//------------------------------//
// Third Contact 
// Story: Iron Hearts: Book 4 - Emerald Dawn 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Iron Hearts: Book 4
Chapter 5
Third Contact


****


Ork kill krooza - Centaur star system


"Ere she is, boyz! Chekk 'er out!"
A guttural laugh issued from a thick, muscled throat as a battered display screen slowly uploaded data from the ship's scopes.
Planets were drawn onto the display, and then the image zoomed inward onto the main planet of interest. The third planet, specifically.
"Well, ain't she a beaut!" said a hulking Nob as his power claw clanked shut in anticipation. "Even comes wit' her own fleet o' humies! I told ya'z gits followin' da signal wuz a good idea!"
"Loot! Loot! Loot! Loot!" chanted a twitchy helmsman as he stamped his foot against the floor.
The door to the bridge creaked open behind the crew, and the Nob glanced backward to see who was entering.
"'Ey, Boss Coggz! Chekk out da mark!" the burly Ork chuckled heartily, and ropes of spittle dripped onto the dirt-stained metal flooring.
Hazarr "Coggz" Wrencha was a rather elderly Mek. His skin was a pale, waxy green where it was visible, but much of the Ork's body was covered by a ramshackle mechanical exoskeleton. Servo claws hung over his shoulders and tools rattled at his belt, and his entire left arm had been replaced by an oversized welding torch.
The Big Mek said nothing as he stomped over to the display panel, gazing through the flickering red visor that was built into his welding mask.
"Whaddya tink, Boss?" asked the helmsman in-between chuckles. "We'z gonna loot dem humies 'til 'ere's nuttin' left! And den-"
"Dat ain't roight," Hazarr interrupted, scratching his power claw against his helmet, "where's all da boyz?"
"Say wot?"
"Da boyz, youz lunkheads," Hazarr growled.
"Wot, da rest'o da gang? Deyz roight behind us, Boss!" the Nob said, sounding mildly confused.
"Not us, ya git!" Hazarr snapped. "We fallahd a WAAAGH signul! So wayr's da Mork-dammed WAAAGH?!"
He stomped up to the display panel, and his crew backed away as his claw pressed against a slider with surprising care (as he didn't break it outright).
The picture zoomed in further, and Hazarr could make out the details of the ships lying in low orbit over the third planet.
"Humie ships...bust'd ships... and... a grayskin ship?" Hazarr shook his head. "Dere's a sahvere lack o' GREEN 'round heah. I dun loike it."
The Nob scoffed. "Wot's it matta? Less boyz means more lootin' an' fightin' fer us, roight?"
"Mebbe it duhs," Hazarr grumbled, "but den, who set up da WAAAGH signul if dere ain't no WAAAGH heah?"
The Ork crew was silent, offering each other confused shrugs.
"Boss, da udda ships is headin' fer da humie fleet," mumbled another crew member, "shuld we go wid 'em?"
Hazarr's jaw slid from side to side as he gazed at the monitor display.
"Dat big 'un shoor does look invitin'!" giggled the helmsman. "Bet dere's all sorts'o neat scraps in dere!"
Hazarr focused on the megafreighter in the display, and his visor flickered softly.
"Dat big 'un is cursed," the Big Mek spat.
This surprised his crew, who immediately leaned closer to the display and squinted.
"How can ya tell, Boss Coggz?"
Hazarr snorted. "I jus' can. It dun feel roight. It'z gonna take a lotta boyz ta nokk dat one ovah. Mebbe more den it's worth." He grunted. "Let da udda ships go fer da little 'uns."
"So what're we gonna do, Boss?"
"We'z goin' to da planet," Hazarr growled, sliding his claw over and moving the display squarely over Centaur III. "I wanna see wot's down dere... and den I wanna stomp it FLAT!"


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 training grounds


Red circles flickered in front of Twilight's eyes as her visor scanned over the firing range, lighting up an arrangement of shifting metal cut-outs. Ranges and velocities flashed over the reticules, and her eyes narrowed as she worked out the proper geometry in her head.
Almost...
The force harmonizer floated above her, slowly spinning along its axis as it floated in her telekinetic grip and waited for her attention.
Twilight charged up her horn, feeding the power to the weapon behind her. Purple arcs of energy flashed and curled around the harmonizer's poles.
Twilight flinched as a searing beam of violet cut across the field in front of her, ripping every one of the six metal figures asunder. And tearing open a sandbag barrier. And lopping off a piece of a ferrocrete wall. Not bad at all.
Or so she thought. But then Twilight's vox system crackled in her ear.
"Sparkle, why did it take you fifty-two seconds to line up a shot?"
Twilight grimaced at the identification rune on her visor. The Armsmaster. "It only took me thirty-nine seconds to decide on a targeting angle. The rest of the time I was waiting for the targets to shift into an ideal position."
"You DO realize that live targets will not adhere to predictable and repeated patterns of movement, and that they will be shooting back the entire time, do you not?"
"Yes, Armsmaster Tolken. Thank you for your critique," Twilight grumbled, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
"Maintain short, frequent bursts for maximum effect," Tolken's voice continued to rumble in her ear, "aim across the tops of the cover foundations. This will keep the wary foes suppressed, and cull the more foolish."
Twilight concentrated as more metal cut-outs popped up, and then shot another beam over the pieces of cover scattered downrange. She got two of them this time.
"Still too slow, Sparkle."
Twilight grit her teeth. "I don't suppose Rarity could use your help about now, Lord Armsmaster?"
"Not really," the vox crackled back, "she's inexplicably quite good at this."
Twilight turned her head toward the next range over, her visor zooming in with a thought.
A steady rhythm of shimmering green bolts screamed down the range, evaporating the targets almost as fast as they popped up. At the origin of the deadly fusillade was Rarity, a smoldering plasma gun hovering over her head.
Rarity's armor was much shinier than hers, and had flared edging along the segments of plating for a more subtle attempt at style. Still, Twilight was sure that the suit fell well short of the fashionista's standards as a piece of clothing. Although it was certainly better than her previous outfit for walking about Ferrous Dominus.
Twilight turned back to her own range, suddenly aware that she had been letting power seep into the force harmonizer continuously while she was distracted. That probably wasn't a good thing to do when handling psionic weapons.
She picked a few targets clustered together next to a sandbag wall, and released the collected energy.
The purple pony yelped as a thick, screaming energy beam lanced forward and exploded through the sandbags, utterly demolishing them and the targets behind them.
Her vox crackled in her ear again. "That was good. Do more of that."
As Twilight sighed and started rethinking her energy distribution, Tolken evidently decided to continue talking.
"Not that it matters a great deal to me, but aren't there supposed to be six of you in your unit? Why are only two of you practicing with your new weapons?"
Twilight grunted as she released another heavy beam downrange, this time blowing a hole in a ferrocrete bunker.
"They all have reasons. Rainbow Dash is mostly getting the hang of using her flight pack. Fluttershy doesn't have any offensive weapons. Applejack's main weapon is a flamethrower. And Pinkie Pie..." she trailed off. "Pinkie should probably be here, actually, but she insisted on tinkering with her dreadnought shell."
"Her what?" crackled the Armsmaster's voice.
"Her dreadnought body. She uses a dreadnought assault walker instead of power armor."
"That's impossible," Tolken pointed out.
"We have yet to impress that upon her," Twilight admitted blithely.
Another beam tore through the firing range, cutting another gouge into the bunker.
"Off-center," critiqued Tolken, "either aim for the center of the construction or the firing slit. You're not going to do any damage that matters blasting bits of..."
The voice trailed off, and Twilight looked up as alert icons flashed in the corner of her helmet.
"You know what I like most about having power armor?" Twilight said suddenly, blink-clicking on the icon. "I mean, the protection from pollutants and gunfire is great and all, but I REALLY like having access to the same data nodes as the rest of you. It's really nice not having to stand around obliviously until an Iron Warrior decides to let us know what's going on."
"I read the alert intercept and checked the sensorium cache while you were yammering to yourself," Tolken informed her, "a herd of you winged creatures are making an unauthorized landing in the manufactorum block."
"... Well, the important thing is that if you hadn't decided to share that, I wouldn't be left completely out of the loop," Twilight mumbled as she finished reading the system alert. It informed her only that there was an unidentified aerial incursion and that the main defensive batteries had not been cleared to fire.
"Are you going to do something about this?" Tolken's voice once again crackled in her ear.
"Should I?" Twilight asked, earnestly torn. "I mean, my role in your army is pretty ill-defined, and I wouldn't want to get in the way of a proper security response."
"That's a good point," Tolken admitted, "I was just wondering if you wanted to leave your brethren completely at the mercy of the very displeased security teams that are en route."
"Thanks for the practice, Armsmaster! Gotta go!" Twilight shouted, her flight pack spreading as the boosters warmed up.
Within seconds she was airborne, zooming over the Armsmaster's kiosk as the force harmonizer floated along behind her.


Tolken shook his head, wondering why he had even bothered to say anything.
"I must be getting soft as the Warsmith, coddling these beasts."
He snorted in amusement, and then turned to look at Rarity. The unicorn was still plugging away at her firing range; apparently she didn't even notice Twilight leave.
He linked up his vox.
"I don't suppose you want to go help?"
Rarity stopped shooting, and her weapon floated upright so that it aimed at the sky. "Go help with what?"
"The security breach," Tolken clarified.
Rarity hesitated. "There was a breach? It must not be very bad; I've seen the sort of din the base unleashes when there's a real problem."
"... Are you just ignoring the combat alerts your suit receives?" the Armsmaster asked after a pause.
"Oh, I turned those off right away. I couldn't BELIEVE how often this horrid machine wanted to bombard me with useless information about dangers and problems that have nothing to do with me! As if my stress levels aren't high enough! I'll get wrinkles!"
"I really have no idea how you're still alive," Tolken mumbled.


****


Ferrous Dominus - sector 17


"We do believe there has been a misunderstanding. Art thou unaware that We art thine ally?"
Princess Luna gave her best "diplomat smile" as she stood in the middle of the avenue, but it didn't seem to sooth the tempers of the thirty Iron Warriors and two sentinel walkers that had surrounded her and her eighteen batpony guards.
"Drop your weapons, xenos," snarled a Chaos Space Marine with a power fist as he pointed the hefty claw at Luna, "submit or die where you stand."
Luna was surrounded by armored batponies with ebony-tipped spears, all of whom seemed surprisingly unafraid of being surrounded and outnumbered by much larger and better-equipped enemies. They continued to form a protective circle around their charge, unflinching spears aimed at the nearest Iron Warrior on each side.
Luna's fake smile withered. "Well, We suppose that given those options-"
"As if we would surrender our weapons while you aim yours at our liege!" snapped a batpony mare as she stalked forward toward the squad leader. Her spear was inexplicably held in one hoof as she approached the giant with the point aimed squarely at his exposed head. "Lower your arms at once!"
Luna frowned. "Ah. That IS a rather important code of conduct ingrained into our personal guard," she mumbled, looking honestly embarrassed as she shifted from hoof to hoof, "We did not think this through. It seems we art at an impasse."
"Indeed," the Champion murmured, "let me show you how an Iron Warrior addresses an impasse."
Perhaps the batpony facing the squad Champion expected the enormous and heavily armored soldier to be slow enough that she could get in and out of melee range faster than he could. Or perhaps she didn't think that actual hostilities would break out. Either way, she was very wrong.
The squad Champion didn't even bother to activate the power fist before backhanding the Lunar Guard across the avenue. Bits of broken armor clattered across the ferrocrete ground, and the guard's spear landed at Luna's hooves.
The Iron Warrior pointed at the shocked ponies. "Fire."
Luna's horn flared just a fraction of a second before the surrounding boltgun muzzles, establishing a barrier dome. Her personal guard flinched back as they suddenly found themselves staring at a flurry of small explosions, and they tightened the protective circle while at the same time wondering just what the blazes they were supposed to do in a situation like this.
"This situation is curiously familiar!" Luna shouted as her horn glowed brilliantly, maintaining the shield against the salvos of mass-reactive rounds. "We art certain that this matter can be resolved without further violence!"
"Let's try further violence first, and then we'll see. Sentinels!" the squad leader barked, waving toward the barrier dome.
The two light walkers shifted their stances, making sure to get their lines of fire clear of the Iron Warrior squads as they took aim with their lascannons.
"Wait! Stop! Cease! Halt!"
The rattle of boltguns faltered as the Chaos Space Marines looked over at the new disturbance. The voice had clearly come from a vox grille, but sounded feminine.
Whatever the Astartes was expecting, they were plenty surprised to see a power-armored pony swooping down from overhead and landing at the edge of the barrier dome.
"Oh, look! It's Princess Luna, who has sworn service to the 38th Company already and is here to help! Ha ha!" Twilight's laughter sounded distinctly manic as her helmet cracked open around her head. With a pulse of levitation, it slipped off and joined the harmonizer in the air behind her.
"Silly Luna! This isn't the security station where you need to go through before entering the fortress! Ha ha ha!" her laughter wasn't sounding any less stressed as she glanced over at a dazed batpony guard staggering to her hooves several meters away.
"Do you know these creatures, Sparkle?" growled the Iron Warrior.
"Do you know these brutes, Princess?" demanded a Lunar Guard.
"Yes! Yes I do!" Twilight quickly answered, facing first the pony and then the Chaos Marine. "Really sorry about the confusion! I'll have them checked in properly right away!"
"You will have them disarm immediately," the Marine demanded.
Luna finally let the shield dissolve, finding herself somewhat at a loss for words. Unfortunately, that gave her guards scope to speak for her.
"We're not surrendering our spears! Those freaks SHOT at us!" yelled a batpony.
Twilight's eye twitched as she watched the Iron Warrior's brow crease. "Just a moment, my lord."
Her horn's telekinetic pulse flared brighter, and an arc of purple energy whipped about it.
All at once, every batpony's spear was wrapped in a violet glow and yanked from their grip.
"Hey!" "What the-" "Stop that!"
Twilight quickly levitated the eighteen spears into a bundle and floated them over her head, fixing the Lunar Guard with a cold glare.
"There we are. Now we'll be going to the security station, and along the way, I'm going to explain a few of the ground rules around here," Twilight said, flashing the Champion a nervous smile.
"Aye, that is acceptable," Luna said, pre-empting any more protests from her soldiers, "assist Nightshade at once, and we shalt depart!" A pair of batponies surged forward toward the guard that had been hit and lifted her up.
"I feel like we should slay two or three of them," murmured an Iron Warrior drawing a chainsword, "just to make a point."
"Ooh, no can do," Twilight answered anxiously, backing away from the crowd of super-soldiers, "Warsmith's orders. He wanted three full squads of Lunar Guard, you see. Sorry!" She quickly began herding the other ponies down the street, heading toward the gate.
The squad leader watched the armored alicorn leave, saying nothing.
Then he gestured to the two sentinel scout walkers. "You two. Escort the xenos. The rest of us have other duties to see to."
The humans piloting the walkers acknowledged the command and swiftly turned to follow the equines, leaving the Chaos Marines to disperse.


"Well, that was most troublesome," Luna murmured as she glanced around at the fortress-factory around them, "We had forgotten that We had only before ventured in this place in the world of dreams. 'Tis most different in the waking world."
"I can't believe those savages! Do they not know who stood before them?" seethed a batpony guard.
"No," Twilight answered in exasperation, "no, they had no idea."
That gave the Lunar Guard pause.
"They're an army of alien space pirates," Twilight went on to explain, trying very hard not to sound sarcastic, "why would they know or care about the Equestrian royal family? There are maybe twenty or thirty humanoids in this entire fortress who even know who Princess Luna is."
The dark alicorn's ears flattened against her head. "... Truly?" she asked sadly. She was pretty sure way more humans than that knew about Celestia.
Twilight winced at the forlorn expression on Luna's face. "It's nothing personal, Princess. Humans generally aren't that interested in our political structures, and they've been very distracted recently. You know, what with the impending battle."
Luna perked up immediately. "Of course! We received thy missive sent to our sister, Sparkle, and hast made haste to join thee on the eve of battle! Where art the Ork raiders? When shalt we face them?"
Twilight paused. "As far as I know, the Orks are still making their way to our planet. They translated in pretty far away. I've been trying to get as much practice as possible with my new armor before they get here."
The purple pony took a moment to arrange the three objects floating behind her, and her helmet dropped down to hang from her gorget while the force harmonizer mag-locked onto the top of her flight pack.
"Can we have our spears back now?" asked one Lunar Guard irritably as she stared at the bundle of polearms hovering over Twilight's head.
"NO," Twilight snapped, "you get these back when the humans say you do. You're in the 38th Company's fortress now, and you follow their rules. If you don't..." she trailed off. "Well, never mind. You already know what happens if you don't."
Then she glanced at Luna hesitantly. "Speaking of which, you're taking that whole incident pretty well, Luna."
The larger alicorn shrugged. "'Tis only fair. We attacked the Warsmith when he visited Canterlot, and without such generous warning."
Twilight blinked in surprise. She hadn't thought of it that way. Then she snapped the bundle of floating spears back through the air and away from a batpony who was trying to sneak up on it. "No! Quit that!"
"One indignity that Solon hath not suffered at our hooves is being searched and questioned like common thieves, however," Luna continued, looking at the sentinels following them with an irritated expression, "surely the Warsmith can exempt us from such tedium so that We may plot the downfall of the hated enemy."
Twilight took a moment to consider that.
"Well, I suppose he could if we asked him, but I can't really call on him whenever I want," Twilight reasoned, "and we can't go wandering around the fortress until you all have security clearance, so unless we were to just find him randomly wandering around the-"
"That's him, right? Giant metal spider guy?" asked a Lunar Guard, pointing a hoof off to the side.
Twilight jerked her head in that direction, catching sight of Solon standing outside of a refinery. And standing in front of him, with a stream of smoke wafting from her armor...
"Oh, what the hay, Dash?" Twilight whispered. Only the fact that her hooves were sealed in sharp-edged adamantium plating kept her from slapping one into her face.


"How did thish even happen? Are you TRYING to kill yourshelf?" Solon demanded, his mechatendrils hissing angrily at the pegasus standing below him.
"Of course not! I've just been putting the armor through its paces! You know, breaking it in!" insisted the blue pony.
"It sheemsh to me you've jusht been plain breaking it," the Warsmith mused.
Both of Rainbow's wing sheaths were battered and torn, with smoke rising from the flickering boosters. One shoulder pad was gone, as was much of Rainbow's helmet above the vox grille. Miraculously, her shuriken catapult was still intact and even seemed to be in working shape.
"Look, this flight pack is great, but it takes a lot of practice to get the hang of it," the pegasus insisted, "and we have like, what, a DAY before we're up to our necks in Orks? I have to be flying in top form if people are going to be shooting at me!"
"Then you shouldn't be battering yourshelf against the manufactorum blocksh!" Solon countered. "You're not going to be in top form with broken power armor and a concushion!"
"Okay, I'm sorry! But I almost have that kinesis thing down! Just fix me up this one time, all right? My jets are making this funny hissing noise even when they're not on, and one of my wings is a lot warmer than the other."
"Do you really think I have nothing better to do when we have an Ork raider fleet en route?!"
"C'mon, Sol! Be cool!"
"Shtop calling me that!"
"GREETINGS, WARSMITH!! WE HAST ARRIVED TO JOIN THEE IN GLORIOUS COMBAT AGAINST THE ALIEN THREAT!!"
Luna's intrusion upon the conversation quickly ended the argument, and the Chaos Lord turned toward the group of approaching ponies and sentinel escorts.
Then he turned toward Rainbow Dash again. "Go gather up the mishing armor piecesh firsht. I'm not building you an entirely new helmet."
"Aw, are you serious? The helmet scattered everywhere after it broke!" Rainbow complained.
"Then you'd better shtart looking right away," Solon advised the pegasus.
"Tch!" Rainbow ground her teeth in annoyance, then hesitated as she saw the walkers following alongside Luna's group. "Hey, you guys! In the scouts! Help me find my armor pieces!"
One of the pilots leaned out of her walker and frowned at the other one. "Do we take orders from the horses now?"
"Shtarting now, you do. Do whatever she shaysh sho that she'll go away," Solon demanded.
"This is setting a troubling precedent," grumbled the other sentinel pilot as the scout walkers broke off from their escort formation and stomped after the rainbow-maned pony.


"Princeshesh! It ish a relief to shpeak to equinesh with half their witsh about them," the Warsmith grunted as he walked over toward the other ponies, "and may I ashume theshe are the batpony conshcriptsh?"
"Aye!" Luna confirmed. "We art here to fully join our strength to thine own!"
The batponies seemed to be increasingly perturbed as the hulking Iron Warrior approached, and one of them nervously turned toward Twilight. "Can we PLEASE have our spears back now?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "For the last time-"
"Sure! Shparkle, releashe their weaponsh," Solon commanded.
Twilight spent a moment gaping in confusion, but then hesitantly lowered the spears onto the ground. The Lunar Guard practically lunged for their polearms, quickly racing back into formation to stand between their Princess and the Chaos Lord.
"There was a minor altercation earlier with thy men," Luna confessed as her guards finished re-arming themselves, "they insisted that we go through some manner of security protocol prior to having free reign throughout thy fortress."
Solon's optics flickered briefly, and a hololith screen appeared for roughly three seconds, vanishing long before any of the equines could manage to read it.
"All done. I've requeshted accesh amuletshfor you all, shecurity tier shecundush. The shervitor should arrive within the hour. It'sh a long walk, though."
One of the batponies leaned in toward Twilight. "I like this one WAY better than that last guy."
"Yeah," Twilight murmured back, sighing, "Solon is... well... helpful."
Another batpony leaned toward her from the other side. "What's wrong with his voice?" She ignored him.
"Most excellent! Then let us discuss the coming battle!" Luna insisted. "If the foe hath not yet landed upon pony soil, We may seek rest first; we art normally asleep at the current hour."
"That's a 'we' we, not a royal We, by the way," interjected one of the Lunar Guards.
"Shparkle, shee to their lodgingsh," Solon ordered as he started turning his chassis around, "come with me, Princesh. I can give you a quick briefing, but there ish much I musht yet shee to. BESHIDESH repairing that blue idiot'sh armor."


Twilight frowned as she watched Luna and Solon walk off together, leaving her with the herd of batponies. Somehow it felt a little bit galling to be given a task like assigning sleeping space while Luna left to discuss warfare strategy. She supposed it shouldn't be a surprise though, since Luna was the second most powerful pony on the planet in magical and political terms and (inexplicably) seemed even closer to Solon than she did.
"Was he drunk? Or sick, maybe? He sounded sick. He shouldn't be working if he's sick."
Twilight fought off a sigh as she turned to face her current charges. "No, he just talks like that. Anyway, we have to wait here until the servitor arrives with the ident-tags, so I have some time to explain how you can go about your business around here without getting SHOT."
"Actually, is there a hospital or something in here?" asked a guard who was helping along the mare with battered armor. "Nightshade took a pretty bad hit back there. She's not looking too good."
"You callin' me... UGLY?" the aforementioned mare slurred, her head slowly swaying from side to side. "I'm gonna... kick all yer flanks... as soon as you all... stop dancing..."
Twilight shook her head. "The humans have a very relaxed approach to treating severe concussions. It's doubtful they'd do much."
She cleared her throat to start instructing the batponies on some of the finer point on not annoying the Iron Warriors, but noticed a stallion with his hoof raised in the air as he used his spear for support.
"Yes? You had a question?" Twilight asked.
"Is it true you can buy people here?" he asked seriously.
Twilight winced. "That... That's true, yes. The 38th Company does trade in slaves. Although it's a cruel and terrible practice, we haven't really thought of a way to convince them to stop."
"Do you know how much they go for?" the batpony asked bluntly. "Oh! And do they have any minotaurs, by any chance? I always thought it would be cool to have a minotaur for a butler."
Twilight stared at him. He stared back. The other batponies patiently waited for her to answer the question, not obviously disturbed.
"What? You just said it's legal here, right?" he asked, failing to understand why Twilight was hesitating.
"... Is this the reason why we don't let you guys live in normal pony settlements with the rest of us?" Twilight asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Not the only reason, no."


****


"The Ork fleet ish shlightly shmaller than our own, numbering eight veshelsh of conventional shize," Solon explained as he projected a hololith of the Centaur system in front of Luna, "we hold the advantage in termsh of firepower and shkill. But Orksh are eashy to undereshtimate, and alwaysh dangeroush. We cannot count on a shimple victory."
Luna nodded grimly at the cluster of red spots floating through the solar system. "And when shalt the foe arrive?"
"They will be within reach of high orbit come tomorrow morning. After that, we're not completely sure what they'll do," Solon admitted, "they might attack the fleet, mishtaking ush for helplesh freightersh ash sho many foolish raidersh before them. Or they may rush to make planetfall. The only thing we can count on ish that the greenshkinsh will be eager to reach combat."
"And what is the ideal scenario?" Luna asked, a hoof to her chin.
"The besht-cashe would be for the Orksh to utterly empty their shipsh onto the planet shurface, perhapsh under the impression that there'sh already a ground war going on," the Iron Warrior said, "ash Ferroush Dominush is the only obvioush military fortification of any worth, they would attack ush at our shtrongesht point and break themshelvesh againsht our wallsh."
Luna considered this, frowning. "But would the danger to Equestria's lands not be much greater if the green beasts art allowed to make landing upon our soil?"
"Meh," Solon replied.
Luna stared at him in disapproval.
"My firsht priority ish my shipsh," Solon stated blithely, "it'sh alsho more helpful to our eventual goalsh for the Orksh to die here, on the shurface. Xenosh that perish in the void will not empower the Dark Portal."
Luna nodded reluctantly, accepting the logic. "Very well. We suppose the danger is necessary." Then she cleared her throat. "Then but one matter remains before us."
The alicorn's demeanor changed entirely, a wide, indulgent smile crossing her muzzle. "We hast seen that both the Elements of Magic and Loyalty bear thy plate armor, Warsmith. Surely thou dost not intend to send us into the fray without similar protections?"
Solon was silent for several seconds after that.
"You know, I'm actually upshet with myshelf right now," Solon eventually said as the hololith vanished, "I should have sheen thish coming."
Luna said nothing, batting her eyelids at the mechanized Astartes.
"Look, I can't poshibly deshign and build you a power armor shuit before the Orksh reach orbit," the Warsmith sighed, "don't you have any armor of your own? Your kind treatsh pshionic-reshonance artifactsh like common trinketsh."
"We hast such armor, yes," Luna said dismissively, "but it simply doth not compare to what We hast seen of Macintosh Apple's plate, and as We understand it his was merely the first. With our warriors equipped as such, what chance hath the green brutes before us?"
"Yesh, well, that'sh a problem, actually," Solon admitted. As Luna's enthusiasm petered out, he continued. "Ash Mish Dash hash extenshively demonshtrated, posheshion of shuperior wargear doesh not confer competence. Your Elementsh are well-equipped, but shtill relatively new to open warfare and completely new to their armor shyshtemsh. They will have almosht no opportunity to train with their equipment before sheeing heavy combat."
As Luna's expression turned thoughtful, Solon shrugged. "Learning experiencesh on the battlefield are effective, of courshe, but often fatal. I do not expect to shee the equinesh performing to their full potential againsht the Orksh."
"So we require a method of simulating combat in a compressed period of time, whilst ensuring the safety of the trainees?" Luna asked.
"Affirmative," Solon grunted, "we do not poshesh shuch shimulation facilitiesh. Almosht all of our warriorsh are experienced veteransh, sho training areash are not a priority."
Luna smiled. "But we do possess such facilities, Warsmith."
Solon paused. "Come again?"
The dark-furred Princess turned away, still smiling. "We must see to our rest for now. Please ensure that thou also sleeps come the fall of night. We shalt be coming. And We will be bringing friends."


****


???


"So then we spent nearly half an hour discussing whether legality is really an objective measure of moral legitimacy before the servitor arrived. I'm pretty sure I made a winning point there, but then he wanted to discuss whether there could be such a thing as universal morality in the presence of objectively advanced civilizations with starkly different values systems. That would have taken all DAY," Twilight grumbled as she sat on her haunches.
The young alicorn was sitting next to Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy as they waited in the midst of what appeared to be a manufactorum block of Ferrous Dominus. None of them were wearing their armor suits, nor did they possess any of the other articles that one usually needed to safely travel around the fortress, such as a respirator or security badge. Strangely, the manufactorum was completely empty; the normally bustling avenues were deserted, and the perpetually active machinery of the massive factory was silent.
"So I assigned them some rooms in the mercenary dorms and had the servitor show them to it," Twilight finished, "and good riddance. I'm glad Solon didn't make me show them around."
"... I think you should have asked that guy out," Rainbow said after a few seconds of thought.
Twilight spent a moment sputtering in confusion before shaking her head. "No! Not a chance! His reaction to being introduced to a slave-holding society was to ask about prices! I wouldn't date anypony like that! That's a deal-breaker!"
"Why? It doesn't bother you enough that you can't make friends with the humans," Rainbow pointed out, "and I thought you'd appreciate somepony who could talk with you about lame egghead stuff."
Twilight groaned. "Well, it just so happens that my standards for a special somepony are a little higher than that, Dash."
"Ya should be a little more open-minded," Applejack advised, "ya don't exactly have stallions linin' up outside yer door, Twi."
Twilight tilted her head to the side as she frowned. "What do you mean by that?"
"Applejack! Too honest!" Fluttershy hissed.
The discussion was thankfully cut short as a pool of shadows appeared on the walkway in front of the mares. They turned to watch as the darkness bubbled up and spilled two new ponies into the area.
"Woo-hoo! Time for intensive dream training!" Pinkie Pie shouted gleefully as she bounced out of the shadow gate. Luna stood behind her, a smile playing on her muzzle.
"Howdy, Pinkie! Hope yer dream 'fore now wasn't too interestin'!" Applejack said, tilting her hat to the side.
"Eh, it was okay. Gumdrops, caramels, you know, the usual," the pink mare shrugged.
"The candies had been fused into a massive fortification not entirely unlike this one," Luna said, "though We still wonder at the possible use of 'peppermint mines'." The Princess of the Night spread her wings as the shadows pooled beneath her hooves again. "We shalt retrieve the Element of Generosity, and then thy trials shalt begin!"
The shadows surged upward and consumed the dark blue alicorn, and then she was gone.


"I have to admit, this was a brilliant idea," Twilight said as she stood up and looked around at the fortress, "with Luna's dream-walking magic and Solon's programmable lucid dreams, we could generate any kind of scenario we wanted!"
"Kind of wish we arrived in our armor, though," Rainbow murmured as she looked up at the smoke stacks, "that way I could at least get in a little flight practice while we're waiting."
"Silly Dashie! This is a dream! All you have to do is imagine what you want, and it will appear!" Pinkie said with a giggle.
Rainbow Dash looked back down, and sure enough, Pinkie was now in the dreadnought shell she had "found", her head barely poking out of the gorget.
"Whoa! Really?" Rainbow asked, standing up eagerly.
Pinkie giggled again. "Nah, I'm just kidding! I have a cheat code."
"A... cheat... what?"
As Rainbow mumbled to herself in confusion, Pinkie twisted the walker around to look down at Twilight. "Hey, where is Shmithy, anyway? Isn't this his dream, technically?"
"He's around," Applejack said with a shrug, "he said he had ta get everythin' set up fer us."
"What were you doing all day, anyway?" Twilight asked. "I didn't see you at the practice range."
"I was making some modifications to the Easy Bake 500 here," Pinkie said with a self-satisfied smile.
"Modifications? Like what?"
Pinkie ducked her head into the walker, and then the entire mechanical body flickered in place.
When Pinkie's head emerged again, the dreadnought armor was painted bright pink. Pinkie's cutie mark was drawn over the right shoulder pad just like on the others' armor suits, and the letters H-U-G-S were written across the four fingers of the power fist. There was also a cannon mounted on each shoulder now, which would have made for a substantial firepower upgrade if they didn't both appear to be party cannons of Pinkie's own design.
"...... It's, uhm, very nice, Pinkie," Fluttershy finally said, being the only one who could bring herself to compliment the "upgrades".
"Yer gonna stick out like a pear in an apple tree with those colors, though," Applejack murmured, "ya ain't worried them Ork varmints'll shoot you first?"
"That might happen!" Pinkie admitted with no loss of cheer. "But from a strategic perspective, that just means that there will be less Orks shooting at the other big walkers, who are all much better fighters than me!"
"That's... grim, but entirely logical," Twilight mumbled.
Then the pool of shadows reappeared next to Rainbow Dash.


Those ponies that were still sitting quickly stood up as Rarity and Luna emerged into the empty street. They noticed right away that the unicorn seemed rather anxious, however.
"Whatsa matter, Rares? Bad dream?" Applejack asked, lifting her hat up.
Rarity blinked. "A bad... YES! Precisely! Simply horrid! It was so awful that I dare not recount its terrors! Let us speak no more on the matter!" Her eyes nervously shifted left and right, sneaking a glance at Luna.
The Princess simply smirked, saying nothing.


"Hey, Sol!" Rainbow Dash called out, shouting straight upward as she had no real idea where the Warsmith was. "We're all here! Let's get this show on the road!"
A flare of light heralded the Chaos Lord's appearance. He was in his modern form, with his usual armored chassis and an augmetic that was just a cluster of other servo arms.
"Good. All the preparations are complete," Solon said as he gestured to the heavy doors of the manufactorum, "I have set the program to release the Ork-"
"IMPOSTER!!" Pinkie suddenly roared, surging forward with her eyes ablaze and her power fist crackling.
Solon barely had time to mumble in confusion before the massive dreadnought fist came down on his head, utterly obliterating it and also crushing most of the rest of his torso all the way down to the chassis.
"PINKIE!! WHAT THE HAY?!?!" Twilight screeched, her mane sticking straight up in shock.
The Warsmith's remains let out a blast of compressed gases after a moment, and then the chassis collapsed onto the ground in a heap.
"You... You killed Solon," Rainbow Dash mumbled, her eyes wide as saucers. She wasn't the only one. Only Luna didn't look completely stunned by the outbreak of violence, and even she still offered a few surprised blinks.
Pinkie shook her head. "That WASN'T Shmithy," the party pony said darkly, glaring down at the shattered body. "... Er... isn't Shmithy, I mean."
The reason for her correction was because the mechanoid Astartes was rapidly regenerating, his armor swelling outward back to its proper form like a shaped balloon being filled with air. Within seconds the head had been completely restored, and soon Solon was standing up again to make eye level with Pinkie Pie.
"Would you care to explain that, or did you want to just waste more of our time?" the Chaos Lord asked.
In retrospect, he regretted offering her the choice.
Twilight cringed away as the Warsmith was once again smashed by the energized fist of Pinkie's walker. "Pinkie! Seriously! Stop that!"
"Aye. 'Tis not at all productive," Luna agreed, "this is a dreamscape. Thou cannot harm another dreamer so easily."
Pinkie pouted as she backed away from Solon, watching the Chaos Lord once again return to an undamaged state. "But where's the real Solon?"
"What are you talking about? Why do you think that's a fake?" Rainbow Dash demanded.
"Because his voice is all normal!" Pinkie complained.
Silence reigned as the pink dreadnought pointed a huge finger at the Iron Warrior while its pony pilot sniffed, looking heartbroken.
Twilight turned to address the fully regenerated Warsmith. "If you want to drop her out of this, I wouldn't hold it against you."
"Oh, no, that's fine," Solon said, waving his flesh-arm, "I'll get to watch her explode multiple times tonight. It will make up for this, I'm sure."
"Miss Pie, We assure thee that this is most definitely the Warsmith," Luna calmly reassured the anxious pony, "he never slurs his speech in the realm of dreams."
"Awwww..." Pinkie's walker leaned forward as she looked despondent, and Twilight couldn't decide whether she'd rather offer the pink mare a hug or a lightning bolt to the face.
"If that confusion has been resolved, then I will continue," Solon murmured, pointing at a spot in the street.
In a flash of light, there was a new figure standing out in the open. This one was a green-skinned, humanoid figure wearing dirty pants and a shirt with several ramshackle metal plates attached to it. Its head was hairless, and large tusks jutted upward from its heavy jaw.
"This is the common Ork soldier," Solon began as the muscular green alien glanced around obliviously, "it possesses dull senses, poor reflexes, and a distinctly low intellect. Barely capable of verbal communication and basic tactics, it truly understands but one thing: that fighting is fun."
"Well, they don't sound too impressive," Rarity mumbled as she looked the creature over.
"Kinda big, though," Rainbow Dash frowned up at it. It was slightly hunched over, but still obviously larger than a human, who were themselves significantly bigger than ponies.
"Indeed. Orks are big. And there are a lot of them. Besides that, they have an irritating talent for turning their weaknesses into strengths. They don't feel much pain and are so feeble-minded as to be unpredictable on the battlefield. And their technology is so crude that it can be assembled from the scraps found in the trash heaps of more intellectual species. They are slow and dull-witted, yes, but also very easy to underestimate."
"Well, then let's get to fighting them!" Rainbow Dash snapped, shaking a hoof at the alien.
"Of course." With a gesture from Solon, the Elements of Harmony found themselves in their power armor suits (aside from Pinkie, anyway). The Ork vanished.
"I have set up the opponents to arrive in waves of increasing size and strength," Solon explained, "once you take lethal damage, you will be teleported to a different area where you will wait for your allies to join you in ignominious failure. Then you will be attacked again."
"Oh dear. This isn't going to hurt, is it?" Fluttershy whimpered, already feeling the urge to trigger her armor cloak.
"It will not. Sensation within the simulation can feel realistic, but it will not trigger a pain response." Hearing no other questions forthcoming, Solon backed away. "Luna and I will be observing from an elevated location."
The Warsmith vanished from sight, and Luna bowed her head.
"Good luck to thee, Elements. May thou lay waste to entire armies of the foe!"
She started to lift off, but hesitated as Rarity trotted over.
"Remember, you cannot tell ANYONE what you saw!" the unicorn hissed, leaning in toward the Princess.
"Aye, We know," Luna rolled her eyes as she took off into the polluted skies.
Seriously, as if Rarity's was the first conceited, sexually-charged power fantasy she'd ever walked into. Mare needed to lighten up.


"Okay, so how we gonna do this?" Applejack asked, her helmet sweeping from side to side nervously.
Twilight cycled the vision modes on her visor to see if it could detect the incoming enemies somehow. "Well, I'm not sure how the Orks are going to come to us. Do they teleport in, or-"
She almost bounced into the air as a banging noise suddenly came from the manufactorum door next to the avenue.
"Well, that answers that question," Rainbow Dash muttered, lifting off the ground into a hover as her flight pack began a slow burn.
"All right! Everypony stay together! Attack as soon as the door is breached!" Twilight called out as the banging noise intensified.
The doors started to bow outward from the pressure on the other side, and Twilight levitated her force harmonizer into position above her.
"All right, you savages," she mumbled through her vox, "let's see how you fare against the Twibla-"
"Twi, knock it off. That ain't what it's called," Applejack interrupted.
"... Oh, whatever. Here they come!"


The blast doors suddenly burst open with explosive force, and the ponies' visors promptly started tagging hostile targets through the smoke as a crowd of whooping aliens charged through the breach.
Applejack was quickest on the draw, as she had by far the least discriminate weapon. The roar of flames swallowed the roar of the simulated Orks as she let loose her heavy flamer into the horde.
And into her friends, most of whom were in front of her.
"Aw, horseapples! Sorry!" Applejack called out as the others started screaming. "This thing spreads a lot further'n Ah thought!"
"FIRE! I'M ON FIRE!!"
"IT BURNS!! CELESTIA ABOVE, IT... actually, no, this doesn't hurt at all. Strange."
"Help! I can't be invisible like this!"
"AJ, you team-killer!"
Only Pinkie had been standing behind the apple farmer at the time, and she soon erupted into full-blown laughter as she watched her friends start running in circles and rolling around on the ground to put out the flames that surrounded them.
And then, of course, there were the Orks.
"Blugh!" Rainbow Dash yelped as she caught a massive axe to her helmet, and she staggered for a moment before three more Orks surrounded her and started beating at her scorched armor with their axes and heavy pistols.
Similar scenes played out around the other burning ponies, and Applejack cringed and backed away as she watched aliens surround and pummel her friends.
"Uh... should Ah... um..." then her eyes narrowed, and the apple farmer set her jaw. "Aw, the hay with it! It ain't real, anyhow!"
With that declaration, she turned toward the nearest cluster of Orks (who were stomping on Rainbow Dash's mangled body) and once again unleashed her heavy flamer.
"GAH!! Now you're doing it on purpo-" Rainbow's voice vanished as she was cooked inside her armor, and her body vanished in a puff of dark smoke.
"Applejack! This is NOT a proper display of friendshi-" Twilight was similarly cut off as the tongue of flames passed over her.
"Tell Angel I'm sorry Mommy won't be coming home!" Fluttershy managed to squeal before her own armor gave way to the devastating heat.
"OF ALL THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN!!" Rarity cried as she burned.
Pinkie Pie continued to howl with mirth as the Orks and ponies burned together, her entire walker shaking back and forth in imitation of a belly laugh.
Then her eyes snapped open as she sobered instantly. "Twitchy tail!"
She paused. "Oh, wow, that even works in virtual reality? Neat!"
Then a loud clanging noise came from behind her, and she spied an Ork sprinting away to the side.
"Hey! Did you put a 'kick me' sign on my back? Because that's kind of funny, but pretty pointless! In this thing I don't think I'd even feel-" the tankbusta bomb chose that moment to detonate, and the rest of Pinkie's warning was lost as bits of her dreadnought were scattered over the avenue.
Applejack whirled around at the explosion, and she whipped her tail forward at the Ork carrying explosives.
The gravity lash struck true, and Applejack immediately yanked the greenskin off his feet and onto the ground in front of her.
"Stay off our planet, ya green varmint!" she howled as she reared up and activated the gravity plates in her greaves. Her forehooves landed on the Ork's body with tremendous force, crushing the alien to a paste and splattering the underside of her armor with gore.
"How do ya like them apples?! Who's next?!" Applejack twisted her head around left and right, but couldn't see any more movement among the piles of torched aliens and steaming bits of dreadnought wreckage.
Then a message appeared on her visor, stating "Wave one complete."
"Wait, Ah won? Really?" Applejack asked, surprised.
"Yes. Yes, you did," said Solon as his vox link connected to her helmet. 
Applejack could swear she heard hysterical laughter in the background, but decided to ignore it. "All right, good. So what now?"
"Now you and the rest of the survivors face wave two," Solon explained, "there will be almost twice as many opponents."
"... Wait. Me and the survivors? But..." Applejack looked at the veritable wall of flames in front of her, and her head sunk in embarrassment. "Oh."
"Normally I'd take the time to give you a lesson about teamwork, but I think the Orks will demonstrate that well enough for you in a moment. Good luck."
The vox line was cut, and Applejack cringed as she heard a furious bellow coming from deeper in the manufactorum.


****


"I can't BELIEVE she did that! As soon as she dies she's getting a face full of ninja stars!" Rainbow Dash growled, her flight pack sputtering flames as if in angry sympathy.
Twilight rolled her eyes behind her visor. "Rainbow, would you let it go? It was an accident."
"The FIRST jet of fire was an accident!" the pegasus retorted.
"The whole point of this is to learn to use our equipment properly," Twilight countered, "better that Applejack torch us now and learn her lesson. Tomorrow the fire is going to be real."
Rainbow's helmet sunk slightly, which Twilight chose to interpret as submission to her logic.
"All right, so when Applejack re-joins us, let's all remember NOT to stand in front of her when we're lining up for a defense," the purple pony said with a nod.
"But what if AJ doesn't join us?" Pinkie asked, turning her walker toward Twilight. "You saw how easily she wiped out those Orks! Well, okay, you DIDN'T see because your visor was covered in licking flames, but I did, and it was intense! What if she just burns through the remaining waves while we're just waiting for her to die, and then we spend all night just standing around because-"
"EEEEEYAAAAAH!!!"
Pinkie's extended question was cut off as a vox-distorted scream boomed through the vast, empty fortress.
"Okay, never mind," Pinkie mumbled as a flare of light appeared next to her.
"Sam Apple's ghost!" Applejack gasped as she rematerialized. "That Ork was huge! Bigger'n a Space Marine, even! Ah think he-"
She was promptly cut off by a spray of shuriken to the faceplate.
"Dash! No! Bad girl!" Rarity barked, slapping Rainbow Dash's helmet with the butt of her sheathed power sword.
"What? Now we're even!" the pegasus protested.
"Rainbow! What did I say about that?" Twilight growled.
"It's all right," Applejack sighed, looking back up, "Ah'm really sorry about the flamer. Ah figgered our run was ruined anyway, so Ah got carried away."
Twilight nodded. "Apology accepted."
Rainbow Dash stepped forward, her visor magnifying the view of Applejack's helmet.
"Whoa, what the hay? My ninja stars barely scratched you!"
"Really? Huh. Weird," the apple farmer mumbled, "mah weapon seemed to work pretty well 'gainst you."
She was glad her helmet concealed the smirk on her face.
"If you're done re-enacting holovid sitcoms, the next round is about to begin," Solon's voice said as it poured from a nearby vox caster on a wall. There was still laughing in the background. "Miss Applejack managed a fair score on her own, considering it was her first attempt, but obviously you're going to have to work together so that your weapons and abilities complement each other rather than kill each other."
Pinkie pouted. "Can't you slur your S's just a little bit? Like, maybe every other one? It sounds like I'm being lectured by a stranger, otherwise!"
"In this new round, you'll be starting at wave one again. However, this time all opponents will be armed with anti-armor charges, and will make your walker support a priority target."
Twilight blinked. "Is this to teach us the common patterns of Ork battlefield tactics?"
"No."
The vox cut out, and a new banging noise came from another adjacent doorway.
"Well, here we go again," Rainbow grumbled as she again lifted off into a hover, "AJ, this time you're in FRONT." The largest of the armored mares moved forward, her flamer glowing in preparation for the eventual release. "Flutters, can you..."
Rainbow looked around, but only saw three other power-armored ponies and one assault walker. "Fluttershy?"
"Present," came a voice from nowhere.
"Getting a head start on turning invisible this time, huh?" Rainbow asked. Fluttershy nodded in reply, forgetting that nopony could see the gesture.
The doors started bowing outward again, and Twilight's force harmonizer lit up in a blaze of violet power. "Get ready! Here they come!"
The doors were torn open.
This time, Pinkie Pie was the first one to fire, wary of the fact that apparently the aliens would be going straight for her. Her plasma cannon let out a tremendous whine as it blasted an orb of energy toward the oncoming horde, sending it sailing over the heads of her friends.
Or at least, it WOULD have went over their heads if one of them wasn't hovering over everypony else.
Rainbow Dash didn't even have time to complain this time as the plasma sphere instantly vaporized her, and the orb promptly detonated to consume the rest of the closely-packed ponies.
By the time Pinkie's vision recovered fully from the light flare, the only one of her friends remaining was Applejack, and the other earth pony was clearly struggling as the outer layers of her armor melted around her.
"...... How is your hat still okay?" Pinkie asked.
Applejack was immediately dogpiled by Orks, cutting off any response she might have offered.
"Huh. All right, I'm going to need a targeting visor like everypony else," Pinkie Pie admitted as she aimed the plasma cannon upward, "eyeballing the aim on this thing is NOT going to work."
She felt her Pinkie Sense going off in her tail, but she didn't bother to react as numerous magnetized bombs were slapped onto her walker from multiple sides.
"All right everypony, new round! In three, two, one-"


Up above the detonating dreadnought, Solon watched as Luna broke into a new fit of hysterical laughter. The alicorn was rolling across the manufactorum roof on her back, kicking her hooves in the air wildly as she fought to breathe past her guffawing.
"I'm glad you're enjoying this," Solon said as he tracked the ponies rematerializing across the dreamscape, "I thought watching your associates being brutally murdered over and over again might be unpleasant for you."
Luna took some time to calm down, and eventually her laughing fit petered out to mere snickering.
"We suppose it doth bode ill for the battles ahead," she chuckled, "but did thou SEE the expression on the Element of Laughter's face?!"
"Yes, I'm having a fine time as well," Solon agreed before he switched on the area vox casters, "next round, wave one. Watch those area-effect weapons, girls."
With a thought he sent in the Ork wave again, and then turned back to Luna.
"Aren't there two more equines who could benefit from these simulations, however? I know both Macintosh and Trixie have combat experience with their armor suits now, but surely-"
He suddenly snapped his head around and turned on the vox casters again. "It's a force harmonizer, Sparkle! You're not fooling anyone! Use it's proper name or I'll take it away!"
He turned back to Luna. "But surely they could still use practice."
Luna tilted her head to the side as she stood up. "We did inquire with Miss Lulamoon if she wished to join the exercises, but she seemed convinced that she would not benefit significantly. Also, she said she had other preparations to make if you were to once again send her into the fray."
She paused. "We hast not considered Mister Macintosh, however. We shalt inquire if he wishes to join us."
Luna spread her wings, and a pool of blackness erupted from the ground and consumed her.


Solon watched the pool of darkness dry up, letting his mind wander on the applications of dream-based psionics. It was certainly an obscure branch of psychic power, if nothing else; he had never heard of such abilities before meeting Luna.
"No matter how far we go, we always have so much to learn," the Warsmith mumbled to himself.
He was brought out of his musings by a number of surprised shouts from below.
"I CAN'T SEE!! WHAT'S HAPPENING?!"
"Sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"Fluttershy? That was you?! Oof!"
"The visor does nothin'! Hey! Stop that! Get offa me, ya green galoot!"
"At least you HAVE a visor! I can't even-TWITCHA TWITCH!"
Solon chuckled to himself as he watched a magnetic bomb clamp onto the leg of Pinkie's walker. A few seconds later an explosion bloomed from below, and the angry shouting died down as the mares resigned themselves to starting over again.
"... I do hope they at least manage to cut down on the friendly fire by the time dawn arrives," Solon mumbled, "it would be quite a waste for all that equipment to be lost in their first battle. And I'm sure Celestia would just throw a FIT." The vox system came on again. "Next round, wave one."


****


???


Big Macintosh grinned as his forelegs beat against the surface of the water, throwing up a torrent of water into the air and splashing the laughing pony facing him.
Sparkling droplets trickled down a coat of midnight blue as the mare recoiled and spread her dark wings above her, framing her sleek, beautiful face in a glittering mist.
"Thou thinks to challenge us?" Luna said haughtily as her mane clung to her neck around her head. Her voice was anything but angry, and a wide smile played across her muzzle as she reared up in the belly-deep water. "Have at thee!"
Big Mac was forced back as Luna blasted at the surface of the pond with her wings, completely covering him.
The two ponies were in the middle of the apple orchard in the dead of night, playing in a large pond that had been deep in the fields for as long as Mac could remember.
He was vaguely aware that this particular place was recently obliterated by the spacecraft that had landed on the Apple property, but somehow such things seemed quite irrelevant during a midnight rendezvous with an Equestrian Princess.
"Hast thee had enough already?" Luna taunted with a grin as she fell back into the water. "Surely the formidable 'Ironside' is not so easily defeated!"
"Nnnnope," Macintosh replied as he turned around. Speaking of his silly nickname, he noticed that he didn't seem to have any augmetic body parts right now. Weird.
"Art thou attempting to distract us with thy backside?" Luna laughed. "It shalt-"
She was cut off as an enormous wave of water engulfed her, throwing her back into the deeper end of the pond.
Big Mac turned around, smirking. His kick had cut a deep swath through the pond, and the water sloshed and surged around him as it leveled out again.
His smirk slowly vanished as he glanced about the pond, seeing no sign of Luna. Had she been submerged in the deeper section of the water? Could she swim?
The idea that a Princess could be endangered by a big jet of water seemed absurd, but he took a few hesitant steps forward as he searched the pond.
A crackling noise came from above him, and Big Macintosh yelped as Luna rematerialized and landed on his back.
"Outmaneuvered!" Luna shouted triumphantly as she straddled him. "Surrender at once and We shalt show mercy, crimson one!"
Big Mac grinned. "Eeyup. Ya got me."
Luna grinned and leaned forward to rub her cheek against the stallion's. "Then the conquering Princess shalt claim her prize! Prepare thee for-"
A snapping branch silenced her immediately, and Big Mac whirled around to face the noise. Luna lost her balance and slipped off his back, landing in the water with an undignified yelp.
Macintosh would have offered to help her up, but he honestly didn't notice. He was too stunned by the sight of the pony on the shore.
Luna stared back at the stallion silently, and she arched an eyebrow as she watched herself emerge from the water, sputtering in surprise.
She looked down at a pile of objects on the ground in front of her: Mac's harness, as well as her regalia, all lying in a careless heap. Then she looked back up at the couple staring at her in shock.
Big Macintosh glanced from one Luna to another, wondering if he was in trouble.
Then the Luna on the shore laid down, crossing her forelegs in front of her.
"Please, do not mind us," she said with a smile, "do continue."


****


Ferrous Dominus - psyker dorms


Twilight awoke with a loud grunt, and her eyelids fluttered open to reveal the dim, sparsely furnished interior of her bedroom.
"... Wow, I can clearly remember everything," she mumbled to herself, rubbing her head with a hoof, "I wonder if that counts as REM sleep. My mind seemed pretty active and alert at the time."
"That WOULD be the first thing you have to say the morning after going through some kind of intensive dream training."
Twilight sat up and twisted her head around as Spike yawned and pushed himself out of bed.
"So, how'd it go?" the young dragon asked as he scratched himself.
"Pretty well, I think," Twilight said as she kicked the sheets off of her, "we didn't start making any real progress until we learned how to keep from hitting each other with our weapons, but after that we did very well." She frowned. "We never got past wave eight, though. Squiggoths are SO broken." Then the purple pony paused. "Also, Princess Luna took off at some point and never came back. That was strange. I would have thought she'd want to join in eventually."
Spike shrugged off the explanation and went to go get some tea ready.
Twilight hopped off the bed and looked over the pieces of her power armor painstakingly stacked against the wall. Then she raised a foreleg, and her eyes were drawn to the small metal nub on the back, just below the knee joint.
The nerve socket was fairly unobtrusive, barely as wide as the head of a tack, but to her it was still a much more significant piece of machinery than the mechanized plating sitting in front of her. Her power armor, for all its complexity and function, was still just a suit that she could put on or take off at will. But the metal sockets on each of her legs, the back of her neck, and between her wings were a permanent part of her now; she wasn't sure the humans even had a procedure for safely removing them.
Her horn lit up as she magically lifted her helmet up and stared at the face. Like Trixie's and Rarity's suits, her helmet wasn't integrated into the armor; their helmets had to be designed around their horns, and with telekinesis they could handle them in ways that earth ponies and pegasi couldn't.
"We've come so far in such a short period of time," the alicorn mumbled, running a hoof across the cold metal cheek of the helmet, "this is my life now, isn't it?"
A dull-sounding klaxon answered her from above as a message was filtered into the vox system.
"Priority alert tertius," the static-laced voice boomed above her, "xeno void ships have entered high orbit and are moving to engagement range. Planetary assault is expected. Chances of orbital bombardment minimal. All combat personnel are to prepare for battle and report for briefing within the hour. That is all."
"They could really stand to end those messages with a 'have a nice day'," Spike mused as he poured a cup of tea for Twilight.
"I'll mention that to Solon next time I see him," the purple pony chuckled as she fit her hooves into her greaves and felt the plating close shut around her, "time to go to work!"


****


Ork kill krooza - Centaur III, high orbit


"Well, well, lookie heah," Hazarr mumbled as he guided a scope to present a magnified view of the planet.
"Now DAT looks like a propah scrap!" the Nob said eagerly.
The scope was currently showing a rather blurry top-down image of Ferrous Dominus, although much of the image was obscured by a pollution haze.
"Hmmmm..." Hazarr made some adjustments to the scanner control, and the obscuring haze was dimmed considerably. Then the larger objects in the base were outlined in red.
"Oi, dat's a lotta loot!"
"Whatta we lookin' at, Boss? Humies? Grays? Shinies?"
Hazarr grunted. "Humies. Only dey bild loike dat. But dere's a lot of 'em. Dey got almost as many boyz as we duz, and a lotta dakka to back 'em up."
A light flashed on one end of the image.
"Eh? Wuzzat, Boss?"
"Gunz. Big gunz," Hazarr grunted, "not aymed at us, tho."
"Wot? Den who dey shootin' at?" asked the Nob, scratching his head.
"I tink I c'n ansah dat," announced an Ork manning a different sensor station, "Boss, da udder boyz is havin' a bit o' trubble wif da humie ships. And dey's da ones gettin' shot from da planet. Dat ain't helpin'."
Hazarr looked up from his controls. "Wot kinda trubble? Dem humie ships is easy. Dey hardly got any dakka on 'em!"
"I tink dey'd disagree, Boss Coggz," the crewman said with a nervous chuckle, "da boyz is gettin' shot up bad. And, uh... da big 'un is kinda... eatin' one of da ships."
The other Ork crew stared as he stepped out of the way of the screen. Sure enough, the image on the monitor showed the massive megafreighter that dominated the fleet with its bow gaping open, clamped around the hull of a frigate-sized gunship. Enormous metal tendrils were snaking around the smaller vessel, drawing the Ork ship in and ripping off the most dangerous weapons.
"Told ya dat ship wuz cursed," Hazarr grunted.
"Yup. Ya called it, Boss." The crewman hesitated. "Wot about da boyz, tho? I dun tink dey can win wifout mo' dakka."
The Big Mek snorted. "I's not about ta get me big ship et up 'cuz dem lunkheads can't do der jobs. Let 'em stick it out or run. We'ze goin' to da planet."
He hesitated as he turned back toward his scope. "But where... I dunno if we got da dakka ta bust dat base. If we'z gonna crakk it, we'z needs some more shooty bitz."
His scope drew away from the fortress as its magnification dropped.
"Hmmmm... Ah, dere we go!" the image focused in on a section of land that was utterly torn apart and covered by chunks of wreckage the size of battle tanks. The scope moved further, and then focused in on the city-sized wreckage of a Tau battlecruiser.
"Now DAT will make fer a few good Stompas!" Hazarr laughed as the scope's view shifted and moved in and out of magnification. "We'z gonna set down dere, make some new, bigga dakka, and den hit da base!"
"All dat loot! Iz gonna be a good day!"
"Aye aye, Boss!"
"'Ey Boss, what's dat udder ting next to da scrap?"
Hazarr paused and then shifted the view on the scope over past the crashed space ship. At the current magnification, although the two areas appeared quite close to each other, the gap between them represented several kilometers.
"... Looks like clowds ta me," the Big Mek mumbled. "Lotta clowds... dat ain't movin' wif da rest'o da sky. Funny."
"Are dose huts on top'o da clowds?" an Ork asked, scratching his head. "Can dey do dat?"
"I nevah looted a clowd a'fore! How do ya do it?"
The aged Big Mek glanced up at his crew and saw that they were all looking at him expectantly.
"... Eh, I'll look inta it once we're dere," Hazarr mumbled, "now get ready fer drop, you grot-lovin' softies! And make shur my ship stays 'way from dose humie gunz! We'z came heah fer a Waaaugh, and we's gettin' a WAAAAUGH!!"


****


Canterlot City


"By Celestia's mane, would you LOOK at this place..."
Five pegasi in blue jumpsuits with yellow lightning patterns over the sides flew over the castle property in an arrow formation, their gazes fixed downward. Each one of them was capable of considerable speed, but right now they were moving almost as slowly as they could imagine without dropping into a hover so as to take in as much of the city below as possible.
Spitfire clicked her tongue as she headed the formation. "Damn grayskin mules. Look at what they did to this place! I only wish we had gotten mobilization orders before the humans drove them out of here!"
Behind her, Fleetfoot shared a dubious glance with Soarin. Neither of them could be considered cowards, but they couldn't say they regretted missing the chance to face an enemy that had neutralized the Princesses with ease and had so obviously outgunned the Royal Guard that they hadn't even fought.
"I dunno Spit, I've heard a thing or two about what went down here," Soarin grimaced as the formation banked, swooping around a crane that looked extremely out of place among the pre-industrial city, "a LOT of humans died during that battle."
The Wonderbolts' captain grit her teeth, although she suppressed the urge to snap at the stallion.
"... It just... bothers me, is all," she mumbled, "this was our fight, but it's like us ponies were just bystanders. I don't like the idea of having to rely on humans to bail us out whenever space freaks come knocking."
"No wonder you were so eager to accept this job," Fleetfoot said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
"Jeez, are those the gardens? There's hardly anything left!"
"What's that?" Fleetfoot asked, pointing to a gunship. "Some kind of vehicle?"
The transport's engines came to life as it started to take off, and the pegasi circled around the landing area, giving the flyer a wide berth as it lifted from the ground.
"That's a BIG flying machine," Soarin mumbled as he watched it pick up speed, "how can it even move?"
"All right, shut your pie-holes! We're going in!" Spitfire ordered.


The Wonderbolts curved around the departing gunship and landed lightly on the scorched platform it had left behind. There were several pony guards on duty, and they quickly left as soon as they saw who had arrived, presumably to inform a superior that the team was here.
There were also a few humans passing by, all of them wearing white robes with sun motifs. The Wonderbolts stared at the passing figures with undisguised curiosity; none of them had ever seen a homo sapien before.
One of the figures noticed them staring and bowed his head as he passed. "Praise the sun."
Spitfire raised an eyebrow. "Uh... sure. You too."
"So they DO speak the same language as us," Soarin mumbled, "that's WEIRD. I mean, what're the odds?"
Spitfire stiffened as she recognized a pony emerging from the castle to meet them. "Atten-SHUN!"
Every one of the Wonderbolts stood up straighter as Shining Armor approached the group.


Shining Armor halted in front of the Wonderbolts, and then he nodded approvingly. "At ease, soldiers."
Their poses relaxed appropriately, and the unicorn started to pace in front of them.
"Let's begin by saying that I'm sorry you were all called here on such short notice. I don't know how carefully you've been tracking 'current events' as per alien activity in Equestria, but things have been developing very quickly around here."
"Quick is how we like things, Captain," Spitfire said, "if our country needs us, we'll be there in a flash!"
"Good attitude," Shining mumbled as he continued to walk in front of the stunt ponies. "As I explained via the letter I sent, you've been requested to act as a reconnaissance team for the humans; it's one area of military expertise where they do not excel. You'll be facing a race of aliens called the Orks."
"Anything you can tell us about these 'Orks', Captain Armor?" Spitfire asked.
"I only know the basics. They're terrestrial, bipedal, green, and extremely violent. A race of warriors and vagrant scavengers. Before today, no mortal Equestrian had seen an Ork. That fortunate streak ends with you."
"We're ready, Sir!" Soarin affirmed.
Shining Armor paused. "Speaking of which... tell me, have any of you seen an Iron Warrior before?"
The Wonderbolts shook their heads.
"I read something about them," Fleetfoot volunteered, "no pictures, though."
"No pictures... well, allow me to paint you one," Shining said grimly, "the Chaos Space Marine is a modified human who stands over eight feet tall and weighs around four hundred pounds. Most of that is granite-hard muscle, while a good portion is bones like steel rods."
The Wonderbolts looked at each other uneasily.
"The Space Marine has redundant organs, superb senses, better reflexes than a cat, and they're trained to a level of military skill that make the Royal Guards look like fumbling buffoons."
Spitfire had to bite her tongue at that. She didn't want to disparage any branch of the Equestrian military, but Canterlot's guards didn't have the best reputation for military competence.
"All that mess of terrifying killing machine is then wrapped in a shell of metal that makes my armor-" he paused to tap a hoof against his breastplate, "-look like so much tinfoil, yet doesn't slow them down at all. Then they're armed with guns that can punch a hole through a minotaur and - I suspect this is just for laughs at this point - a sword that is ALSO a chainsaw!"
This got quite a few raised eyebrows.
"If you can picture all that, you have an idea as to the basic, rank-and-file Iron Warrior," Shining Armor said with a grimace.
"'Basic'? As in, there are other, more dangerous kinds?" Soarin asked.
Shining Armor shuddered as he thought back on the rusted hulks that he had seen on the day of the siege. "Yeah. Yeah, there are."
"Okay, but... aren't they on OUR side?" Fleetfoot asked hesitantly.
"Technically, yes," Shining said with a nod, "although if you spend an hour with one you'll start to wonder. They're not nice people." Then he cleared his throat. "The reason I bring it up, besides the fact that you'll probably meet some soon, is that these new aliens, the Orks, are dangerous enough for the Iron Warriors to take seriously. They were really considering abandoning the planet, and even a few of their space vessels, in order to avoid facing them. So watch your flanks out there."
"You got it, Captain Armor!" Spitfire barked. "You hear the stallion, Wonderbolts?!"
"Aye aye, Sir!" the rest of the pegasi shouted in unison.
"Good. Now I..." Shining trailed off as he heard rocket engines approaching rapidly, and he glanced behind him to check if they had to make way for an approaching gunship.
What he saw instead was a pony-shaped suit of powered armor blasting through the sky directly toward them. The sight was surprising enough that he didn't think to yell out a warning or try to get out of the way.
The armored pony tilted up sharply as it got close, and then a sudden burst of force came from its feet, stopping it almost dead in the air and nearly knocking Shining Armor over.
The unicorn recovered and started backing away from the intruder, his eyebrow arched. "Okay, so... I can't actually explain this..." he admitted.
"Wait a minute," Soarin said as the newcomer landed heavily in front of them, "check out that shoulder pad! That's-"
"Hello, Canterlot! Your savior has arrived!" crowed a vox-distorted voice.
A hiss came from the armor suit as the helmet seals depressurized and cracked open.
"R-Rainbow Dash?" Shining Armor blinked repeatedly. "When did you get... uh..."
The blue pegasus smirked at the ponies gaping at her. "What, this old thing? Well, if you're gonna sign up to be a space pirate, you may as well take advantage of all the perks, right?" Then she snickered. "Hey, wait, check this out. WACHOW!"
She suddenly turned her head toward a stone column, and her shuriken catapult followed the movement and spat a burst at the ruined construct. Most of the shuriken sliced deep into the stone and got stuck, although one happened to strike at an angle and bounce off, cutting into the ground next to Shining Armor's hooves. He cringed and stepped away nervously, disturbed at how deep the projectiles got into solid stone.
"Are those NINJA STARS? You have a gun that shoots NINJA STARS?!" Soarin asked in awe.
"Pretty sweet, huh? You wouldn't believe how much I had to pester Solon to get him to unlock the safety on this thing," Rainbow said, reaching up an armored hoof to tap the weapon, "he made me promise not to do anything dumb with it, like fire it to show off or without having my visor on."
"... Both of which you just did," Spitfire pointed out blandly.
"Now don't YOU start."
A second set of rocket engines could be heard approaching, and the ponies other than Rainbow Dash looked up eagerly to see what else was coming their way.
The Wonderbolts backed away quickly once they saw it wasn't another pony, giving this new figure ample room to land.
Tellis hit the ground hard, his boots pounding small craters into the pavement below. In his arms was a large, rectangular metal case.
The Chaos Lord stood up to his full height, his wings spreading dramatically as he glared into the wide eyes of the Wonderbolts. "'Sup?"
"This is my buddy Tellis," Rainbow Dash said with a smirk, "he's the commander of the 38th Company's airborne shock troopers, the Steel Reavers."
"Nice to meet you, Sir," Spitfire said as she straightened again, and making no small effort to keep her voice even. Shining Armor's description of the Chaos Space Marines hadn't made any mention of claws, jet packs, or skull necklaces. Clearly this one was far from the "basic" sort of Iron Warrior.
"You guys seem cool, so you can call me Tellis," the Chaos Space Marine said, dropping the metal case in front of him, "I'll be your instructor on the finer points of Ork murder today."
Shining Armor chewed his lip anxiously before he raised a hoof. "Um, I thought-"
"Buzz off nerd, we're done with you," Tellis said, pointing toward the castle.
"Oh-kay then! Good luck!" Shining said with false cheer as he cantered away. He had better things to do, anyway.


"So... Tellis. What's in this?" Spitfire asked gingerly, pointing a hoof toward the armored case.
"It's your new gear," the Raptor explained as he stuck one claw into the opening seam.
His gauntlet buzzed loudly as the power field activated, and Tellis drew the lightning claw across the container, slicing open the locks.
The Wonderbolts took a cautious step back.
"Uh... was that the only way to open it?" Soarin asked. "That seems like a pretty inconvenient design, if it is."
"Nah. But I don't have the key code to the locks," Tellis explained as he opened the case, "let's see what we've got here..."
"Wait, you didn't know what kind of equipment we're getting?" Spitfire asked.
"No, this whole briefing was supposed to be some other guy's job," Tellis admitted as Rainbow Dash stepped up to the metal case, "but then Rainbow heard about it and said that it would be really cool to fly a mission with you guys, so I took his stuff and we headed out early."
"Ooh! Can I be team leader?" Rainbow Dash asked brightly.
"I don't see any reason why not," Tellis replied as he pulled out several grenade belts.
"I have a few reasons," Fleetfoot noted, raising a wing into the air.
"Don't wanna hear it," the Chaos Lord replied as he picked up a headset with an optics visor and integrated vox system, "all right, each of you put one of these on."
The Wonderbolts hesitantly exchanged their flight goggles for the new headgear, each one fitting it securely over their faces before frowning deeply.
"Can't see anything with this on," Soarin mumbled, "am I even wearing it correctly?"
"There's a button on the side. Try pressing that."
The stallion did so, and he was surprised and pleased to see a complete field of vision appear before his eyes, along with several numerical readouts and incomprehensible acronyms.
"All right, now we're getting somewhere!" Spitfire said as she looked up at Tellis and then zoomed in to focus on his helmet mask.
"It will take some time to get accustomed to your optics controls," Tellis advised in a high-pitched, feminine voice, as if he was recording a safety video, "icons are activated by looking directly at them and blinking. Take a few minutes to try different icons to figure out what they do, as I have no idea myself."
"Found the zoom! Ooh, neat! I can see into the Princess's room from here!" Soarin grinned as he stared off in the direction of the castle.
"And I think that box up top is a camera function. Not bad..." Spitfire pushed the optics visor up and glanced at the metal case. "What else you got there?"
"Mostly grenades," Tellis plucked one of the cylinders from the belt and held it up.
"Wait... what is she DOING in there?" Soarin mumbled as he leaned further in the direction of the palace. Fleetfoot gave him a swift kick in the leg, and he yelped and quickly faced forward again.
"Grenades are simple explosive charges. Cheap, reliable, and effective," Tellis explained, tossing the grenade up and then catching it on its way down, "so long as the metal pin is in the grenade, it will not explode."
He pulled the pin out, and all the wonderbolts jumped back. Rainbow Dash didn't make any sudden moves, but she did re-engage her helmet.
"You can also keep it from exploding by holding down the lever. Although that might be challenging without awesome monkey fingers. I mean, I guess you hold stuff in your jaws most of the time, but you probably don't want a live grenade in your mouth. After the pin and the handle are loose, good times." Tellis flung the grenade over his shoulder, and it flew over a scorched stone wall that separated the former garden from the rest of the palace property.
"Hey, what is-HOLY SHITE!!" came a scream from behind the wall, followed by an explosion.
As the Wonderbolts stared in horror at the scene, Rainbow Dash hit her leg boosters and made a long hop up on top of the wall to look over it.
"Yo! You all right?" she called down.
"Who the hell threw that?!" the voice demanded.
"Tellis."
The other voice paused.
"Good throw, Lord! Almost got me!"
Rainbow Dash turned around and leapt down from the wall. "Just some merc. He's fine."
"Nifty," Tellis said, still facing the Wonderbolts, "so, that was your crash course on grenades. Any questions?"
All of the Wonderbolts raised a wing up, but Fleetfoot just spoke her question aloud. "Are you insane?"
"Good question! I fit many behavior patterns consistent with psychotic schizophrenia. I usually hear voices in my head telling me to do stupid things, but lately Rainbow here has been taking over that function."
The Wonderbolts seemed stunned for a moment, but then they all lowered their wings.
"Well, I had more questions, but that... pretty much answers them or renders them moot," Spitfire admitted.
"Cool. Then grab a belt and let's rock. I wanna hit stuff," Tellis commanded, jabbing a thumb behind him.
"You do at least realize this is a RECON mission, right?" Soarin asked nervously as he gingerly bit onto a grenade belt and tried to figure out the best way to secure it on him.
"YOUR mission is to recon. MY mission is to do whatever I want," the Iron Warrior explained.
"Aww! We NEVER get missions like that!" complained one of the other Wonderbolts.
"Stow it, Blaze!" Spitfire snapped as she finished securing the belt across her chest. Then she frowned at Tellis. "So you don't answer to anybody?"
"He does, but Sol is pretty cool about this sort of thing," Rainbow Dash assured her, "oh, but I guess there's Sliver too. He's less cool."
"There's also my god, but he isn't big on specific mission objectives," Tellis admitted.
Bloodbloodbloodbloodbloodskullsbloodbloodmurderbloodbloodblood.
"Yeah, okay, we'll get to that. CHILL," the Chaos Lord snapped, much to the equines' confusion, "you horse-birds ready?"
"I've had control of my squad hijacked by a fangirl, I'm being led into a war zone by a self-described psychotic who sidelined the ACTUAL commanding officer, and I have a string of explosives wrapped around my body, all in service to a bunch of alien marauders I barely know anything about," Spitfire deadpanned. Then she pushed the optical visor down over her eyes. "Sure. Let's do this."
Tellis chuckled as his flight pack spread out behind him. "Heh. Pegasi are the BEST."


****


10 kilometers out from Ork landing site


"Hey Captain, isn't this site pretty close to Cloudsdale?"
Spitfire glanced over at Soarin, and the stallion was immediately bracketed in a green square before her visor started listing his velocity, altitude, and more information of even less use to her. She wished there was time to get to experiment more with the gadget or - even better - talk to someone who actually knew how it worked. The data feeds it kept throwing up in her face were distracting.
"I guess it is. All the more reason to whomp these thugs as quick and clean as we can, right?" Spitfire yelled back as they zoomed through the air.
"Well, yeah, but... you think there's any chance that the Orks will invade the city?" the light blue stallion asked nervously.
Spitfire thought about that, glancing toward the far-off spires of the cloud-built metropolis.
Her visor bracketed the distant buildings, and a giant question mark flashed in front of her. How appropriate.
"Let me consult with our 'handler' up there," Spitfire shouted as she looked up at the two armored figures roaring through the skies above the Wonderbolts formation.
Spitfire broke off from her team and did a dizzying roll before sliding in front of Tellis.
"Hey, what's up Spitty?" the Chaos Lord asked.
That title surprised her, but not for the usual reasons. "How do you know my name? You never asked us to introduce ourselves!" she shouted back to be heard over the power armor flight packs.
"Dash told me!" Tellis screamed back. "Won't shut up about you guys, really! She LITERALLY flew into a wall in joy when I told her we could just hijack this mission and join you!" Rainbow Dash was hanging off to the side and just behind the Iron Warrior, and at the moment seemed to be very intently focusing on a spot far away on the ground.
Spitfire shrugged it off. "Whatever, never mind! I wanted to know if Orks are cloud-walkers!"
Tellis considered that for a few seconds. "You know, I've seen - and killed! - thousands of different alien species in my lifetime, as well as my fair share of magical Warp monstrosities, and I don't think I've EVER heard of one that can treat clouds as solids until I met a pegasus!"
Spitfire blinked. "That's reassuring, but also seems really unlikely!"
"I'm no science cultist, but I feel like the more unlikely thing is you guys being able to stand on water vapor!"
Spitfire rolled her eyes. "Okay, whatever. Can they fly, then?"
"In the same way humans can fly!" Tellis suddenly blasted forward into a wide spiral, whooping loudly.
Spitfire grunted and rolled away to avoid the scattered flames, and then dropped back down to her team's formation.
"Well, I think Cloudsdale will be fine!" the Wonderbolts Captain announced to the other pegasi. "None of these guys can walk on clouds, so they're going to have a lot of trouble getting troops up there! Also, the-"
"MOTHER OF LUNA!!" Fleetfoot suddenly screamed, her head tilted upward.
The rest of the Wonderbolts followed her gaze, and there were a few more exclamations regarding the Princesses and hypothetical parents thereof. Coming down through the sky, from an altitude that they could only assume stretched all the way to orbit, was a massive, blocky vessel making a controlled descent. It looked old and ramshackle, with many pieces of plating bolted or hammered into place without being precisely shaped for the task. There were also some pieces of metal attached to the craft that seemed to be attached for purely decorative reasons: in particular, the front of the vessel had red plating covering it that was shaped like a grinning face with big jaws and teeth.
"All right, Wonderbolts, full stop!" Spitfire shouted. The entire team shifted upright and slowed to a hover with barely an inch of deviation between them. "Dash, Tellis! You seeing this?!"
Rainbow Dash veered down around the Wonderbolts, mimicking their pose as her flight pack shifted speeds.
"Hard to miss!" Rainbow shouted as she stared at the craft. "That looks like a landing ship! The humans have them too!"
"That's a pretty dinky one, though. Can't be carrying anything TOO impressive!" Tellis added as he joined the ponies.
"'Dinky'? That thing's the size of Canterlot castle!" Soarin pointed out.
"Yeah. So? Can't be carrying more than a thousand greenies." He tilted his head to the side. "Although this is definitely NOT the first trip it's made down here today... hmmm..."
Spitfire set her jaw as the lander continued to descend, and then took a few pict-captures. "Well, it looks like we have contact. Time to buckle down and-"
"NOW what's it doing?" Fleetfoot interrupted.
The lander's "face" was shifting its "mouth" open, and several double-rotor aircraft were disgorged into the sky. Soarin's optics zoomed in on the smaller craft, and his teeth clenched as he saw that it was packed tight with burly green figures carrying guns and axes.
"Aw, ponyfeathers! They ARE heading for Cloudsdale!" the stallion complained.
Tellis watched the warkoptas accelerate through the air. "Wait. The cloud city? They're trying to INVADE the cloud city?"
"Looks like it!" Spitfire growled.
"I have GOT to see this!" Tellis shouted, his flight pack adjusting course. "You guys keep doing whatever! I'll handle this!"


The Wonderbolts watched with dubious expressions as the Iron Warrior blasted away in the direction of Cloudsdale, apparently aiming to beat the aliens there.
"Well, I'd rather have him standing between my home and the enemy than following us around," Spitfire mumbled, "back to the mission, then."
"All right, so here's the plan!" Rainbow Dash shouted excitedly. "The Ork landing site is just up ahead! We'll split up and do a parallel fly-over at mid-altitude, and take picts of anything that looks interesting down there! About three sweeps each should cover enough area!"
"Not a bad plan, 'Commander'," Spitfire admitted, "but you stay here."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "What? Me? Why?" she demanded, banging a metal-clad hoof against her breastplate. "I'm the only one here with actual armor! Why should I have to stay back where it's safe?"
"Because you're the only one here with actual armor," Spitfire replied with an annoyed expression, "you may not have noticed, being sealed up in that rocket-propelled shell, but you are LOUD, filly! And that gunmetal and gold look reflects too much light! Even with cloud cover, the enemy would pick you out right away! And once they're all looking skyward, they could easily notice us, too! You're staying here for now!"
"Aw, are you serious?" Rainbow Dash complained, unable to refute the rather straightforward logic. "But I'm in charge!"
"Your authority is directly proportional to my proximity to the scary psychotic with claws," Spitfire deadpanned, "we'll use your plan, but YOU stay HERE."
Some aggravated grumbles came from the helmet's vox grille, but Rainbow Dash lowered her head and turned away, looking petulant. Kind of. It was really hard to read expressions through that helmet.
"Good. Now let's get going, crew!" the orange pegasus shouted, curving off into the skies. The rest of the Wonderbolts followed wordlessly, leaving the heavily armored Rainbow Dash hanging in the air alone.


After a few minutes, the Wonderbolts split up and spread out, keeping just above some low-hanging clouds to give them cover.
"This is awfully close to that space ship wreck," Spitfire mumbled as she zoomed in on the clusters of tiny green specks below, "why would these creatures land here, of all places?"
She was startled by the sound of static briefly erupting in her ear, followed by an unfamiliar voice.
"Hello, there! Can you read me?"
"This is Spitfire here, squad Captain of the Wonderbolts," she answered immediately, zooming over onto a cloud so she wouldn't be distracted, "who am I speaking to?"
"I'm Lieutenant Garron, the officer who was SUPPOSED to be the handler for your recon mission before Lord Tellis told me he'd take over. I just wanted you to know that I'm here and I'll be ready to take command after Lord Tellis gets distracted and wanders off. Just let me know when that happens."
Spitfire grimaced. "Actually, you're a little late. He already did."
"Capital! Make sure you get images of anything important you find, as I'll be relaying and reviewing any pict-captures you take to our logis engines remotely."
"So that you can advise us in real-time?" Spitfire asked.
"So that we still get our scouting data if you die. Sending in someone to get your headset memory coils would be too much trouble."
"Naturally," Spitfire mumbled as she took off again from the cloud. Her visor zoomed in and out as she looked over the ground, capturing images of any large groupings of Orks or buildings being set up.
"Speaking of us dying, what kind of threat rating are we dealing with here? If these guys catch sight of us, what exactly are they going to do about it?"
There was a pause on the other end. "... Hard to say, honestly. If it were us, we wouldn't be especially bothered, considering you're small, non-threatening, and there aren't many of you. Despite general antipathy toward aliens at large, we don't go about trying to shoot down every flock of flying xenos we see on every planet we land on. It's not worth the ammunition. But Orks think differently."
"Differently how?" Spitfire pressed.
"They're stupid," the Lieutenant explained bluntly, "they'll shoot at you if they feel like shooting at you, and logic isn't going to stop them. They think it's fun."
"Lovely..."


****


Ork Base Camp


"Oi, get dose beems up, youz sods! Stop yer bickerin'!"
Big Mek Hazarr shook his claw in the direction of a pair of scuffling lootas, and the young Orks quickly broke out of their grappling and scurried away.
"Yoosless, lazy, gud-fer-nothin's," the Big Mek grumbled as he turned back to a stack of schematics drawn on thick, yellowed parchment.
All around him, Orks and small, squealing gretchin rushed about with tools and materials, hammering together the foundations of the base while Hazarr's Meks set to work with welders and fistfuls of wires.
Although the Big Mek was on hand to yell at feuding workers and instruct the lesser engineers when necessary, the old Ork's attention was fully on the void ship carcass that loomed up on one side of the camp like a mountain of cracked metal. The wreck was fresh, and almost untouched; a rich prize for a Mekboy of any stature, and a veritable treasure trove to an Ork as enterprising as him. He didn't much like dealing with grayskin technology as opposed to human gear; Tau wargear was sensitive and fiddly, and their materials were hard to rebuild into other machines. But if he could use the battlecruiser wreck to crack open the human fortress, he'd have enough loot and scrap to supply his fleet for years, maybe even decades.
Provided that the humies didn't get the chance to use all that shiny ordnance on his army first, that is. If he wanted the fortress, he had to hit it fast and hard. To most Ork bosses, that meant an immediate blitz right into the walls of the enemy, using the bodies of the boyz as a makeshift staircase, if necessary. But the pirate Mek Coggz had more vision than that. The more fighting that the softies got to do, the more supplies they would use up before he could get into their base to take it. Humans were just selfish like that. So the first order of business was to build an appropriately massive gun to break open that fort.
In the back of his mind, however, Hazarr couldn't let go of the fact that there was a WAAUGH beacon somewhere on this planet, and no Orks anywhere that could have set it up. Combined with the presence of a cursed fleet in orbit, it was almost enough to dampen his enthusiasm for the coming rampage.
ALMOST.
"'Ey, Boss? We got sumfin' up dere!"
Hazarr released a low growl from deep in his throat. "Wot kinda 'sumfin'?"
He turned around to address the Ork bothering him. The Ork in question was another loota, and he was staring straight up into the air with a set of monoculars.
"Er... I dunno, Boss Coggz. But it'z bloo."
Hazarr looked up at the clouds, and a bright red line scanned over his visor briefly.
Then he saw it, and his optics automatically locked onto the object and magnified it.
"... Yeah, dat'z bloo, all roight," the Big Mek agreed, focusing even further as the winged creature soared over them, "it'z sum kinda bird... wit bomms. And glowy specs."
"Glowy specs?" asked the loota, cracking his neck. "... I could use a noo pair'o glowy specs. And bomms, come ta tink of it!"
"And da boyz could use sum chow 'fore we take on da humies," Hazarr laughed as he tracked the animal across the sky. Something about its flight pattern seemed unusual for a random alien animal, to say nothing about its suspiciously advanced equipment, but the Big Mek simply couldn't bring himself to care. "It ain't a bad size. Shoot it down and cook it up."
"Aye-aye, Boss Coggz!"


****


Sky above Ork Base Camp


"Celestia's mane, how many of these freaks are there?" Spitfire grumbled into her headset. "You getting this, Command?"
"Roger that, Spitfire. It's par for the course with Orks. I'm sure there are more than the ones you see there, too."
The orange mare banked as she passed the edge of the camp, moving into a new flight path. This time she focused in on some of the structures, most of which were tall skeletons of metal and wood. There were several huts already completed, however, as well as a flattened strip of land that apparently was serving as an airfield.
"They're making real good progress on putting that base together, too. How long have they been down here? Three hours? Two?"
"Not sure. They made a fast break for the surface once their fleet engaged ours." The voice from her headset paused. "That IS rather unusual, though. Normally when Orks make planetfall they immediately start exploring and breaking things, and leave setting up camp to the slaves and underlings. Someone's keeping these mongrels on a tight leash."
"Is that good or bad for us?" Spitfire asked.
"Bad for us. If they were attacking our fortress, we could break them easily. Having them preparing for battle here means that we'll have to come get them where they're most prepared to fight rather than the other way around. Of course, what would be MOST ideal is if they rushed out to ransack the local settlements. That way we could smash the dropships and wipe out the base easily, and then hunt down and pick off the raiding teams one by one."
Spitfire frowned. "That doesn't sound good for us at all."
"You have to remember that your 'us' is slightly different from my 'us', Captain Spitfire."
"Yeah, okay, but-"
The Wonderbolts Captain was cut off by the rattle of gunfire below, and she quickly turned into an evasive roll while scanning the ground for the source.
Fortunately, the gunfire wasn't aimed at her, and her optics visor was especially suited to picking out muzzle flash. Spitfire quickly pinpointed a group of greenskins with large, shoulder-mounted machine guns who had climbed up onto a bluff and were spewing bullets into the air.
She followed the string of tracer rounds, and then spotted their target.
"Ponyfeathers! They spotted Soarin!" she growled.
"Yes, I know. I'm vox-linked with all of you. He's taking it very well, actually. Very little crying."
Spitfire grimaced as she watched the dark blue spot twisting and circling around as tracers zoomed upward in a wild spread. The gunners didn't seem to be trying very hard to hit him; they were really just aiming in his general direction and simply shooting as many bullets that way as possible. Still, she objected to her squad being shot at on principle.
She couldn't help but notice that there was a cloud floating over the bluff, and she smirked before flying toward it.
"Hey, Command. You seemed pretty ambivalent as to whether we live or die during this mission," she pointed out, "I don't suppose you'd mind if we stirred up the hornet's nest a little, would you?"
"Not in the least. Would make my job a lot more interesting, actually," the Lieutenant admitted.
Spitfire chuckled. "You know, you're starting to grow on me, Garron."
A few of the aliens spotted her on her approach, and Spitfire cringed as she heard bullets wildly zipping through the air around her for a few seconds. Then a moment later she was clear, landing on top of the cloud and hidden from the view of the gunners below.
"Okay, now he's crying a lot," came the voice from her headset, "did you want to talk to him? Lord Tellis probably didn't explain how to use the vox system."
"Gimme a second," Spitfire mumbled as she pulled a grenade from her belt and bit onto the pin. Then she tugged it free and let the explosive drop, smirking as it fell right through the white, fluffy surface that held her weight with ease.
"I've always wanted to try weather team work," the pegasus said as she heard the explosion below, "today's forecast: fragmentation hail!"
She pulled free another grenade, armed it, and then dropped it. Then another. By her fourth bomb the automatic gunfire below had slackened considerably, and she could hear some angry shouting from the same direction.
"Tch. I think the grenades are exploding before they reach the ground," Spitfire mumbled as she pulled her fifth grenade from her belt, "I wish I had time to move this cloud further down. Oh well." She bit out the pin and then flung the next explosive down rather than dropping it, hoping that the head start might make some kind of difference.
"Hey, Command, hook me up with my team, would you? I think I took the pressure off Soarin, and we've gotten a pretty good look at this place."
"Roger that. Linking vox nodes..."
"-OFCELESTIACRAPHAYLUNAHELPMEBUCKBUCKBUCKBU-" came a torrent of noise into Spitfire's ear until she interrupted.
"Shut your pie hole, Soarin! You're clear for the moment!" the orange mare barked. "Well, mostly clear, anyway." There were now small spurts of gunfire shooting up from all over the camp, some of it aimed at the Wonderbolts overhead, and some of it seeming to be random burst fire, perhaps just because the other Orks were doing it. None of it had the sort of coordination or heavy caliber that had sought out Soarin, however.
"My WING!" the stallion shouted into his headset. "They grazed my wing! I felt feathers tear free! I nearly lost control then and there! I could have died!"
"Now, see, that's just emphasizing the negative," offered the Lieutenant, "rather than saying you were almost hit, think of it instead as a brilliant evasion!"
"All right, everypony just calm the hay down," Spitfire said as she lifted off again, "we've scoped this place out pretty well, so we're pulling back. Build altitude and make for Dash's position!"
"Roger that!"
"Thank Celestia!"
"Glad to hear it!"
"We'd better double-time it, Captain! I think we've attracted way more attention than we wanted!"
Spitfire frowned. That last voice was Fleetfoot's. "Just stay nice and high and try to stick to cloud cover; they won't hit us at this range with the way they're shooting."
"Confirmed, Wonderbolts," said Garron, "Ork weapons are mostly smooth-bore, and they're not marksmen under any circumstances. At your altitude you should be safe from their small arms, at least."
"Reassuring, but not the main problem!" Fleetfoot replied. "I just got a pict of the airfield! They're moving some machines up onto it!"
"Oh? Let me see here..." mumbled Lieutenant Garron's voice. "Ah, I found it. You're all going to want to get a nice head-start out of Ork airspace, Wonderbolts. You have fightas incoming."


****


Cloudsdale - city limits


"All right, everypony remain calm and head to Cirrus Park! Please evacuate in an orderly fashion! No pushing! This is not a drill!"
Hundreds of pegasi flocked through the air at the instructions of a pair of guards yelling into megaphones, many of them wearing yellow hard hats. This side of the city was where the weather factory was located, and despite the strenuous objections of it's managers, the workers were being evacuated along with everypony else living or working at the Western side of the city.
The heavy stutter of helicopter rotors was still distant, but getting steadily louder. The defenders of Equestria's main pegasus city had prepared for evacuation as soon as they saw the massive landing ships descending in the distance, but they had only the vaguest idea what was coming for them.
It didn't help the ponies' rattled nerves when a new set of engines was heard approaching from a different angle.
It didn't even help when they actually identified the second intruder into their airspace.


"Aw, ponyfeathers. Not this guy again," moaned a pegasus guard as he lowered his megaphone.
Tellis was cresting over the flocks of pegasi, leaving a trail of flaming smoke arced over the fleeing civilians as he soared in the opposite direction.
"Isn't he a good guy, though?" mumbled the other guard.
"NO," replied the first, "he's on our side, technically, but he's not a good guy."
"Oh, right. I forgot that those aren't mutually exclusive anymore..."
Tellis flew up above the pegasus guards and then shifted into a hover, his visor picking up and tagging the incoming aircraft.
"So, uh... hello!" greeted one of the ponies from below.
"Yo," Tellis replied, his gaze still fixed on the enemy, "you guys here to watch this too?"
"Actually, we're here to defend our city from the enemy," the other guard corrected as he pointed his spear in the direction of the approaching vehicles, "I don't suppose you could help out with that?"
"Yeah, okay, in a minute," Tellis mumbled as he zoomed in on the incoming aircraft, "just shut up and keep your eyes on the warkoptas. This is going to be GREAT."


Large trails of black exhaust followed the Ork aircraft as they reached the edge of Cloudsdale, each vehicle slowing to hovering speed.
The warkoptas were twin-rotor transport craft, and each one was packed near to bursting with Orks hanging on to ceiling grips and eagerly searching outside for something - anything - to shoot at.
They got their chance as their vehicles passed over the edge of the city and over the cloud streets. A handful of increasingly nervous pegasus guards were waiting for them, each one wondering how they might go about attacking a large metal vehicle with a spear.
"Dere dey is! Get 'em!" barked a Nob as the Ork passengers started firing wildly out of the transport compartment. The armored pegasi yelped at the viciously loud noise and promptly bolted away from the burst fire, darting behind cloud buildings and the odd piece of cloud architecture decorating the streets.
"All roight boyz! It's stompin' time! Git goin'!" the Nob roared as the warkopta dropped lower to the white, fluffy streets below.
"'Ere we go!" shouted a boy as he leapt from the passenger platform. 
"WAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa..." The warcry quickly trailed off into the distance as the green brute plummeted through the clouds below and toward the ground, firing his shoota wildly the entire way down.
The excited grunts and cheers of the Orks stopped immediately, although the Nob swore he could hear laughter in the distance.
"I toldja we couldn't walk on clouds," grumbled one boy, backing up further into the compartment, "dis wuz a dumb idea."
"Shut up, ya git! I'm da boss, I'LL decide if it wuz a dumb idea!" snapped the Nob.
The Orks went silent, all of them peering out at Cloudsdale as the warkopta's rotors churned above them.
Eventually a pegasus guard poked his head out from around the corner of a building, confused as to why the invasion had been brought to a screeching halt.
"Somefin's not roight heah," the Nob growled, pointing toward the anxious pony some twenty meters away, "dem horse-bird tings is walkin' on clouds, why can't we? Dey's cheatin'!"
"Mebbe..." one boy trailed off as he scratched his head and stared at the fluffy white streets. "... Mebbe dis part is normal clouds, and da part over dere is walkin' clouds?"
The grunt's hypothesis was taken up enthusiastically by the Nob, who grabbed him by the back of his shirt and flung the smaller Ork into the middle of the cloud street.
"... Nope, dat ain't it," the squad leader mumbled as the unfortunate alien dropped straight through the street and fell to his doom. "I need ta tink about dis."
"Wot's dere ta tink about? We'z not gettin' outta heah!" said the rather rebellious Ork boy from before. "If'n we can't walk, den we can't loot da place!"
"Maybe the first two tries were flukes!" shouted the pegasus watching the greenskins. "Third time's the charm!"
The Ork boy pointed at the pony angrily. "'Ey! You stay outta thiiiiiAAAAAAAAH!!" his protest morphed into a howling scream as the Nob booted him out of the passenger bay and sent him plummeting, just as he had suspected, through the gaseous surface below.
"Nope. Dat looks legit," the Nob grumbled in annoyance. His mission was going to be a lot harder, if not impossible, if his boyz couldn't even disembark from the warkoptas. That frustrated him considerably.
Plus, he was SURE somebody was laughing at him now. It had gotten a lot louder with each Ork sent through the clouds.


"... Okay. I think I see what you mean," mumbled one of the pegasus guards hovering next to Tellis.
The Chaos Lord probably didn't hear him, as he was currently doubled over with laughter at the sight of the Orks leaping to their deaths.
"So, wait, if they can't walk here, why'd they even show up?" asked the other guard.
Tellis managed to calm himself enough to speak between chuckles. "They say greenskins - hee! - have a reality-altering affect - heh - around them. Like - snrk! - the only reason any of their stuff works is because they're too dumb - hah! - to realize it shouldn't." He exhaled deeply as he finally suppressed his laughter. "I guess walking on clouds is in that sweet spot where they know it shouldn't work, but they're just dumb enough to try anyway."
"So... does that mean we're safe from them?" asked one of the guards hopefully.
"Sure! Except for their air units. Like the warkoptas down there."


"Aw, sod it!" barked the Nob, reaching over for a rokkit launcha hanging from the wall of the passenger bay.
"So we can't loot da place. Fine," he grumbled as he aimed the explosive weapon at the wall of a nearby building, "den we'z just gonna blow it all ta bitz!"
The other Orks in the compartment whooped loudly as the Nob fired a cluster of three rokkits into the structure, and the mob began firing their shootas enthusiastically into the city as the explosives sailed through the air.
The enthusiasm weakened considerably when the rokkits flew through the cloud wall of the building without detonating, and then safely exited the other side, leaving only a small hole in the cloud construct.
The Nob leaned out the window as the rokkits continued soaring through clouds and empty airspace. Eventually the bright red projectiles sputtered a puff of dark smoke and started falling out of the air, their fuel supply spent.
"... Boss?" asked one of the smaller Orks hesitantly. "Whadda we do now?"
"Dis place sucks," the Nob growled, turning toward the pilot, "bring us down! We'z gonna find somefin' else to blow up!"
The warkopta tilted away from the city, and the two aircraft waiting behind it quickly swooped down into formation as the assault force departed the city limits.
As the exhaust smoke from the departing transports started to thin, the hiding pegasus guards crept out of their hiding places and started cheering, thrusting their spears into the air at their successful kind-of-defense of their fair city.


"You know, I used to complain that having a home completely inaccessible to most creatures without the aid of magic was awful for tourism," the pegasus next to Tellis admitted, "but it really has its advantages."
"The weather factory boss is gonna be really mad," mumbled the other guard, "I think we evacuated everypony for nothing." Then he looked up at Tellis, who was still hovering in the air and stifling chuckles. "Well, thanks for coming to help, even if we didn't need it."
Tellis finished laughing, and a deep, satisfied sigh came from his helmet. "... Anyway, I'm going to go kill them now."
"Now? After they left?" asked the pony incredulously. "Why?"
"It's a religious thing," he explained vaguely, tilting his body as his flight pack began to build up more thrust, "later!"


****


8 kilometers outside of Ork Base Camp


"Bored, bored, bored, bored..."
Rainbow Dash sang her tiresome litany to the empty sky around her as she laid on a cloud, still facing the direction in which the Wonderbolts had gone.
After the stunt flyers had left, Rainbow had thought of an interesting experiment concerning whether or not clouds could still hold her while she was in her powered armor.
It turned out they could, albeit her body sunk a few inches further into the cottony surface than usual. With that hypothesis confirmed, and nothing else interesting to do coming to mind, she returned to doing absolutely nothing and hating it.
"This sucks," Rainbow growled to no one, "I didn't know that taking over a Wonderbolts scouting mission meant I would get to fly with them for a few minutes and then wait on the sidelines while they did everything important."
Granted, even if she HAD known that she totally would have still agreed, but as things stood it was a tremendous letdown.
"I should've gone with Tellis. I'll bet HE'S having fun," she grumbled, "but if I left after Spitfire told me to stay, then I bet she'd get mad at me for no reason, just because I didn't listen. She'd be all-"
"Dash! There you are! We have incoming!" Spitfire shouted, her voice suddenly projected into Rainbow's helmet.
"Yeah, exactly! I don't need that!" Rainbow griped.
"... What?" Spitfire's voice asked.
"Nothing! I said nothing!" Rainbow yelped, realizing what was happening. The armored pegasus bounced to her feet, and her flight pack spread into a launch position. "What's happening?"
"They spotted us! They launched aircraft! We have two of them catching up to us!" the Wonderbolts Captain explained between sharp breaths.
Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Oh, well, good thing you didn't have me around to give you away, huh? I might have messed up all that Wonderbolt STEALTH you're totally famous for," she said bitterly.
"Now is NOT the time for snarky back talk, soldier! Get that hunk of tin into the air and do something with it!"
"Captain, what is Dash supposed to do?" asked Soarin's voice after a brief burst of static. "Those things look pretty Ninja-star-proof!"
Rainbow couldn't decide which annoyed her more: Spitfire calling her awesome, hard-earned power armor a "hunk of tin", or Soarin's assumption that she wouldn't be able to help.
Whatever. She'd prove both of them wrong.


"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it..." Fleetfoot corkscrewed through the sky as the fiery roar of a battered jet engine closed the distance behind her, steadily moving into firing range.
She reflexively squeezed her eyes shut as automatic gunfire came from behind, followed by the sound of bullets whipping past her ear.
The moment the bursts stopped Fleetfoot tilted and banked hard, swooping away as the fighta screamed past her. The Ork jet wasn't quite maneuverable enough to match a pegasus of her skill, and instead adjusted its trajectory to follow the next-closest blue and yellow jumpsuit.
"Oh hay, not again!" Soarin groaned, rolling and dropping to a lower altitude as the Ork aircraft spewed bullets across his flight path.
Having evaded first salvo, the stallion tried banking as Fleetfoot had done. This time the fighta managed to follow, and Soarin started mumbling prayers to Celestia between breaths as a constant stream of ammunition snaked through the air behind him.
Then he heard another engine noise getting closer. "I've got TWO of them on me? Are you serious?!"
"That's a negative, Soarin," Spitfire's voice crackled in his ear, "looks like Miss Dash is going to show us what that fancy suit of hers can do."


Rainbow Dash swooped in close to the fighta, struggling to match its movements as it zigged and zagged to turn its target into equine chum.
Soarin swooped upward, and the fighta briefly leveled out to follow, offering her a perfect window of opportunity.
Rainbow fired her rear impulse blasters and lurched forward, meeting the aircraft's wing with her front greaves and immediately mag-locking onto them. She carefully brought her rear legs into place as well, and then took a moment to marvel at the fact that she was standing on the wing of a fighter jet.
The flyboy piloting the jet took some time to marvel at the sight too, and as she faced the cockpit she stared directly into the goggles of the Ork flying the war plane.
"Hi, I'm from ground control!" Rainbow shouted as she stepped up to the cockpit, her legs moving one at a time across the length of the wing to stay locked to the surface. "You have a landing slot open just ahead, but you're going to have to start your descent now!" She unlocked one front leg and then pressed it against the canopy. "Here, let me help!"
Rainbow Dash fired her impulse blaster, and the pilot flinched away as the canopy window shattered into pieces.
"Okay, now bring her down nice and fast! You can even go into a nosedive if you wa-"
Rainbow's head pitched back as a slugga round slammed into her forehead and bounced off the helmet plating. The Ork pilot had a large handgun in one hand that he was firing at her blindly while his other arm tried to keep control of the plane.
"Hey! What are you, crazy?! You can't fire a gun inside an aircraft! That is SO unsafe!" Rainbow shouted angrily. Then she sprayed a burst of shuriken into the pilot, reducing him to so much shredded green flesh and staining the cockpit crimson. "You could hurt somepony! Geez!"
Rainbow unlocked her boots, and she immediately fell back through the air as the fighta began an uncontrolled descent.


"All right, so I'm accepting apologies now," Rainbow Dash said smugly as she linked her vox to the Wonderbolts and slowed to a hover, "by my count, you've got 'leaving me behind,' 'calling my power armor a hunk of tin,' and 'assuming I couldn't help take down enemy planes.' No particular order, whenever you're ready."
"You can have all the apologies you want if you can pull off that trick with the other one!" Spitfire retorted through the vox. "I'll even throw in a 'thank you' and 'great job' because I'm crazy generous like that!"
"Oh, right!" Rainbow Dash spun around in the air as a hostile indicator on her visor flashed. "I forgot abou-"
The armored pegasus was cut off by a veritable wall of bullets slamming into her, briefly obscuring her form in a shower of sparks and bits of cracked ceramite.
A tense second later one of the jets of her flight pack exploded, and the armored mare plummeted downward while trailing smoke.
"Aw, DANG IT!" Rainbow complained as the second Ork fighta zoomed past her overhead. "That must have looked SO lame!"
Then she paused as an alarm blared in her ear and a diagram of her flight pack appeared on her visor display.
"Also, I think I'm going to die," she added, noting that an awful lot of the diagram was an angry red color.
"Hold on, Dash! I've got you!" came a shout from outside her helmet.
Rainbow twisted her head around and saw Soarin diving through the smoke trail toward her, his front hooves outstretched.
In another few seconds, Soarin reached the other pegasus and clamped his hooves tight around Rainbow's metal-clad leg. Then he spread his wings and started flapping furiously.
"...... Do something Dash! I don't got you!" Soarin shouted as his wings strained uselessly against Rainbow's weight and inertia. They were both still falling, albeit more slowly than before.
"Well, I'll give him an 'A' for effort," Rainbow mumbled as she stared hard at the diagram of her flight pack. "Come on, work! Sol built this thing himself, there's no way it's going down after a measly twenty or so hits!"
"This is Lieutenant Garron," came a new voice from her vox, "anything I can help with?"
"Yeah! Tell me how to fix a... what does this say... 'ruptured fuel distributor' before the altimeter reaches zero!" Rainbow shouted.
"Have you tried prayer?" Garron asked.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Rainbow roared.
"Yes. Are you desperate?"
"Point. Uh..." Rainbow Dash gulped nervously. "Oh great, awesome, magic space armor, please fix yourself so that my friends don't have dig me out of the ground just so they can bury me again!"
The red parts of the diagram flashed green, and the alarms stopped.
"... Twilight is NEVER going to believe me," Rainbow mumbled as she spread her wings again.


Soarin heard a loud hissing noise coming from Rainbow's flight pack before it stopped leaking smoke, and he let go as Rainbow Dash started to shift her pose.
"Thanks, Soarin! I'm good, now!"
Rainbow twisted parallel to the ground, and her flight pack roared to life as it carried her into an arc back up into the air.
"All right, time for round two!" She roared as she blasted toward the underside of the second fighta.
"Not a moment too soon!" Spitfire called through the vox. "It's on Silver Lining's tail!"
"This guy is way too close! I think he's just trying to run into me!"
"Well, two can play at that game!" Rainbow shouted.
"...... Wait, no. No, two CAN'T play at that game. What are you talking about?"
"Don't worry! I've got this!" Rainbow insisted. The central booster on her back ignited, and a massive jet of fire followed the armored pony's ascent toward the enemy plane as her acceleration tripled.
"Dash?" Spitfire asked. "Can you really land on it at that speed?"
"No way!" Rainbow laughed.
"Then what are you doing?!"
"I can't tell you!"
"WHY NOT?!"
"Because I can't remember what the dumb thing is called!" Rainbow admitted as she screamed through the air toward the fighta's belly.
"DASH, STOP!! DON'T DO THIS!!"
She did not stop. "THIS IS THE LAST AND MOST AWESOME THING YOU'LL EVER SEE, GREEN FREAK!!!"
Rainbow Dash ripped head-first through the bottom plating of the fighta as the kinesis refraction field flared, and then tore straight through the body of the craft to burst out the top.
The Wonderbolts (those not currently being pursued, anyway) stared slack-jawed as a rainbow-colored ring spread from the point of impact, carrying along the shattered pieces of the attack plane while the entire frame came apart in the air.
"YEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!! That is how you DO it!" Rainbow Dash cheered as she leveled out and then barrel rolled in celebration. "I think I'll call that one the 'Rainbow Buster'!"


The other pegasi watched the armored mare blast through the sky, and Soarin hovered up next to Fleetfoot.
"So... how do you think a pony gets to be... well, whatever she is, exactly?" the stallion asked in awe.
Fleetfoot quirked an eyebrow. "Say what?"
"Like, joining the humans and getting a rocket-powered armor suit. You think we could do that someday?" Soarin asked with a dreamy sigh.
Their vox systems crackled, and the ponies were instantly alert again.
"I have a confirmed kill on the second fighta. Good work," said Lieutenant Garron, "but there are two more aircraft heading toward your position, kids."
"I see them," Spitfire grunted as she focused her optics in the direction of the Ork camp, "geez, these ones are way bigger than the last two."
"Dakka jets. If you thought the fightas put out a lot of bullets, prepare to be impressed."
"Ah, the hay with this," Spitfire grunted, turning around, "I see a cloud bank over there. Let's hide and see if they leave."
The Wonderbolts converged into formation and took off in that direction, and Rainbow Dash followed a moment later.
"What kind of a name is 'dakka jet' anyway?" Rainbow asked.
"Named for the sound the guns make when fired, apparently. You know, dakka dakka!" Garron explained.
"These Orks have a certain childlike charm to them, don't they?" Spitfire asked with a smirk.
"Not so charming for those of us stuck on the ground when they're about. At least you can fly out of reach of most of them."
Rainbow Dash squinted as her visor picked up a dark shape in the clouds ahead. "Hey, is somepony waiting for us over there? I think I see something in the clouds already."
"It's not Tellis, is it?"
"Nah, he can't walk on clouds. We tried."
"I think that's... Princess Luna?" Soarin said, sounding surprised.
"Pardon? Who's Princess Luna?" asked Garron.
"C'mon man, you don't know Luna?" Rainbow asked.
"I do not. I know of a Princess Sparkle, and I'm vaguely aware of another one called Princess Celestial or something."
"Celestia. It's Celestia," Rainbow corrected, "c'mon dude, there are only four Princesses. This isn't hard."
"And only two of them actually matter," Fleetfoot added. She was suddenly aware that Rainbow Dash was staring at her as the armored pony followed their flight path. "What?" She couldn't see Rainbow's expression through the helmet, but she had a feeling the armored pony was annoyed.
"THREE of them matter," Rainbow Dash corrected harshly.
"Okay, fine, whatever..."


The pegasi could already hear the engine scream of the approaching aircraft as they reached the cloud bank, and they slowed into a hover as they moved within a comfortable speaking range of Luna. Comfortable for them, at least. None of them wanted to risk making Luna shout.
"Princess! Funny seeing you here! Come to join the recon mission?" Rainbow Dash asked. "You're a little late for the actual recon part, but phase two seems to be shooting down attack planes, and we've still got plenty of that action coming!"
"Indeed!! We hast arrived to smite the foe in support of thee!!" Luna declared loudly.
"Well your Highness, we'll just get out of the way and let you get smiting, then!" Spitfire said as she dropped onto the cloud and finally folded her aching wings.


Luna stood proudly atop the cloud bank as the jets rumbled toward her, and as they approached engagement range her horn glowed.
"ALIEN FOES!! KNOW THAT THY TRESPASS UPON PONY LAND SHALT NOT BE OVERLOOKED!! FACE US, AND KNOW DESPAIR!!!"
The Canterlot Voice had the sheltering pegasi clamping their hooves over their ears and literally shook the incoming planes with its intensity and volume. Needless to say, the flyboy pilots heard her loud and clear.
They decided to respond with a traditional Ork greeting.
Luna's barrier flashed and quivered as bullets practically washed over it, and her horn crackled with power as the alicorn fought to keep the tide of metal at bay. After a few seconds of constant, roaring automatic fire, the jets peeled off in opposite directions to avoid the cloud bank and prepare for another pass.
Luna calmly watched them go, and then her shield collapsed as her eyes turned a solid, glowing white. Her horn was engulfed by swirling darkness, and then flashed blue.
A curiously black lightning bolt lanced down from nowhere, and one of the dakka jets shuddered as a wing was blasted off in a burst of sparks and flaming debris. That plane promptly began a chaotic descent toward the ground from which there was no hope of recovery.
Luna took to the air, spreading her wings and gliding toward the second jet that was turning around for another attack run.
"SO THOU HAST NOT YET LEARNT?! VERY WELL!! WE SHALT HUMBLE THEE AGAIN, ALIEN!!!" Luna boomed.
The dakka jet let loose with its supa shootas as it faced the Princess again, raining bullets across the sky in a truly ridiculous torrent of firepower.
Luna teleported out of the way, winking out of existence and reappearing behind the ramshackle fighter plane.
"WE SMITE THEE!!"
A beam of searing blue shot out from her horn and cut across the top of the dakka jet, gouging out part of its frame and causing the plane to shake violently in the air.
Smoke poured from breach, but the jet managed to maintain altitude as it soared away from the Princess, building enough distance between them so that it could again turn around.
"THOU HAST NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH?! THEN COME TO US, ORK!! COME TO US AND-"
"Rainbow BUSTER!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she slammed into the wing of the dakka jet. Once again her kinesis refraction field flashed, releasing a burst of suspiciously prismatic colors as the armored pony tore the wing off of the damaged war plane.
The dakka jet promptly twisted downward, trailing smoke and rainbow-colored sparks as it built up speed toward its final landing.
"Ha HAH!! That's what you GET!" Rainbow Dash laughed as she twisted into an upright position and then shifted into hover mode.
"Command, this is RD. The Orks are back on the ground where they belong and the skies are clear," she said brightly, "mission complete."
"Roger that, Dash. Escort the Wonderbolts back to the rendezvous point uploaded to your visor for re-arming and reassignment. Your armor could probably use a patch job right about now."
Rainbow Dash chuckled as the vox line cut out. She then noticed that Princess Luna was hovering over her, and the pegasus looked up at the dark blue alicorn.
She looked somewhat cross, for some reason. "What's up, Princess?"
"... That foe was ours to defeat," Luna explained, her eyes narrowing.
Rainbow scoffed. "Oh, don't be like that. We're in a war, here. That means fighting the bad guys is a TEAM effort."
She pushed forward at a slow burn, making sure her voice could be heard over her flight pack. "So on that note, good job on the kill assist, Princess! Team Rainbow Dash really scored big with this mission! I'm totally gonna bug Sol for new medals once this is over! You'll probably get one too!"
Luna's eyebrow twitched as she moved to match Rainbow's speed. "This will not occur again once We acquire our OWN armor..." she grumbled to herself.