulative Sorcerer named Serith who basks in the hateful energy of this place and would hurt his own allies for the sake of petty convenience. We've seen terrifying creatures of living metal and magic with the minds of beasts, armed and used as weapons for the humans' wars. What's more, we have met the Warsmith: a monster of machine and Space Marine..." Twilight trailed off, unsure where to go with that. When it came to the Warsmith, she was of two minds. Her cold rationale told her that he had been surprisingly reasonable, and even fairly polite. Every other part of her was disgusted by the man, and she honestly wondered if she shouldn't have broken out the Elements of Harmony and destroyed him anyway. "... A monster of machine and Space Marine that wears horror like a coat of fur," Rarity continued, "covered in weapons and stinking of death... among other things." "Ooh, that's good! Thank you!" Twilight said brightly, writing down the passage eagerly. "Even so, he revealed to us that his army's stay in Equestria was always meant to be temporary; our planet is nothing more than a staging ground for their latest battles to them, and they have no apparent interest in harming Equestria or spreading the influence of Chaos here. They say they will leave soon, and don't care to fight us." Twilight dipped her quill into her ink pot as she thought of what to say next. "I must confess that we're all quite relieved and happy that we don't have to fight the humans after all. Military strength aside, the humans and even Iron Warriors are not all bad, and I wonder if we could have co-existed happily were it not for this dark power that infests them. Since tensions between Equestria and the 38th Company have come to nothing, we will be staying in Ferrous Dominus for a little while longer to study this place. There is obviously a great deal that we can still learn here, both about the Iron Warriors and the galaxy around us. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." Rarity watched as the alicorn finished her letter and then rolled up the parchment. "Nothing about being caught in the middle of a Tau assault?" she wondered aloud. "I'll get to that later," Twilight confirmed, "first I'd like to browse the Company's archives on the Tau Empire and find out more about them. We know almost nothing about the other side in this conflict." Then the alicorn frowned. "By the way, I've been putting off asking you this for as long as possible, but are you seriously keeping that boltgun?" Rarity looked startled as she beckoned to the massive gun lying on her night stand. "What? A mare needs to be able to defend herself, Twilight! It's a dangerous world out there!" She levitated the weapon up and stared approvingly at the muzzle. "And while I may dislike the humans' militarism, I can appreciate a good tool as much as the next pony. Even if this one could definitely use some dressing up. I was thinking a purple base, with my cutie mark under the ejection chamber in decal. What do you think?" "It's a great idea! It'll look perfect!" Spike offered enthusiastically. "I could hardly care less. Just be careful with that thing," Twilight said less enthusiastically as she sealed the parchment. "Spike, over here." The young dragon puffed up his cheeks and then blew out a stream of magical flame, and the paper vanished before them. Outside their room, a pattern of intricate glyphs suddenly flared into view over the exterior of their door, crackling with ghastly light. Then the surge of magic faded and so did the symbols, vanishing from lines of gloomy crimson to a faint, almost imperceptible stain on the door's surface. **** Ferrous Dominus - Serith's quarters "Busy, busy, busy," Serith chanted as he stepped into the from door to his quarters, his force halberd resting on his shoulder. He walked briskly past the foyer and the large, heavily warded cages that were stacked along the wall amongst long streaks of blood, hurrying toward the room that he had prepared and set aside for his experiments. "So sorry to keep you waiting, my dear," Serith said loudly as he unlocked the heavy, rune-covered door by inserting a set of distinctive sigils into the arcane riddle spelled out there. The text immediately flared with energy before the runes re-arranged themselves, ensuring that the next attempt to unlock it would require a different answer. Then the door began to open, albeit slowly. "I didn't think you'd make such a... hasty retreat after obtaining exactly what you wanted. Luckily, I placed the appropriate countermeasures after learning that teleportation was among your kind's arcane talents." The door finished opening, and Serith stepped through it, immediately turning his gaze on a wrought iron cage built into the corner. "I'm afraid you'll be..." Serith stopped talking as he finally realized that the ensorcelled prison he had constructed contained not an alicorn, unicorn, or even any of the lesser, mundane life forms that infested this world, but rather an entirely inanimate roll of paper. "Today has been just rife with disappointments," the Iron Warrior sighed, moving to the cage and then using his force halberd to push the scroll toward the edge of the prison. The cage was of course heavily protected against psionic power, so he couldn't even levitate the paper out of it. After plucking the message from the cage floor, he unceremoniously broke the seal and unrolled it. "The power to unmake and reshape reality at her beck and call, and she uses it to send letters," the Chaos Sorcerer grumbled as his visor started moving down the page, "Let's see... corruption and blight, blah blah blah, I'm cruel and manipulative, blah, the Warsmith is a monster... hmn. Even I think that's a bit unfair. It's probably the Nurgle thing." His visor tracked down to the bottom of the page. "Feh. Not even a very interesting letter. What a waste of time." He walked over to a metal desk covered in tribal trinkets and alchemical burns and placed the message in a small iron box. "Well, I suppose I should go recharge the conjuring interruption sigils on her door now. She might send something worth intercepting EVENTUALLY. So much to do!"