Iron Hearts: Book 5 - Suffer Not the Alien to Live

by SFaccountant

Green Tide Rising

Iron Hearts: Book 5
Chapter 3
Green Tide Rising

****

Centaur System - Ork supa-krooza

"Ugh. Dis place iz a dump," Hazarr grunted as he stomped through the halls of the massive void ship that was hosting him.
The Big Mek didn't consider himself a hard Ork to impress, although his dim-witted crew would probably disagree. He didn't expect ships to be over-engineered and embellished like the human vessels, covered in iconography and macabre carvings. And Mork forbid his green brethren build vessels like the Eldar, clean and shining in the starlight and glittering with gems.
But the elderly Mek still figured that Orks should take some measure of pride in their machines. Seeing ruptured bulkheads with crates shoved up against them to block pressure leaks and loose wiring hanging from the deck lights - half of which weren't even working, casting the interior in perpetual gloom - made him grind his jaw in aggravation.
Ork boyz lounged against the scattered debris and empty storage containers while he walked by, eyeing him dangerously while caressing choppas or sluggas. That, at least, was a good sign; on many Ork ships the rank and file would be constantly arguing or scuffling. That these ones were unified enough to glower at outsiders rather than fight with each other meant that there was at least a decent amount of order in this fleet, so Hazarr supposed the Warboss knew how to do SOMETHING right.
Hazarr reached the door to the WAAAGH room, and his visor flashed red at a grot that was standing in front of a lever.
"Wot's yer name, mate?" the grot asked, sniffing at the Big Mek.
He regarded the tiny orkoid for a few seconds. "Hazarr 'Coggz' Wrencha," he rumbled.
The gretchin nodded, and then wrapped its long, nimble fingers around a lever behind it and pulled.
The lever, held together mainly with tape and desperately misplaced faith, snapped free of its mounting and sent the grot flailing across the grimy floor.
Hazarr sighed. He hadn't even been with this new tribe for an hour and he was already disillusioned. "I'm gettin' too old fer dis crap."
The Big Mek twisted to one side to bring his servo claw around, and he locked it into the lever mount before turning the gear within.
The blast doors slid open, and the grot quickly scurried in ahead of him.
"Fanks, guv! Roight handy, yous is! Da boss is in heah!"

The WAAAGH room was a mess, with most of the monitors broken and a few scattered sheets of old parchment marked up or used to mop up stains. Giant tusks had been built into chairs around a central meeting table that was overshadowed by an enormous skull hanging over the boss's chair, giving the central area the look of a giant beast's open mouth with a distended lower jaw.
If these chumps put half as much effort into hammering shut holes in the bulkheads as they did assembling bones into the decor, Hazarr might have been impressed. Or at least less disgusted.
"Heah he is, Boss!" squealed the grot as he walked up to the table. The animal skull blocked out what little illumination came from the ceiling lights, and a dark shape lounged underneath it, obscured by the shadow. "Hazz Cuz Ratchet!"
A heavy, metal-shod boot came down on the hapless gretchin, reducing him to a dark smear on the floor. "Da name is HAZARR WRENCHA!" the Big Mek snarled, his helmet visor flashing a bright red.
Then he glared up into the shadowed region beneath the skull. "But me boyz call me Coggz."
The dark shape moved, shifting into the light.
The Warboss was almost twice the size of Hazarr, with a heavily patched suit of mega armor that boasted a massive red pincer claw on each arm. A crackling power generator on his back fueled a force field emitter, and the massive Ork's eyes had been replaced by an augmetic visor over his face that boasted three blood-red optical lenses rather than the more traditional two. That piece, at least, seemed to be in good working order, so Hazarr figured there must be at least one Mek around who could tell one end of the screwdriver from the other.
"Youz best woch yahself, Mek, an' don' go 'round killin' all me grots," rumbled the Warboss, "dey ain't yers ta kill."
Hazarr grunted and scraped his foot against the metal flooring, causing a screeching noise to ring through the room. "Youz da Warboss o'dis heap?"
The larger Ork stomped closer, looming over Hazarr and poking his chest plate with a klaw. "Yeah, I is. Yer boyz work fer me now. Youz got a probbem wif dat?"
"Youz da biggest, so youz da boss," Hazarr said simply.
Behind his visor, the Big Mek was rolling his eyes. He gave this thickhead about a week before he got himself gunned down by humies.
"Good. I'm Drahgza Redclawz, da Warboss 'round heah. Dere's a big mess o' boyz comin' aftah us, muckin' about in da last fyoo planets an' lookin' fer grayskins. Me, I saw da beekun an' took off 'head o'the othah bosses. I'm tired o' gettin' left outta da fun. We'z gonna git down dere, and we'z gonna git our WAAAGH!!"
Hazarr leaned back slightly as the Warboss bellowed in his face, and then wiped off his welding mask with his klaw.
"Dat's gonna be tuff," the Big Mek began, "'cuz dere ain't no WAAAGH heah."
Drahgza was silently perplexed for several seconds. "... Say wot?"
"Dere wasn' no Orks 'fore me boyz got 'ere," Hazarr explained, scraping more bits of grot guts off his boot, "an' we didn' set up da beekun. We dunno wot's goin' on down dere, but it ain't no WAAAGH."
Drahgza tilted his head to the side, his optics glittering in the dim light. "So yous sayin' dere ain't no fightin' heah? Dere ain't no grayskins?"
"Oh, dere's fightin', all roight," Hazarr chuckled, "me boyz got stomped but good. I didn' see no grayskins, tho. Wot yer gonna find on dat dere planet is humies." His servo claw clanked shut noisily. "An' spiky boyz."
The Warboss recoiled slightly. "Spiky boyz? We'z fightin' spiky boyz?"
"Yeah. An' dey dead 'ard, dey is. Gots a bunch of nasty ships, plus a big 'un dat's cursed an' eats udder ships. Gots a big, cozy fort on da planet, full o'loot. An' dey gots an army. If'n we beat da spikies, we'z got a lotta loot down dere." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his own ship. "I gots sum reel big dakka ta bust dat dere fort, but I need mo' boyz ta make anudder go at it."
Warboss Drahgza snorted. "Well, now yer dakka's my dakka. We'z gonna bust dat fort." He was surprised and somewhat dismayed not to find himself sailing into a full-scale WAAAGH, but Drahgza was a Warboss. If there was no massive, genocidal planetary invasion happening here, that just meant it fell to him to start one.
And breaking open a fortress sounded like a great way to start.
"Anyfin' else dese spikies got waitin' fer us?" Drahgza asked, approaching an inter-ship vox system.
"... Yeah," Hazarr admitted after a moment's hesitation. "Dere's a lotta hosses down dere."
Drahgza halted again. "Say wot? Hosses?"
"Yeah. Hosses. Like wot dem humies ride, but mo' runty an' talky," the Big Mek grunted, "we'z been runnin' into sum boyz wot got stomped fightin' da spikies, an' dey's been tellin' tales. Mobs o' hosses wit humie guns, flyin' at dem an' lobbin' bomms. Hosses wit humie armor stompin' da mobs an' usin' weird powahs. An' sumtimes, da sun is blocked outta da sky durin' a fight, and den da fights go bad." He paused again. "Dey's been sayin' dat da spirit o' deff is on dat planet. In hoss form."
"Dat's a load o' grot droppinz," Drahgza snarled, "hosses ain't hard ta kill."
"Naw, dey ain't," Hazarr agreed, "jus' boyz tellin' tales." He pointed his klaw off to the side. "Follah me. Lemme show ya yer new dakka, Boss Redclawz."

****

Ponyville - Sugar Cube Corner

"So on the east orchard, Ah was thinkin' we could re-plant gala trees and fujis. Shake up our stock a little when we start harvestin' again, ya know?" Applejack was leaning over a table, her forehooves pressed onto a large sheet of parchment that had Sweet Apple Acres' property lines and structures drawn onto it. Big Mac and Braeburn sat on the other side of the table, and the larger of the stallions nodded.
"Eeyup." Big Mac contributed.
Braeburn looked more skeptical. "Ah dunno, Cuz. They don't sell as well as the normal reds, right? Can't grow as many, either."
"Sure. But now we actually got enough scratch that we don't hafta squeeze every bit outta the harvest," Applejack said, dropping back into her seat, "we'll still keep most of the south orchard fer cider apples, seein' how we're still the top provider in the region n'all, but with the produce stock Ah wanna diversify a little."
"Well, all right, then. What say we plant a few of mah namesake along with the galas?" Braeburn asked with a grin.
"Sure thing, Brae!" Applejack smirked as heavy footsteps approached from behind.
The orange pony tilted her head up, and a stone-faced Astartes stared down at her, each of his hands holding a serving tray.
"Your order," Dest rumbled, lowering a tray stacked with breakfast pastries onto the table over the property map. Then he started handing out mugs of coffee to the assembled farmers.
"Thanks, Dest!" Applejack said brightly, drawing a bit from under her hat and flipping it up at the Iron Warrior.
Dest caught the coin out of the air without ceremony, and then turned back around and headed to the counter again.
Braeburn watched the Chaos Marine go, and then turned toward his cousins. "So what's that guy doin' here, again?"
Applejack gave the tan stallion a look. "Dest works here."
"Yeah, Ah can see that," Braeburn retorted dryly, "and y'all don't find that a tad peculiar?"
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh said between bites of cream-filled doughnuts.
"Well, sure, it's a little weird, but he seems happy enough," Applejack said with a shrug.
Braeburn's eyes narrowed as he stared at the grim, armored giant, who was squeezing dollops of frosting on more doughnuts. His expression suggested intense concentration and seriousness, as if lives depended on the task. "Happy... How can ya tell?"
"He's still got his boltgun on him," Applejack noted before she raised her coffee mug, "if he was unhappy, we'd know."
The apples spent a few minutes in comfortable silence, eating their breakfast and drinking their coffee. Eventually Braeburn let out a satisfied sigh, and then he tapped a large, shaded circle on the map with his hoof.
"So, any details yet on what our new crop of alien apples is gonna be like?"
"Eeyup," Big Mac said, dropping his empty mug, "Geth sent me an information packet last night with some details fer plantin' and handlin'. Said the seeds should arrive within a few days."
"Neat," Applejack said, "so what kinda things should we know about 'em?"
Big Mac took a moment to recall what he had read that morning.
"The apple spines grow in any environment that gets at least a few hours of sunlight a day; don't matter what the soil quality or temperature is like. They don't need no waterin' or fertilizer; the roots go straight down and draw all the nutrients and water it needs outta deep underground."
"Well, that's convenient," Applejack mumbled, "and if them roots go straight down, then we can plant 'em pretty close to each other."
"Eeyup," Macintosh agreed, "Geth said that the apple spines ain't supposed to spread on their own, but if we find a stalk where we didn't plant it, then we need to destroy it with fire and tear out the root system."
Braeburn and Applejack shared a worried glance.
"Workers harvestin' or workin' near the apple spines should all wear respirators and be armed at all times," Big Mac continued, "after they finish, they should wash immediately and make sure to get any spores or sap outta their fur."
The red stallion paused to scarf down the last remaining doughnut, and after he swallowed it he continued. "Geth also said that if any workers started showing symptoms of a lung infection then they should be put down and their bodies incinerated, but there's a very small chance of that. Ah figure if it happens we can go to a doctor first." He paused again. "Also, puttin' in land mines is sure t'be more trouble than it's worth. Ah don't think we need to do that, either."
Braeburn's ears flattened against his head. "This's gettin' a mite shady, Cuz."
Big Mac shrugged. "Human tech can come with some risks," he acknowledged, "ya ever seen them usin' their plasma guns?"
Braeburn had not, but Applejack shuddered.
"Burned his hand CLEAN off," the orange pony claimed, shaking her head, "right through the gauntlet and everythin'. Mah stars, that was ugly. Rarity makes sure to keep hers a good distance from her face now."
Again, their conversation was interrupted by the approach of heavy footsteps.
Applejack was expecting Dest to take their dishes or drop off the bill, but instead he stopped and spoke.
"I have received a Company-wide vox message," the Rhino driver said, his tone slightly more grim than usual, "we have a situation."
"What kind?" Applejack asked, dropping onto all four hooves.
"The green kind," Dest replied, "the Orks are here."
"Well, that ain't exactly a surprise, is it? The Orks've been showin' up fer a while," Braeburn pointed out, "why's it any different this time?"
Dest's usual frown shifted into a grimace. "Because this time, there's too many of them."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17 strategium

"Oh, for Nurgle'sh shake, thish ish getting ridiculoush," Solon grumbled while he stared at the system hololith in the middle of the room.
"I warned you," Sliver hissed, "the Ssorcerer'ss power hass failed, and the green tide iss upon uss. Even thiss iss merely the vanguard of the horde to come."
Serith stood next to the hulking Chaos Lord, chuckling. "My power has hardly failed, Lord. In fact, this fleet will easily provide the damned souls necessary to fuel my Nethalican. Think of this as a boon!"
"And what usse iss your damned temple if there are no Iron Warriorss left to protect from the remaining xenoss?" Sliver growled.
"Well, it would still save our planet from being conquered by Orks, which would be super-duper with a cherry on top!" interjected Pinkie, who was leaning up onto the strategium table with her forelegs.
The three Iron Warriors stared at her for a few seconds before Solon pointed toward the exit. "Mish Pie, leave. Thish ish sherioush time."
"Awww! But I have a cool command hat and everything!" Pinkie Pie protested, her ears flipping down. She did indeed have a peaked cap on that boasted the Star of Chaos pinned on the front.
"I shee that. Give General Gnosh hish hat back on your way out," Solon demanded, still pointing toward the exit.
Pinkie hung her head and trudged to the door, pausing briefly in front of Cyrus Gnoss so that he could recover his headgear.
Once the pink pony had left the room and Gnoss had put his hat back on, Sliver's optic lens glowered at Solon.
"Explain to me again why I'm not allowed to kill her."
"It'sh not that you aren't ALLOWED to, Shliver, it'sh jusht that it will caushe more trouble than it shavesh ush!" the Warsmith insisted. "We have a sherioush challenge ahead of ush here, and we don't need to shtart making more problemsh." He focused on General Gnoss. "What's our eshtimate for Ork battle shtrength?"
"They have twenty-one ships at their disposal," the General began, highlighting the xeno craft in the hololith, "four cruisers, the rest are non-standard frigates. A void engagement could be successful, but there would definitely be losses."
"And avoiding losssess of our craft iss the entire point of uss sstill being here," Sliver growled.
"Preliminary analysis of the Ork approach, however, suggests that they aren't gearing up for a void battle. This formation is defensive, and built for speed. Their current course will bring them into orbit, but not engagement range."
"Then they must wish to fight a ground battle," Serith said, crossing his arms over his chest, "superb."
"That is an... optimistic way of putting it, Lord Serith," Gnoss said, "estimated ground forces of the xeno fleet run from 40,000 to 60,000. Rather like the Tau when they were sizing us up, that simply isn't a force that an army our size can plausibly deal with directly."
Serith tilted his head to the side. "And what are our total troop numbers now, General?"
"If I generously include the equines, only a fraction of whom are battle-ready, and the Tau, who still respond to my orders like they're unsure whether to obey or shoot me, then it comes to about nine thousand troops." He paused. "Rounding up, of course."
"Surely our soldiers, empowered by the Dark Gods and aided by the finest masters of war this galaxy has ever seen, can manage to slay four or five greenskins each," Serith chuckled.
"War doessn't work that way, WITCH," Sliver snarled, "if we engage the greensskinss in a sstruggle of attrition, WE. WILL. LOSE. It iss their greatesst sstrength, and our mosst obviouss weak point. We can call no reinforcementss. Theirss are without number."
"Then how do we do thish, Shliver?" Solon asked.
The Nurglite Lord looked up at his master, his gauntlets gripping the edge of the table tightly.
"I will not accept that thish foe cannot be beaten," Solon said, "we know the Orksh. Their power and weakneshesh. We have the run of thish world. We have the darker powersh and the indushtrial might of the Mechanicush by our shide. We have the shkillsh and technology of the Tau Empire, and shorceriesh of thish world'sh aliensh at our beck and call. I do not accept that we - that YOU - cannot overcome shome fifty thoushand Orksh."
Serith started to say something, but Solon held up his hand and the Sorcerer's voice trailed off. Gnoss waited silently, hands clasped behind his back, and generally feeling redundant. Several seconds passed without a word spoken.
"... It will have to be a ssingle battle," Sliver said finally, "one crushing, decisive victory. We musst sslay their leader, ssmash their sstrongesst weaponss, and sscatter their warriorss. Orkss do not fear death, but if we can kill their massterss and break their faith in their sstrength, then the horde will turn to infighting and raiding and break apart." He swept a gauntlet through the hololithic planet, causing it to flicker. "If their army iss broken, then it matterss not how many there are. We can hunt them down and sslay them at our leissure."
"So our objective is to defeat the Orks in a single, massive battle, and assassinate their Warboss, while heavily outnumbered," Gnoss said grimly, "what is our strategy?"
"We cannot determine that before the xenoss make planetfall," Sliver said, "we need intelligence when they do. As much and as detailed as posssible."
"My Lord?"
Sliver turned toward the pirate General, his visor lens glowing brighter.
"Get me Kaelith, and get me Wraithsstar. We will need their technologiess." Then he paused, and added with a growl. "Then contact the Equesstrianss. I want Captain Armor, and those sscout flyerss we ussed before. It'ss time that our 'alliess' sstarting acting like it."
Gnoss saluted. "Of course, my Lord. You will have them. By the Dark Gods, and the daemon Primarch, we WILL overcome."

****

Crystal Empire - Crystal Castle

"Wait, you're going WHERE?!" asked Cadence, her voice reaching a near-shriek.
Shining Armor sighed while several of his personal belongings magically flew into an open suitcase on the floor.
"Ferrous Dominus. I've been asked to help with the defense against the latest Ork attack wave." He paused. "For a given definition of 'asked'."
"Wait. Wait, wait, wait! I thought they finished the recruitment! They're not allowed to suddenly call on more ponies to join them! And not our soldiers!" Cadence shouted.
"There is some disagreement on the subject of what they are 'allowed' to do," Shining Armor drawled, "the four Iron Warriors out in the hall make a pretty strong case that I should make the trip."
He turned toward a ponnequin in the corner that held his barding and helmet. The golden trim to the plating still shined and the crest was a lush, brilliant mix of blues. The spear was slotted through a raised foreleg, its head sharpened to a razor edge and gleaming.
Shining Armor sighed again and turned away. That equipment was pretty much furniture now. He approached the small pile of polyceramic plates on his bed, along with a lasgun, spare power packs, and a sheathed power saber. At least the power saber seemed somewhat conventional and familiar, although he wasn't a fan of the yellow and black hazard striping over the sheath.
"I'm glad I have magic, so I don't have to wear a ballistics harness," Shining grunted as he started fitting the leg pieces over his hooves, "those things are a pain in the plot to clean, I've heard."
"No," Cadence said.
"You don't think so? Have you ever used one?" the stallion asked.
He jumped when the pink alicorn slammed her hoof down. "NO, you're not going!" she shouted.
Shining Armor cringed and glanced back at the doors to the hall. Did those power armor helmets block out sound, or enhance it? He couldn't remember off-hand.
"Cadence, please-" he began, only to be cut off.
"'Cadence, please' WHAT?" she demanded loudly. "Cadence, please, don't stand up to the alien marauders dragging more and more of your friends and loved ones into their stupid space wars? Cadence, please, let the nasty humans do whatever they want because they have the guns? Cadence, please, trust the evil pirates to keep me safe and not throw me in the path of a thousand rampaging Orks?!" She took a step closer with each sentence, until she was almost nose-to-nose with her husband.
Shining Armor's first instinct was to back away, but he pushed forward instead, pressing up against the alicorn and wrapping his forelegs around her back to embrace her. She whinnied in surprise and squirmed at first, but after a few seconds she stopped and exhaled a deep, shuddering breath.
After maybe ten more seconds of silent hugging, Cadence finally spoke again. "I'm still waiting for an answer," she grumbled, her voice far less angry and hysterical this time.
"I believe I was aiming for: Cadence, please, this isn't for the 38th Company," Shining said as he finally let go and took a step back, "this isn't 'their' stupid space war anymore, it's ours. You know that."
"I thought they had all the ponies they needed, though," the Princess grunted irritably.
"We were all hoping that, but it was a little naïve of us," the stallion sighed yet again before he cautiously went back to putting his armor on, "wouldn't that be convenient, to sign up a couple hundred ponies and then leave everything to the Company? The rest of us could kick back and not have to worry about the war, all the damage it could cause, and all the lives at risk." He shook his head as he levitated the torso piece up and strapped it around his barrel. "But that's not how this is playing out. We're not going to get out of this without getting our hooves dirty."
"I'm not worried about you getting DIRTY, I'm worried about you being SHOT," Cadence reminded him.
"I wish I could promise you that won't happen," Shining said as he secured his chest piece, "but I can't be afraid to face danger. Twily is out there every day fighting the Orks. This is still our country - our PLANET - and I'm going to help protect it if there's a place for me."
He floated the helmet overhead as he smiled at his wife. "Besides, their record for taking care of us ponies is actually pretty good. Twily says that she hasn't recorded a single actual death in combat yet among the equine auxiliaries."
Cadence blinked. "Really? That's... That's a little hard to believe, actually."
"I know, right? Maybe somepony up there is looking out for us," Shining Armor chuckled.
A heavy banging noise against the doors washed away the unicorn's smile. "I'm almost ready!" he shouted toward the door as his helmet dropped onto his head. It had an optics visor attached to it, and he flipped it up right away to clear his sight.
"I wish I could go with you," Cadence sighed.
"I do too," Shining agreed, "having three Princesses on deck would make those green savages think twice about messing with us... or regret it twice as much, at least. But we need somepony to stay here and protect the Crystal Empire. We can't both leave while aliens are running around the countryside."
He finished securing his armor and then leaned forward to give Cadence a peck on the muzzle.
Cadence surprised him by practically smashing their faces together in a deep, smothering kiss, and his levitating suitcase dropped onto the floor.
After almost a minute of desperately making out, Cadence suddenly pulled back, leaving her husband gasping for breath and somewhat dazed.
"You'd better come back to me," she warned, staring sternly at him while backing away.
Another series of banging noises came from the door, snapping Shining Armor out of his stupor. He could swear he heard it start to crack.
"All right, I'm ready!" He magically lifted his rifle and suitcase up above him. "I'll be back as soon as I can, honey. I love you!" The Guard Captain rushed out the door without further delay.

Four Iron Warriors stood outside the royal bedroom, and as soon as he entered the hall they turned and started heading out without a word.
Shining followed. "So, uh... are any of you my CO?" He asked, trying hard not to let his nervousness show.
"No. We are simply your escort," rumbled one of the Chaos Marines as they approached a guarded door at the end of the hall.
The crystal pony guards saluted and then pushed the doors open with uncommon speed and urgency, no doubt worried that the armor-clad giants would just walk right through the doors (and them) if they didn't clear the path.
"Okay, so... any idea what's going on, exactly?" Shining Armor asked, wondering if he should be requesting names and getting to know these guys. "I know that we have some more Orks coming, but not much else."
"It's not simply 'more Orks', it's an army that significantly outnumbers our own," grunted one Iron Warrior, "Lord Sliver believes that we will require more... creative tactics to challenge this many greenskins."
"Creative tactics? And he needs my help to think of something?" Shining asked.
A disdainful laugh came from the Marine in the lead. "No. Lord Sliver is a tactician with millennia of combat experience. He has won hundreds of wars against the Orks. He does not need your 'ideas', xeno."
Shining frowned, but decided not to challenge the statement. "So what does he need from me?"
"We understand that you equines have specific areas of competence, particularly when it comes to you psykers," muttered another of the soldiers.
"You mean our special talents," the unicorn said.
"Sure," the soldier replied as they reached the exits. Once again, crystal guards rushed to push the doors open for the group of power armored soldiers. "I understand that your 'special talent' is large force shields. We can use that."
Shining Armor paused as he looked over the thunderhawk gunship that had landed in the middle of the castle courtyard. "So, you want me to use my shields to hold off hundreds of enemy Orks? That's going to be a pretty tall order."
"It will not be mere 'hundreds', no," the Chaos Space Marine assured him, "we expect tens of thousands of foes to take part in the coming assault."
Shining gulped, but he didn't start to feel the creeping chill of fear along his back until the Iron Warrior spoke again.
"If you cannot perform this duty... well, you can explain your weakness to Lord Sliver in person soon enough."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 10 mining facilities, the next day

A furious, constant roar came from the skies above the smelting processors as Tellis soared over the towers of the fortress-factory, his flight pack leaving an aerial wake of "clear" air cutting through the clouds of smog.
He curved out of the way of a pair of pegasi soaring gently in the opposite direction. They had respirator masks and goggles on, of course, and their bodies were dark with soot and particulate filth. Most pegasi avoided flying too high above the city, as they were directly exposed to the heaviest concentrations of pollution when they did. Even if their masks filtered out all the toxins before it reached their lungs and kept the heavy dust out of their eyes, a pony could still pick up an impressive layer of filth in their fur. Despite this, for some the call of the skies couldn't be denied, no matter how long a shower one had to take later. Tellis certainly sympathized with that.
After giving a friendly wave to the flying ponies, the Raptor Lord began a shallow dive down toward the sector below, his eyes occasionally glancing toward the locator rune flickering on the edge of his visor.
Down below, trains of slaves hauled large iron carts spilling over with rocks for processing. Some of them flinched away as Tellis screamed overhead, but most simply kept their heads down and kept working.
Tellis glanced again at the locator rune. It flickered constantly, bouncing across his visor as his suit systems failed to lock down a direction. It seemed like this was as close as he was going to get.

Many more enslaved laborers than before flinched away when the Chaos Lord slammed into the ground amongst them, and those closest to the impact threw themselves to the ground for cover.
Tellis ignored them all, standing up straight and scanning from left to right.
"SHY?!" he called, his voice booming across the lot and nearly bowling over the closest groups of slaves. "Fluttershy?! You out here?! My visor says you're out here!"
He looked around for a few more seconds, oblivious to the ragged and brutalized humans staring at him.
Then a soft voice replied over his vox system.
"Uhm, yes. Is something wrong, Mister Murderer?"
The instant Fluttershy's vox system established a stable connection, her locator rune reappeared and stayed strong.
Tellis leapt in that direction, his flight pack flaring as it launched him into a tall arc over the ground.
He landed again, and then carefully watched the ground next to a heap of empty mining carts stacked up next to each other.
Flicker.
"There you are!" Tellis shouted, walking toward the very gentle, barely visible distortion in the air. "You know, when Boss Nerd gave you that stealth system, I don't think he meant for it to be used so much within our own base."
"Oh, but it's so much better for me with it on," Fluttershy's disembodied voice squeaked from below, amplified helpfully by her helmet vox, "I feel like everyone's staring at me whenever I'm visible."
"Well, they probably are," Tellis admitted, "you're kind of noticeable."
Another squeak, and the shimmering distortion in the air moved back behind one of the carts.
"But anyway, I'm not here to reinforce your social phobias," Tellis admitted, looking around, "although... why are you here, anyway?" He looked over at a chain gang struggling to push machinery toward the mine entrance. "Doesn't exactly seem like your kind of scene."
Fluttershy finally de-cloaked, her armored body coming into full view. Tellis could now see that there was a small bag hanging from the miniature servo arms on her chest plating.
"Oh, well..." she turned her head away, pawing at the ground, "sometimes I like to come down here and feed the slaves." Fluttershy opened up the bag to reveal a loaf of bread that was already halfway gone.
"... Explain," Tellis demanded.
"Well, they seem so under-nourished and tired," the pegasus mewled, "and I feel really bad for them! All the Tau slaves got to go free even though their army brought the Orks, but the human slaves are... well, still slaves."
"I wouldn't say that the grays got to go 'free', exactly, but never mind that," Tellis clarified, "what did you mean you feed the slaves? Show me."

Fluttershy dropped the bag down and then dug into it with her tiny servo arms, pinching off a mouthful-sized chunk of bread. Then she vanished from sight again.
Tellis watched silently as the wavering distortion in the air moved over to one of the lines of slaves pushing empty carts back toward the mines.
A wad of bread suddenly bounced onto the ground in front of one of them, as if materializing from nowhere.
The man stopped, stunned, and then quickly darted down toward the morsel. He scooped it up and shoved it into his mouth without a second thought, either not knowing or not caring that an Iron Warrior was watching him closely.
He became much more conscious of the Raptor when said Chaos Marine started laughing.
"HAH! That is HILARIOUS!" Tellis crowed, throwing his head back and pointing to the laborer. "You're feeding them like ducks! That's great!"
The slave, uncertain as to what, exactly, was happening, elected to chuckle nervously and hope that the Astartes remained more amused than angry.
Tellis stopped chuckling after a few seconds, and then waved to someone behind the anxious laborer. "Hey, overseer. How's it going?"
The slave didn't even have time to turn around before an electrified cord cut into his back, and he fell to the ground with a gurgling scream.
A Dark Acolyte walked up to the twitching, injured man, only to stop short when an armored pony suddenly appeared from nowhere next to the laborer.
"Why did you do that?" Fluttershy asked, her voice shaking as she stared up at the shadowed hood of the Acolyte. "That poor man! He didn't deserve that!"
The Dark Acolyte regarded the power-armored mare silently for a few seconds.
"Work stoppages are unacceptable. Punishment guidelines suggested shock lash as immediate remedy," the Acolyte answered in a dull monotone while the slave shakily stood up.
"But all he was doing was eating!" Fluttershy protested.
"Acknowledged," the Dark Acolyte droned.
Then the shock lash struck the man again, sending him screaming onto the ground again.
Tellis started laughing some more.
Fluttershy took a step toward the Dark Acolyte, incensed. "What was THAT for?"
"This is not a designated consumption period. Eating while at work is prohibited, and punishable by shock lash," the Acolyte explained.
"That's unfair! You stop that right now!" the pegasus demanded.
"You are not authorized to give me commands," the Acolyte buzzed back, its optics glowing brighter, "formulating response."
The shock lash whipped upward, and Fluttershy took a step back fearfully.
Then the lash came down again on the slave again, who elicited yet another sharp cry of pain.
"WHY?!" Fluttershy shouted her question to be heard over Tellis, who had doubled over laughing again.
"I am not authorized to administer punishment to a combat unit," the overseer explained, "I have authorization to express dissatisfaction through disciplinary measures applied to laborers."
"That's a horrible reason!" the pony exclaimed angrily.
"I tire of your insolence," the Acolyte said, a crackling electric arc running down the length of his whip as it again slashed through the air and struck the slave.
"Stop that right now!" Fluttershy demanded.
The lash cracked again, and the slave yelped again.
Fluttershy took a deep breath. "Okay, maybe we can talk this out? Please?"
Crack. Yelp.
"Why did you hit him THAT time?"
Crack. Yelp.
"Are you just whipping him every time I complete a sentence now?"
Crack. Yelp.
"You guys," Tellis was on the ground now, gasping between chuckles as his entire body shook, "I can't take it... heh heh heh... I only have... heh heh... three lungs... heh heh... stahp..."
"I'm TRYING to make him stop!" Fluttershy complained.
Again the electrified whip fell against the prone laborer, although this time his response was more of a strangled whimper.
"I wasn't talking to you that time!" Fluttershy protested, turning back to the overseer.
Crack.
"HE'S NOT EVEN CONSCIOUS ANYMORE!!" the pegasus screamed.
The Acolyte started to raise the lash again, then stopped. "Affirmative. I shall acquire another worker, and we shall continue."
Fluttershy's patience finally snapped, and her helmet hissed as it depressurized and broke open, folding away from the mare's face.
She jumped up into the air, and the repulsor engines of her wings suspended her above the hooded figure as she gazed hard into the glowing lenses under the overseer's cowl, unleashing the full power of The Stare.
A harsh buzzing noise came from the cybernetic worker, and his optics started flickering sporadically. "Neural synapse error. Nervous response anomaly detected."
Fluttershy continued Staring angrily at the Dark Acolyte, and Tellis finally stopped chuckling as he stood up again.
"Okay, so what's going on now?" asked the Chaos Marine.
"All motor networks unresponsive. Please reboot operating system and contact noosphere administrator," the Dark Acolyte explained unhelpfully before a few sparks crackled from a cranial plug.
"Now then, Mister overseer," Fluttershy said through clenched teeth, "I know you have a job to do, even if it is a terrible, cruel, and awful job. But let's be a little nicer about it in the future, okay? There's no need for VIOLENCE."
"Error. Error. Conflicting operative protocol prioritus. Dohjsfkghlbhk!" A loud popping noise came from the cyborg, and its head pitched to one side and sent him tumbling onto the ground.
"Huh. I think you broke him," Tellis mumbled, watching a stream of dark smoke leaking upward from the cowl.
Fluttershy dropped onto the ground, her expression shifting from stern to horrified. "I did WHAT? But I was just trying to stop him!"
Tellis kicked the Dark Acolyte lightly, watching the body roll limply across the ferrocrete. "And you sure did, too."
"Is he g-going to survive?" the pegasus asked, ducking her head down and quickly engaging her helmet again.
"I dunno. Whatever." He chuckled and leaned over to pat her helmet. "You know, you're a lot more fun to hang around with than I thought, Shy. We should do this more often."
Fluttershy groaned before she started backing away, not wanting to be around the pair of unconscious humanoids any longer. "Mister Murderer, was there a reason you came to find me?"
"OH! Right! I totally forgot! What with watching you dehumanize our slave workers and all. Seriously, that was gold," he coughed as he followed the armored pony away from the mining blocks, "yeah, so, there's a mission going down. Ork invasion, you know? A big one."
Fluttershy cringed, lowering her head. "I, uh, heard about that, yes."
The other Elements of Harmony/Equinoughts had largely reacted to the news of a large Ork assault force with calm confidence, but optimism had never been Fluttershy's strong suit. She was dismayed and disturbed by the carnage and damage caused by the Ork invasions thus far, each one consisting of a few thousand enemies shattered with relative ease and speed. She could hardly fathom a battle against an army that completely dwarfed the 38th Company.
"Good! Well, the Orks took up orbit opposite our own fleet, and they're unloading their troops on the edge of the continent," Tellis explained, "we don't really have a plan for how we're going to beat them yet, but Lord Ugly wants recon missions going around the clock, and wants the enemy scouts dead."
Fluttershy thought this over for a few seconds. "Okay... what does that have to do with you or me?"
"Guess who volunteered for a mission hunting the scouts?" he asked.
The pegasus mare considered the question. "Well, it wasn't me, so-"
"It's you!" the Iron Warrior interrupted cheerfully.
She gaped from behind her mask. "But... But I didn't..."
"Not technically, no. But I said you did, and command doesn't really ask me a lot of questions," Tellis admitted.
Fluttershy was stunned for a few seconds, and then she took a deep, calming breath.
"So, are the others coming with us?" Fluttershy asked.
"Nah. The Wonderbolts came back, so Dash is going with them, but the rest of them are too good for recon skirmishes, I guess." He snorted.
"I don't want to go," Fluttershy said firmly, drawing on the pent-up frustration and courage from earlier to assert her feelings about this unwelcome turn of events.
"And I don't want to not gut all these hapless slaves and make a little skeleton keep from their remains," Tellis chided, "but we all have to do some things we don't want to do sometimes, Fluttershy. This is an army, not a community volunteer group." He paused. "Well, except for the ponies that came here and formed that community volunteer group. But I'm pretty sure you're not on their roster."
Fluttershy again leapt into the air, hovering over the Iron Warrior as her helmet disengaged. Her eyes narrowed and her forehead furrowed, and her Stare pierced directly into the crimson slits in the Raptor Lord's helmet.
"Now, Tellis," she said tightly, using his real name, "I know that you want to spend time with me out of your rather stunted and inexperienced idea of what friendship is. But it is NOT okay to sign me up to dangerous battles that separate me from my friends! Do you understand?"
Tellis was silent for a few seconds, and then he asked, "So is this what you did to the other guy?"
"Yes!" the pegasus affirmed, leaning even further forward as her gaze bored into his visor.
"Weird. I don't get what happened to him. I'm not feeling anything but mild annoyance." Tellis reached up and poked Fluttershy in the forehead, causing her to squeak and back up. "Anyway, pack it in. The recon team is already out there and we're running behind."
Fluttershy wilted before she dropped back onto the ground, defeated.
"Aw, don't give me that look. It'll be fun! Angel Bunny is really excited!"
"What?!" Fluttershy's head snapped up again as she rushed to follow after Tellis. "Angel can't come with us! It's going to be really dangerous!"
"C'mon, Fluttershy, he can handle it! He has his own shiv and everything! Seriously, it's adorable!"
"I thought I threw that away!"
"He made another one from the discarded bones on my Khorne altar and an armor spike. That little guy is pretty handy."
"Tellis, Angel Bunny is NOT coming!"
"You're such a drag sometimes, Shy."

****

Unnamed forest - five kilometers from estimated Ork landing zone, five hours later

This hiss of pistons shifting and the snapping of branches underfoot filled the air as a formation of two dozen Sentinel scout walkers pushed through the brush. Each one of the reconnaissance vehicles had extended vox antennae, and most of them had two or three mercenaries hanging onto the sides. Several also had pegasi sitting on top, with the ponies equipped with flak armor and lasguns, like the human soldiers.
"The rendezvous point is at some sort of ruined forest temple just ahead!" Daniels shouted. "After that we push ahead on foot and start mapping out enemy movements and taking down any Ork scouts!"
"That's an awful lot of Orks to face with this many fighters, don't you think?" asked a pegasus mare sitting atop the sentinel. "How many others should be at the rendezvous point?"
"Less than you'd hope for!" Daniels replied. "This is going to be hard, but if we can keep from getting mobbed until dusk, then we can count on the nightpones to cover our retreat!"
"What about the DarkMech? Aren't they right behind us?" shouted a mercenary on another Sentinel who apparently hadn't bothered to read his briefing.
"They're setting up listening posts and vox relays! We're not getting any heavy support out here!" Daniels insisted. "The Tau have our back, but I'm not sure how much we can count on them!"
The mare riding above him lowered her respirator mask just so she could show off the disgusted sneer she was making.
"Finally, we've got the Wonderbolts up there as our celebrity guest unit, so everybody be on your best behavior, now!" Daniels chuckled wryly before the Sentinel lurched backward and then made a hop over a fallen log.
"Do we have the Eclipse on standby?" asked a Sentinel pilot.
"If you want to try to talk Command into it, you go right ahead!" Daniels answered. "As far as I'm aware, her Royal Highness needs her beauty sleep so that she can be spry and limber for killing Orks all night! Not much call for her now!"

The conversation died down while the group of light walkers continued stalking through the forest, their sensors sweeping constantly for signs of military activity.
"Movement up ahead," barked one operator, "there, in the brush."
"Greenskin?"
"Doubt it. Why would there be kommandos out here? And the other Orks aren't much for hiding."
A few pegasi jumped off of their perches to get a higher vantage point, and one of them shouted as he locked his foreleg into a firing position to aim his lasgun. "Timberwolves! We're in timberwolf territory!"
A spattering of lasers stabbed into the brush from the pegasi above, while the Sentinels shifted into a circle formation to cover all their approach vectors. None of the walkers fired though, jerking back and forth as they searched for targets.
"I have no visual contacts. Nothing on infra-red. Confirm enemy presence!"
"They're plant beasts!" shouted the hovering pony. "Just shoot anything wooden and leafy!"
"We're in a bloody FOREST, Cloudy!"
Daniels dropped down from his sentinel, shifting his optics visor up. "Watch for movement! Heavy flamers, forward! I heard about these things! They'll burn the same as anything else in this place!"
A deep, echoing howl came from deeper within the forest, and some of the larger collections of bushes started shaking.
One of the bushes spread apart, revealing that it wasn't obscuring a bizarre, magical wooden wolf-beast, but in fact had been one all along.
The timberwolf started to growl, only to quickly shift to pained yelping when one of the Sentinels charged forward with its heavy flamer on full blast.
"More at eight o'clock!"
"Two more at the rear. I've got them."
"We're surrounded!"
"Stay together! Concentrate fire on the closest ones!" Daniel shouted as one of the timberwolves darted forward at him.
He fired his rail rifle, but the wooden beast barely flinched as it drilled a clean hole down the length of its body and exited out of its back. With snarl, the timberwolf opened its jaws and lunged, only for it to suddenly catch a multilaser burst in the side.
"Geez! Watch it!" Daniels shouted, covering his face as the timberwolf nearly disintegrated in front of him. The beast's head bounced onto the ground at his feet, wisps of smoke trailing from its neck stump.
"You're welcome," snorted a woman's voice from one of the Sentinel's vox transmitters, "looks like energy weapons have the advantage here, everybody. Reiser, you can save your autocannons for the greenskins."
The whine of multilasers and the roar of flamers soon swallowed the other noises of battle, occasionally overcome with the agonized cry of a dying timberwolf. This only lasted for twenty seconds before the other predators emerging from behind the trees started backing away instead, reasoning that perhaps they had been hasty in launching this ambush.
"Hold up! They're backing off!" shouted a pegasus. Several of the timberwolves in the brush were retreating rapidly, their bodies peppered with scorched holes.
The humans waited for a few minutes and fired a few scattered lasgun bursts into suspicious bushes before they were convinced that the ponies were correct.
"Anybody hurt?" Daniels asked, waving the other soldiers back to the walkers.
"Nah. They sure broke quickly," muttered another mercenary as he jumped onto a sentinel and grabbed onto the cockpit frame.
"They were just trying to protect their territory." Explained a pegasus as she landed on the Sentinel's roof again. "Timberwolves are dumb, but not suicidal. They're not going to fight a battle they know they can't win."
"Well, that makes them smarter than us, at least," chuckled a Sentinel pilot.
"Can it, mercs. We're almost to the rendezvous point. Move out!"

Once again the formation marched through the forest, and the hiss of shifting pistons and snapping branches once again dominated the procession.
"Hey, Daniels?" mumbled the mare laying on top of the Sentinel Daniels was hanging onto.
"What is it, Skies?"
"Do you..." the pegasus trailed off for a moment, unsure if she wanted to get an honest answer to her question. "Do you really think we can't win this war?"
Daniels decided to slip his optics mask back down over his eyes. "Nobody pays me to think. Now stay sharp. If we stumble onto any more Centaurian critters, then you'll probably know before we do."
"R-Right..."
"I'm seeing some stonework ahead. Those look like our ruins," rumbled another Sentinel before it doubled its stride to take point.
The scout walkers spread out ahead, and the mercenaries all dropped to the ground to approach at their own speed.
The temple was an old, crumbling ziggurat overrun with moss and vines. Although it was short enough that it didn't stand higher than the treetops and make itself visible outside the forest, it was quite wide, and several partially-buried masses of shaped stone suggested that some of the structure's interior lay underground.
"Area secure, Danny," muttered a sniper as she sat down on a fallen pillar and started checking her longlas rifle.
"Confirmed," said a pegasus before the flying ponies all landed in a line on the edge of the forest temple, "nothing in the immediate area besides us... do you think we got here first?"
"Probably," Daniels mumbled as he shouldered his rifle. "We were the first ones to set out, and-"
The cracking of rocks cut him off, and the mercenary had his rail rifle back in his hands instantly after a few large chunks of stone broke free of the temple and bounced down the terrace steps.
"Whoa! What happened? What'd you touch?" demanded a mercenary of the pegasi, all of whom had leapt into the air again.
"We didn't do anything! The temple just started shaking!" protested the ponies.
"All right, everybody calm down," Daniels said, waving a hand, "Cloudy, can you-"
Once again, he was cut off mid-sentence as a single equine figure burst out of a crevice in the ruined ziggurat and landed right in the middle of the group of soldiers.
"Hold fire! Hold fire!" Daniels shouted as nearly every other mercenary aimed their weapons.
The newcomer - a mustard-colored pegasus with a pith helmet on, of all things - stared wide-eyed at the soldiers for a split second before sprinting forward, and it dashed right between the legs of one of the Sentinels before leaping into the brush.
The Company troops might have followed, but as the pony retreated a second shape crashed through the ruin walls and out into the open.
An enormous black snake that boasted a single eye in its forehead squirmed free of the rocks before it snarled a challenge into the air. "You will not essscape, Daring-"
"OPEN FIRE!!" Daniels screamed, bolting for cover behind a pillar.
"Wait, what? Who-?" the temple guardian mumbled in confusion when it suddenly became aware of a lot of other people around the temple entrance, all of them conspicuously well-armed.
All it was aware of after that was pain.

****

"Okay, what was THAT about?" Daniels demanded as he looked at the smoldering corpse of the giant snake-thing. It hadn't survived more than one volley from the sentinels, and most of its head had been taken off by a particularly well-aimed autocannon round.
"Adventurer," one of the pegasi mumbled while she struggled to reload her lasgun, "there are a lot of old ruins and stuff in the forests around Equestria, so you get some ponies who search them for treasure. No biggie."
"And the giant snake?" asked another mercenary.
"Well, nopony's going to leave treasure just sitting around indefinitely in a crumbling ruin with nothing to guard it, right?" scoffed the mare. "I mean, that's just common sense."
"Hey guys, what's all the noise about?!" came a shout from above.
The Sentinels and mercenaries backed up into a loose circle while Rainbow Dash came in for a landing, followed by a formation of other pegasi wearing sky-blue carapace armor and grenade bandoleers.
Spitfire landed and flipped her visor up, staring at the giant dead body hanging from the ziggurat. "You know, I don't hold the omnivore thing against you humans, but you should at least wait until after the mission's over to hold a squad barbecue," she said with an arched eyebrow.
"Well, we have to have SOME way to kill time while waiting for you slowpokes to show up," Daniels quipped, earning him some offended scowls from the newcomers, "how was the flight over, Dash?"
"Dull," Rainbow Dash answered, puffing flame from her flight pack, "can't wait to get out there and give those Ork pilots the last flying lesson of their lives!"
"Yeah, yeah, chill out, hotshot," Spitfire grunted, walking up to Daniels, "looks like you've had some trouble getting here."
"Local obstacles. No greenskins yet," the mercenary replied, "we expect them to deploy biker scouts soon, if they haven't already."
"Air cover?" the yellow pegasus asked.
"Haven't heard any jet flyovers or other Ork flyers yet, but you'd know better than me," the mercenary shrugged, leaning down next to Spitfire and picking up her foreleg. There was a small metal box attached to it, and the wires ran up her leg and up to her visor.
"I'll sync up your transmitters to the Sentinels' relay nodes. You won't be able to reach Command from here, but we'll be in constant contact."
Spitfire nodded and turned to her squad as Daniels dropped her hoof. "All right, Wonderbolts! It's go time! We have heavy cloud cover near the Ork LZ, so stay up on top of the cotton and stay hidden as much as you can!" Then she glanced back at Rainbow Dash, staring uncertainly at the crimson slits that made up her helmet visor. "Dash, I know you're eager to start, but I'm still holding out hope that we won't need your help. And if we do, well... are you sure you can do this?"
"Of course I am!" Rainbow Dash said breezily. "You just do your scouting thing, Spits! Rainbow Dash has got your back!"
Spitfire didn't really think she and the power-armored mare were on close enough terms to give each other nicknames, but now hardly seemed to be the time to harp on breaches of etiquette.
"All right, then. Wonderbolts, let's soar!" Spitfire shouted, leaping into the air and darting through the gaps in the branches above. The other stunt fliers followed, and Rainbow Dash practically vaulted into the sky with a burst from the impulse blasters on her legs.

"That's one group down, two more to go," Daniels mumbled.
One of the stallion pegasi trotted over to him, and then nudged his leg with a hoof.
"So, that Spitfire, eh?" the pony asked, flipping up his optics to wiggle his eyebrows at the man. "Quite a looker, huh?"
Daniels stared down at the pegasus in confusion. "Why are you asking me?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong, I know you're in a committed relationship with that Apple pony," the stallion said, waving a hoof, "but looking at a backside like Spitfire's almost makes you wish you weren't, you know?"
"You know, I can hurt you and get away with it," Daniels deadpanned.
The stallion immediately flinched away. "Okay, fine! Yeesh. Touchy much?" he grumbled, trudging away.

There was a rustling noise from some nearby bushes, and then another dark shape emerged into the open.
This figure was immediately targeted by every weapon in the scouting force, but it didn't really notice. Even as he stepped forward, the batpony stallion had his head turned around to look behind it.
Dusk Blade halted and turned his head back to look at the scout team. "Was that Daring Do back there?"
"I think so, yeah," one of the other ponies replied, "I was going to ask for an autograph, but, you know, she seemed busy."
"All right, focus, people," Daniels said, watching as more batponies emerged from the shrubs and from behind trees. There were many more of them than in his scout team, and he was guessing there were a lot more that were waiting elsewhere in hiding.
"Lieutenant Dusk Blade reporting," the first batpony said, raising a hoof to his forehead, "we've got an hour until nightfall. Then it's throat-cutting time."
"Any contacts?"
"A couple of those filthy little ones," Dusk shrugged, "I think they were out scavenging for food. They weren't grouped up or anything, and the Orks weren't keeping track of them. They won't be missed."
"Their blood tastes awful, too. Like dirty water," complained another thestral, his wings shaking irritably.
The pegasi all flinched back in shock. Those who had their masks off all wore expressions of horror, but even the pegasi whose faces were completely obscured managed to convey that they were surprised and disgusted by this revelation.
"You drink blood?" Daniels asked curiously.
"That is HARDCORE," said another sniper, fist/hoof-bumping the batpony.
"Most of us don't," Dusk explained quickly, "just a few clans in the north. The rest of us eat fruits and bugs."
"You eat BUGS?!" shouted one of the mares in disgust.
Dusk Blade released a tired sigh. "Can we save this lesson on cultural differences and tolerance for some other time? Like, when we're not on the edge of an alien army?"
"Roger that. Here, let me see your auspex," Daniels commanded.
Dusk raised his left foreleg, which had an auspex scanner secured to it with an adhesive patch. Daniels took his hoof - carefully avoiding the adamantium talons attached to them - and started entering a code.
"I'm uploading the mission registratum codex to your system. The Sentinels' scanners and DarkMech listening posts will relay enemy locations to it."
"Thanks," Dusk said, lowering his leg, "I'll take my guys to cover the-"
"CONTACT!"
The human mercenaries dove for cover when one of the Lunar Guards shouted a warning and opened fire. The Sentinels, however, had been keeping watch on the perimeter the entire time, and none of them had spotted any movement except for a Tau Stealth Suit team walking out from behind the edge of the forest ruins.
None of them were terribly surprised when the battlesuits turned out to be the targets of the sudden attack. The Stealth Suit on point flinched away as the shards of super-accelerated crystal toxin stabbed into his arm plating, gouging deep cracks in the ablative layer.
"Shadow, check fire! Check fire!" Dusk Blade shouted, whirling on the other batpony.
"Whoops! Just a gray," Shadow Step laughed before he lowered his leg and the attached rifle, "sorry about that, freaks! I guess I'm a little jumpy! You know how it is!"
The Stealth Suits started arguing with each other in their own language, while the soldier who had been shot growled and brought up his burst cannon.
"Whoa, there! Let's not do anything stupid, grayskin!" snarled the Lunar Guard before several other batponies raised their splinter rifles to back him up. "Two wrongs don't make a right, you know!"
Then a boot slammed down onto Shadow's neck, plowing his face into the forest floor.
Upon seeing one of the mercenaries subduing the aggressive equine, the Stealth Suit started to rush forward to help. It stopped when that same human calmly drew a pulse pistol and aimed at the Tau battlesuits, though.
"All right, kids, settle down," Daniels said, sounding slightly exasperated, "and keep in mind that, as a human goddamn being, I can kill any of you for any reason I like with minimal paperwork."
The batpony under his heel started to growl out profanities and flap his wings wildly, but then yelped in pain when Daniels dug his boot in deeper.
"Shadow, was it? I'm going to give you a little something my pal AJ calls a 'friendship lesson'. It goes like this!"
The other Lunar Guards seemed ready to leap at the mercenary's back to rescue their fellow warrior, but a decisive gesture from Dusk Blade had them backing down immediately.
"Dear Princess Luna: today I learned that you never, EVER deliberately shoot at friendly troops, since that just puts our mission - and by extension, all of our lives - in greater danger. It's bad for the Tau, it's bad for the humans, and ultimately, it's VERY bad for us ponies, too. PS: it turns out the humans can tell when an 'accident' is deliberate! Fancy that!" Daniels reached down with his free hand and seized a fistful of the batpony's mane. "Sign the letter."
"Y-Your l-loyal soldier, Sh-Shadow Step!" the Lunar Guard gasped out.
Daniels stepped back, holding his pistol up into the air. "Good. Now get out of here."
The Lunar Guards needed no further orders, and they all leapt into the air before darting back into the forest in flurry of beating wings. Shadow Step staggered for a moment, coughing into his respirator mask, but then quickly sprinted after his fellow batponies.

"That was awesome," snickered a pegasus as Daniels approached the Stealth Suits, "I mean, sure, we all WANT to shoot the Tau even though they're on our side, but you can't actually DO it. Not cool at all."
"Please refrain from talking about how much you hate your allies until they're out of earshot," Daniels deadpanned. Then he looked over the five armored aliens. "Which one of you speaks Gothic?"
The blue and black battlesuits continued staring at him silently through their crimson optics sensors.
"... None of you speak Gothic? You're kidding me," the mercenary grumbled, holding a hand to his head.
"The grayskins don't take this very seriously, do they? Sending us scouts that can't communicate with us," asked a sentinel pilot.
Daniels took a deep breath. "Orks! You know that word? Orks? Where? Where Orks?"
The Stealth Suits turned to glance at each other.
*I guess they really don't know that we have translation software installed in our battlesuits now.*
*I think it's best that they remain unaware. We can always pretend that we don't understand their orders when they tell us to do something stupid.*
*Hey, wait, watch this.*
The Stealth Suit in the lead slowly pointed his arm in the direction of the Ork landing zone. "Orks," he said slowly, as if sounding the word out.
"Oh, for the love of..." Daniels paused to go over a list of deities, and then shook his head as he decided against it. "Bloody worthless, the lot of you. Go! Do your mission! I hope your idiot leaders told you what it was, because I sure can't brief you!"
The battlesuits looked around in fake confusion for a moment as he waved them away, and then they quickly turned and started plodding away from the ruins.

*Good riddance to all of them. I give them about five minutes against the barbarians,* grumbled the lead Stealth Suit as they raced toward their recon sector.
*I don't know, I rather like the way that ape with the rail rifle disciplined the horse. At least some of these primates know what they're doing.*
*Forget them. Keep to our mission parameters and ignore any transmission that isn't in our language. And keep a route open for a retreat! The Orks will get us all eventually, but that doesn't mean we have to die HERE, with these morons.*
*Roger that, Shas'ui!*

****

Ork landing zone (aerial)

The Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash galloped over the veritable blanket of clouds, constantly searching the skies above for any signs of incoming vessels as they made their way over the area judged to be the Ork landing zone.
"Stop! Another Landa!" Spitfire called, falling flat against the clouds and practically burying herself into it. The other pegasi likewise dove for any cover they could find, curling up behind lumps of white or simply sinking as far as possible into the cotton-like surface below them.
In the distance, three Ork landing ships rocketed toward the surface, each one escorted by sputtering Fightas.
"Celestia's holy rump, those things are huge," grumbled Soarin, "each one carries a small army, right?"
"Yeah. And the humans say that they've been flying down and dropping off greenies all day," Rainbow Dash confirmed.
After the landing vessel sunk below the cloud level and out of sight, the ponies stood up again and resumed their approach.
"Glad we got sky-camo this time around. If the Orks' numbers are ANYTHING like the humans guess, we're going to need it," grumbled Fleetfoot.
"Yeah, on that note," Spitfire looked back at Rainbow Dash, "is there any way they could have made your armor any MORE conspicuous?"
"Hey! My armor's the best!" Rainbow shot back. "And yeah, I know the color scheme is a bit gaudy, but Solon says that I'll probably get shot by our own guys if I look different."
"Okay, fair enough. Just make sure to-" Spitfire yelped and threw herself down again as a Fighta zoomed up through the clouds barely a dozen meters away. Two more Ork fighter craft followed seconds later, and the clouds began to shift before another Landa pushed up through the cloud bank and ascended back toward orbit.
None of the vessels seemed to take notice of the Equestrians, most of whom murmured prayers to Celestia while the roar of engines became more and more distant.
"Okay, that thing was practically under us. I think it's time we start our photo shoot," Spitfire declared, pointing a hoof at the hole that the Landa had punched in the cloud cover, "there's as good a place to start as any. Dash, you hang back."
The Wonderbolts crept up to the edge of the fraying clouds, their heads swiveling to and fro nervously.
Spitfire reached the edge first, and she placed a hoof against her optics mask as she peered down at the distant ground.
"... Holy buck. That is a LOT of green," the yellow mare declared.
The other Wonderbolts joined her, each of them zooming in on a section of the vast army below and snapping pict-captures.
It was like an ocean of warriors, stretching over the hills that had served as their landing zone. Ribbons of smoke streamed into the air from hundreds of cook fires and exhaust ports, and gargantuan beasts were being led into a valley where they could be more easily penned in.
"What're those things with the tusks? They're huge!" Fleetfoot exclaimed.
"Sounds like Squiggoths," Rainbow Dash said from behind the stunt fliers, "I saw a couple of those in that raider clan outside Baltimare."
"Do they, uh, eat ponies?" Soarin asked nervously.
"Not if you kill them first."
"Okay! So, we've scouted, right? All done? We can go home?" asked Silver Lining, his voice much higher pitched than usual. His ribs had healed since their first encounter with the Orks, but the memory was still quite fresh.
"Yeah, no. Next vantage point. Move!" Spitfire ordered, pulling away from the open sky.

As the pegasi trotted across the cloud bank once more, Spitfire opened up a vox channel to Daniels. "Hey, you're the CO around here, right?"
"Not by rank, no. None of the sergeants were dumb enough to take this mission," came the reply, "I'm in charge because I have the best gun, I guess."
"I've seen worse rationale for promotion," Spitfire said wryly, "anyway, we got some images of the Ork camp. Take a look."
"Hold on..." several seconds of silence passed on the vox system. "Holy shite. That is a LOT of green."
"Tell me something I don't know," the Wonderbolts Captain grunted, "I mean that literally, by the way. I'd like to know what you can get out of this besides 'there's a lot of enemies'."
"All right, I've got something," Daniels responded, "I'm not seeing them building anything. No substructures, no material carts, nothing."
"So what does that mean?" Soarin asked, having linked into the conversation earlier.
"That means that this isn't really a camp; the Orks are just gathering here until they can get enough troops together from their ships, and then they're going to leave this area in a huge march toward the engagement zone."
"And where might this engagement zone be?" Spitfire pressed.
"There's only one place on this planet that can offer a decent fight to this many greenskins," Daniels said grimly.
"Ferry D," Rainbow Dash interjected.
"Well, it's an awfully long walk to the fortress," Blaze pointed out, "why'd they land way out here in the middle of nowhere?"
"If they tried to make planetfall closer, we'd probably try to intercept their landas and their ships with our ground batteries and fighter fleet. They could lose a good chunk of their army that way." Daniels paused. "That's pretty cautious for Orks. Somebody down there must think he's smart."
"Hey, Captain! Found another gap!" Fleetfoot shouted, bounding up to a section of clear sky in the cloud bank. "Let's see what we... have... here..." Fleetfoot's voice trailed off as she looked down at the army below.
"Fleet? Hey, what's up?" Soarin asked before he trotted up next to her. "What did you SWEET MOTHER OF LUNA!!"
Spitfire frowned behind her rebreather as she joined her subordinates. "It can't be that WHAT THE HAY IS THAT THING?!"
"Would you all stop sounding shocked and tell me what you're looking at?" Daniels asked through the vox.
Spitfire snapped a pict capture, but couldn't bring herself to describe the behemoth slowly lumbering across the ground below.
"Lemme see!" Rainbow said excitedly, rushing up to the edge of the clouds. "WHOA. Okay, I've never seen one of THOSE before."
"Dash!" Spitfire snapped. "Get back and out of sight! You're going to give us away! Do you want that thing to actually catch sight of us?!"
Rainbow Dash quickly backed up, lowering her head and mumbling apologies.
"Shit," Daniels swore over the vox, "shit, shit, shit."
"Agreed," Spitfire replied, "but that aside, would you like to put a name to that walking building down there? It's as big as Canterlot Castle!"
"That, my pony friends, is a Gargant," Daniels explained, "an Ork super-heavy walker. The heaviest, really."
Spitfire bit her lip anxiously. The titanic, pot-bellied war machine had four arms loaded down with ridiculously large cannons and overrun with wires and ammunition loading tubes. Other, smaller guns stuck out of various spots on the thick, obviously reinforced torso. The monstrous walker was topped with a head the size of a small house boasting big red cockpit windows and rokkits in place of ears. The machine was completely absurd in its scale and its dusty, scrap-metal appearance, but none of the equines staring at it imagined that the ramshackle giant was anything less than deadly.
"Okay. So, we have a... gargant. That's important. Good intelligence," Spitfire mumbled, "the Iron Warriors can handle one of those, right? I mean, they have advanced warning."
"Can they handle three?"
The other Wonderbolts felt a chill down their spines at Silver Lining's question, and they looked over to the stallion. He was crouched next to another, smaller break in the clouds, and visibly shaking as he stared down at the ground.
"Take a few picts and let's move on," Spitfire ordered. She didn't really want to have a look herself.
"Roger that, Captain."
The pegasi started moving again, all of them choosing not to remark further on the subject of the super-heavy walkers. Each of them were keenly aware that Daniels hadn't offered an answer to Spitfire's question.
Much less Silver Lining's.
The vox crackled in Spitfire's ear. "All right, we're seeing some bikers. Remy already sniped the Nob. You might see more activity over where you are as we pick off the scouts."
"Is that a good idea?" Blaze asked nervously. "I kind of feel like we shouldn't be making them mad. Until we're further away, at least."
Spitfire snorted. "Grow a backbone, Blaze. We're not going to beat these thugs by spying them to death."
"Does anypony else hear that?" Soarin asked, his ears twitching. "It sounds like one of those rotor-craft things."
Spitfire paused. "We might be over an air field or something. Maybe we can get a count on their planes." She looked around at the surrounding clouds, but saw no breaches in the cottony carpet. "Maybe we can dig a hole to look down? Yeah, that would-"
"Captain!" Soarin interrupted anxiously, his ears pinning back. "The sound is getting closer!"
Spitfire didn't have much time to think of a response before an Ork Deffkopta rose up through the cloud bank.
Rainbow Dash reacted immediately, blasting off toward the rotor craft and colliding with the rather surprised pilot. The Deffkopta shook at the impact, and the flyboy grunted painfully as he grabbed onto the horns of Rainbow Dash's helmet and tried to pry her off of him.
"Hey, watch the horns, punk! NOBODY touches the horns!"
The Ork managed to pull the armored pony off, one arm still holding onto Rainbow's helmet while the other tried to bring his aircraft under control.
Rainbow Dash couldn't line up her shuriken catapult in this position, so she aimed her forelegs at the pilot and activated her impulse blasters instead. The force ripped the pilot free of his cockpit harness and flung him into the air, and the armored pegasus laughed as the flailing alien plummeted back beneath the cloud cover.
"When you reach the ground, tell them Rainbow Dash sent you!" she shouted. The deffkopta started to sink as it whirled about out of control, and soon it too vanished beneath the clouds.
"I don't hear another one," the power-armored pony said before she dropped back down next to Soarin, "they still don't know we're here."
"Until they notice the Ork pilot plummeting to his death, or his vehicle, and wonder what happened," Soarin mumbled.
Rainbow Dash blinked behind her helmet. "Oh. Uh... maybe they... won't?"
Spitfire cringed. "Let's speed this up a little, yeah?"

****

Ork landing zone - ten minutes ago

"I gotta say, Coggz, youz kinda handy ta haff around," murmured Drahgza as he stared at his power klaws.
The hydraulic pincers now boasted a particle stream projector next to each main joint, as well as a far more complex power generator mounted onto the back of the Warboss's mega armor. Scavenged Tau power cells featured extensively in the new design.
"Fanks," the Big Mek snorted, closing a panel on the new generator after checking that all the meters were twitching wildly within an acceptable range, "jus' remembah dat I get furst cut o'da loot in da spiky fort."
Drahgza made a light growling noise in the back of his throat at the reminder. He didn't like the prospect of having to purchase the assistance of his underlings, even if it was with a promise of future gains in the event of complete success.
On the other klaw, the frequent tremors that ran up his legs were a very happy reminder of what his "purchase" had gotten him. The sight of three - THREE - Gargants shuffling over the ranks of his boyz nearly brought an oil tear to his bionik eyes. It also brought a hearty chuckle when a few gretchin got tripped up in the rush to get out of the way and were then smashed underfoot.
"Dat shood do it," Hazarr grunted before he backed away, "now, be careful wit da-" he was interrupted by a sharp hissing noise when Drahgza gleefully tested out his new weapon.
A thin jet of bright white energy lanced forward from one of the klaws, spearing a hapless slugga boy in the back and instantly burning a large hole through his torso.
Drahgza laughed after the smaller Ork collapsed into a heap, and the jet dissipated rapidly. "Ha! Dese tings is a hoot!" He looked down at the klaw, which was leaking an impressive amount of smoke. "Not too loud, doh."
Hazarr restrained a sigh, and he decided to skip his instructional lecture on how to use the "un-mattah beem" and its comparative advantages over other weapons. He didn't want to run the risk of them being used on him out of boredom.
"Boss! Boss Redclawz! We'z gotz a 'merjencee!" squealed a high-pitched voice running toward the two Orks.
Drahgza only briefly considered trying out his new weapon on the Grot too before deciding that he was in a good enough mood to actually listen to the news he was being given.
"Wot's da probbem?" the Warboss grunted.
"It's da bikahs, Boss! Da bikahs! Ya told 'em to start searchin' da place, an' dey got shot up!" the Gretchin squealed, pointing both hands fervently into the distance. "Da boyz wot didn' git shot caym back and sed dat dey didn' even see wot hit 'em!"
Drahgza growled. "Den send out mo' bikahs! Back 'em up wit' boyz in Trukks! Find wot's out dere an' kill it ded!"
"Dey see any hosses?" Hazarr asked suddenly.
Both the Grot and the Warboss turned to stare at the Mek.
"Wot? Nohbody sed nuffin' about no hosses," the gretchin said, perplexed.
"Dere's hosses out heah, too," Hazarr insisted, "if'n ya see 'em, ya gotta kill 'em roight kwik. Sum of 'em roight nasty, dey is."
"Who cayrs 'bout sum zoggin' hosses?" Drahgza snarled. "I'm lookin' ta git me klaws on da gits killin' me boyz! I don' haff time ta be snoopin' fer no dum hosses!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
Most of the nearby greenskins looked up as they heard a rapidly approaching scream, and then watched silently as it was terminated suddenly upon impact with the ground. Along with the Ork doing the screaming.
"Well, now da hosses is killin' yer boyz," Hazarr snorted, "so waddya wanna do, Boss?"
Drahgza stared at the red splotch on the ground some distance away, then stared up at the cloudy skies. An out-of-control Deffkopta was slowly spiraling toward the ground, bereft of a pilot.
He looked down at the blood stain again.
"I'm cunfyoosed," Drahgza admitted.
"Da hosses 'round heah can fly," Hazarr pointed out.
"Wot?!" Drahgza rounded on the Big Mek angrily. "Hosses don' fly! If dey flyin', den dey ain't hosses!"
Hazarr considered that the Warboss actually had a point there, but wasn't really interested in discussing xeno-nomenclature. "Wotcha wanna do 'bout it, Boss?"
Drahgza released a furious snarl. "Wot do I wanna do?! Dis heah planet is MYN, now! So dis sky is myn too! An no humie, spiky, or zoggin' hoss is gonna be kickin' me boyz outta MY sky!" He held up his arms as he bellowed his next commands to everyone assembled. "Oi, youz dum gitz! Git yer green arses movin'! Dere's fightin' t'do!"

****

"Okay, yeah, I think we're in trouble," Fleetfoot said as her ears pinned back.
A wave of excited shouting could be heard from the distant ground, and she and Soarin backed away from a gap in the cloud bank.
"Agreed! I'm calling this mission accomplished!" Spitfire shouted, moving into a gallop. "Let's go, ponies! Stay over the cloud cover as much as possible! Move! MOVE!"
The Wonderbolts took to the air, breaking toward their planned extraction route. Rainbow Dash followed, but soon her visor lit up with a warning and a new set of target markers.
"Hey! We've got another landa coming down!" the armored pegasus shouted. "The Fightas with it are heading toward us! We've got two incoming!"
"Not again!" Silver Lining moaned.
"Keep going! Maximum speed!" Spitfire barked. "Dash, you got this?"
Rainbow Dash peeled off from the other ponies, curving upward into the sky. "Go on! You leave these jerks to me!"

Out of all the pegasi in the scouting group, Rainbow Dash was - as Spitfire was quick to point out - by far the easiest to notice, since she was wearing heavy, reflective armor and being propelled by engines rather than wings. So it came as no surprise to anypony when the Ork Fightas adjusted course to intercept her and ignored the other five equines.
Rainbow barrel rolled through the air when the Fightas opened fire, sending a veritable rain of bullets at the flying Equinought. Her twisting motions sent her into a wide spiral, and bullets whipped past her by the dozen as the Ork weapons ran hot.
"Almost..." Rainbow mumbled as she closed the distance with the closest plane at a completely reckless speed, leveling out and aiming directly for the cockpit. "RAINBOW-"
A bullet striking the cheek of her helmet pitched Rainbow's head to the side, causing the brash pony to flinch at a rather crucial moment.
The next few seconds were full of loud noises, shattering glass, and terrible pain.

"Ow. OW. Geez. That was REALLY stupid," Rainbow groaned as she tried to take stock of what had happened and where she was now. "Dang it! You guys can't shoot me while I'm doing that! If I forget to turn on the kinectic refreshing thingy, then I could get hurt! Seriously, I'm lucky I didn't dive right into your jet intake!"
As she complained, Rainbow noticed that she seemed to be in the horribly shredded cockpit of the lead Fighta. She was also partially embedded in the chest of the flyboy pilot, who had acquired quite a collection of shrapnel in his face.
"Well, it looks like you cushioned my impact a little, so at least you freaks are good for SOMETHING," she gave a disgusted grunt at all the blood splashed over her visor, glad as ever that her armor was sealed and pressurized.
Ignoring most of the damage warnings on her visor display - no alarms were blaring angrily at her, so it couldn't be that bad - Rainbow proceeded to take stock of her situation outside the damaged aircraft. With the Fighta interior painted over with Ork guts, the plane had naturally dipped down into an uncontrolled descent for an undoubtedly fatal landing. The other plane had broken off from its ruined wingmate, and was making a straight run for the Wonderbolts.
"Not today, punk," the armored pony muttered before her flight pack rumbled over her wings.
Rainbow Dash burst from the already doomed aircraft and started soaring toward the imminently doomed one, her impulse engines only sputtering briefly before they flared to life. This Fighta was rapidly approaching firing range of the ponies she was escorting, and while the Wonderbolts were no slouches when it came to aerial evasion, Rainbow Dash would really prefer that all the dangerous attention stay centered on her for the time being.
There was a problem, though: ramming a plane from behind with a Rainbow Buster while both she and the target were moving at top speed in the same direction tended to yield unimpressive results. There was probably some boring physics reason for that, but considering that she already had a force field that kicked physics' ass, Rainbow Dash thought it was completely unfair.

"Hey! Come pick on somepony your own speed!" Rainbow Dash yelled, her vox system amplifying her voice considerably. "Come on, man, those are celebrities! You kill them and you're going to get SO much hate mail, I'm not even kidding!"
Whether her shout was swallowed by the scream of the Fighta's engines or the Flyboy simply didn't feel provoked into changing tactics, the enemy plane stayed its course and started tilting to line up its guns on the rearmost Wonderbolt.
The craft shook slightly as something bumped into the top of the Fighta's hull.
"Okay, let's see here..." Rainbow mumbled while she looked over the ramshackle armor plating. Her boots were mag-locked to the hull, and her shuriken catapult tracked back and forth along with her head to search for vulnerable points.
"This would be so much easier if they would give me some more of those melta bomb things," Rainbow Dash mumbled. She located an armor seam that was shaking more than the rest of the vehicle - and had an alarming lack of intact bolts holding it in place - and then slammed a boot onto it.
A burst from that boot's impulse blaster nearly threw her off the Fighta, and Rainbow had to gun her flight pack in order to push her forelegs back down into contact with the hull plating. Once she was stabilized again, the armored pegasus was quite happy to see that there was a large opening where the armor used to be. She was rather perplexed by what was under it, however.
"Is that seriously supposed to be an engine? It looks like a garbage disposal wrapped in duct tape. How the hay do these things actually fly?"
Rainbow Dash felt her weight shift as the Fighta began to bank, apparently having clued in that something unfortunate was happening on top of it.
"Well, whatever this thing is, I hope it's important!" Rainbow yelled, unloading her shuriken catapult into the machine. Sparks flashed and bits of metal flew from the impact point as the projectiles carved into it, and Rainbow noticed a distinct increase in the Fighta's unsteady shaking.
After several more shuriken sliced into the booster, one of them cut open a fuel line. A few stray sparks ignited the gushing, highly unstable fuel, and as fire started spreading over the housing interior Rainbow reasoned that her work was done.
After she released her magnetic lock on the plane, however, she saw that she wasn't the only one who was finished with the aircraft. The Fighta's cockpit blasted open before the Flyboy's seat was launched into the air, and Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes as the Ork deployed a parachute and began a safe descent toward the ground.
"Hey, Daniels," she said, raising the mercenary in her vox system, "apparently these pilots have eject seats and parachutes in their jets. This one actually looks like he'll make it."
"Their mek DOES think he's clever, then. Take a run through the cables, that'll knock him down a peg. And a few thousand meters."
Rainbow Dash winced. "I dunno, I don't really want to be 'that pony', you know? I feel like it would cross some weird moral line if I started going out of my way to kill helpless, defeated opponents."
"Sorry, didn't catch that," Daniels asked, "I was busy talking to AJ over the vox about what a total wimp you are. Didn't mean to ignore you, lass. What were you crying about?"
"TIME FOR ANOTHER ORK PANCAKE!!" the pegasus shouted, blasting forward toward the parachute.
The Flyboy fired a slugga at Rainbow Dash as she rocketed toward him, but it was a very difficult shot even before taking typical Ork aim into account. The impulse-propelled armor shell shredded the parachute cables with ease, and Dash even managed to set the parachute fabric on fire with her afterburner before she pulled up.
Rainbow Dash didn't look back as she leveled out, and then linked up her vox to Daniels again. "Dude, you're like the 'anti-conscience,' you know that?"
"Welcome to the forces of Chaos, Dash."
A new series of alerts on her visor informed Rainbow that new planes were converging on her position: two from above, and at least four gaining altitude from below.
"Well, I gave the hornet's nest a good kick, so I guess it's time to get out of here," the Equinought said glibly before she took off, "after losing two planes and a copter thing, I'm pretty sure they won't be bothering the Wonderbolts anymore."
"Are you sure you can outfly them? Their engines are probably much bigger, but I'm sure you're more agile. So maybe-"
Rainbow Dash laughed. "Daniels, buddy, relax. I know what this suit can do. See you back at Ferry D, all right?" She cut the vox link.
The side of Rainbow's visor display started listing the pursuing aircraft and their respective distances, but her eye tracked down to a different, less prominent rune on the bottom edge.
She blink-clicked on it, and her vox system crackled briefly before it filled her helmet with a very different voice than before.
"Hiiiiiighwaaaaaay toooo theeeee DANGER ZONE!!" A heavy guitar riff followed the impassioned cry, and Rainbow Dash whooped loudly before she did a barrel roll through the sky.
"SO glad I found the dirge player function!"

****

8 kilometers from the Ork landing zone

"Spike, ensure that the signum transponder is functioning before boot-up. I am proceeding to place the primary charge."
Spike sat on top of a tall, tree-sized machine next to a cluster of thick thorn bushes, his claws wrapped tightly around a tall antennae as Gaela worked at the machine's base.
Despite his orders, the young dragon was less concerned with the listening post he was helping install and more with the trails of dust and exhaust clouds rolling across the distant plains. Although no Orks had happened upon him or any of the other Mechanicus teams yet, it was hard to ignore the presence of more and more bikers in the region around them.
"Shouldn't we have guards? I feel like we should have guards. Why couldn't Twilight come with us?" Spike mumbled as he turned toward the transponder and checked that all the small lumens on the side were on.
"The more firepower we possess, the more Orks we will draw to battle," Gaela explained calmly from below as she lifted a large metal block with the aid of her servo arms, "besides, it is almost dusk. They will make little progress chasing us after night falls."
Spike grunted and started climbing down the listening post. "If you say so, Gaela... anyway, the transponder's fine."
"Did you perform the cant of networking?" the Dark Techpriest asked, sliding the block into the machine housing.
"No, I didn't stop to pray," Spike said as he dropped onto the ground, rolling his eyes. The array of small tools strapped onto a belt around his chest rattled from the movement.
"Your disdain for the Machine Spirit is most unfortunate. You would make a halfway capable tech adept otherwise," Gaela mumbled before her servo tool started welding.
"I don't even want to join your crazy cult. Especially not after they rejected Twilight!" Spike complained.
"I don't see what our prohibition against psykers has to do with you."
"It's called LOYALTY, Gaela. It's a friendship thing."
"Perhaps if you were more loyal to yourself, people would stop mistaking you for a slave."
Spike opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
Gaela didn't seem to notice the awkward halt to their conversation. "As engaging as this discussion is, we had best be silent. The greenskins are too close, and I'm arming the detonator now," she started fitting new parts onto the metal block and chanting in binary.
"Oh, uh, yeah. I'll leave you to that," Spike mumbled. He wasn't really sure why every listening post was being rigged with high explosives, but then he figured the greater strategy of holding off tens of thousands of alien warriors was beyond him.
Spike ran a claw over the tools on his belt, pausing on a holstered laspistol. He didn't imagine he'd actually use the weapon today, and if he did he was pretty sure he wouldn't do anything useful with it; he hadn't practiced with the sidearm at all, and from what he could tell it was a much more discriminating weapon than the melta gun.
Of course, if they'd just assign him another melta gun and camoline cloak like before, maybe he could... wait.
Spike whirled around as he heard some rustling from the bushes, and his claws tightened around the pistol. "Who's there?! Show yourself!" he shouted.
"Do we have an enemy contact?" Gaela asked as she continued working with the listening post. "This is a somewhat delicate procedure. I cannot stop to help in the case of enemy attack at the moment."
Spike let his arms fall. "... Nah, I don't think so." The Orks weren't exactly the kind of soldiers to be skulking through the bushes, as far as he'd seen. "Probably just an animal."
Then came the gunshots.
The first one zipped by Spike's head, and he had just enough time to yelp in fright before a second shot smashed into his chest. The young dragon was knocked off his feet and thrown onto his back.
Spike gasped, trying to draw in air to shout a warning, but before he could control his rising panic or the pain blooming through his body he was tackled by a pair of small green bodies.
"Loot! Loot!" cackled the Gretchin as they started pulling at Spike's tool belt.
Spike swiped desperately at his attackers, raking one of the grots over its arm and causing it to howl and back off. The other Gretchin snarled and kicked Spike in the side before drawing a small, crooked knife and seizing the dragon by his head fin.
"DIE, ya runty liddel-" both Spike and the grot were surprised when the greenskin's knife hand was seized in a literally iron grip, and then crushed into a gory pulp.
Gaela hauled up the howling gretchin, allowing it a moment to stare wide-eyed into the bright green optics under her hood.
"This interruption is unacceptable," she stated simply, "formulating response."
The grot screamed as a servo-mounted drill darted toward it, tearing through its chest with an utterly gratuitous spray of blood and gore.
The other grot leapt for the Dark Techpriest's leg, grabbing onto her cloak and stabbing for her knee. It managed to scrape its knife uselessly against Gaela's armor exactly twice before a servo arm reached down and seized it around the torso. A bit more pressure, and the squealing alien was crushed in an instant.
Before Gaela could check on Spike, a small caliber gunshot bounced off her shoulder plate, and she tracked another ten of the small greenskins emerging from the brush. Her servo laser cut down one of them right away, and she brought her axe to bear while her left hand locked its tri-claws into place and started charging the ion blaster.
"I thought you couldn't stop to help?" Spike coughed out.
A spray of ion bolts roasted two of the charging Gretchin alive before Gaela kicked another that had managed to reach her, shattering its torso.
"It occurred to me that having enemy scavengers overrunning our position is a greater impediment to the arming process-" she paused to chop another gretchin in half with her axe, and then seized another with a servo arm. "-than having to interrupt the rites of detection!"
"Wait, you were just PRAYING to it?" Spike asked. "I could have DIED!"
Gaela slammed her blaster arm onto another Grot's head, and then swung her power axe in a wide arc in front of her to drive the Gretchin back.
"Now is not a logical occasion to dispute my priorities; your demise is still quite likely under the current circumstances!"
Despite her warning, the small aliens were already starting to back off, deciding that they hadn't brought enough bodies to subdue the armored cyborg.
Another ion burst killed another grot, and the surviving greenskins finally bolted back into the brush while shrieking in terror. A laser beam followed and cut down another in the back as they fled, mostly out of spite.

"Area secure. Are you wounded?" Gaela asked, finally looking down at the dragon curled up behind her.
"Yes," Spike moaned, still clutching his arms around his chest.
Gaela reached down and pulled his arm free so that she could look at the injury.
There wasn't much see, really. The scales had clearly broken beneath the bullet impact, but the skin underneath hadn't split open.
"Impressive," the Dark Techpriest mumbled, "Gretchin possess the weakest and least reliable firearms in the Orkoid hierarchy, but nonetheless a direct hit would have inflicted a fatal wound on most creatures your size."
"Ha ha... good old dragon toughness," Spike said weakly before he started coughing painfully. "Ugh... it still hurts, though."
"Of course. If you had accepted your daemonic mutations when you had the chance-"
"Gaela, please, NO. Not this argument again," Spike cut her off before he pushed himself to his feet.
Then he froze when he heard the rumble of distant motorbike engines becoming much less distant. "The Orks! Are they-?"
"Yes," Gaela sighed, an electric arc running up the length of her left arm and curling around the pulse projector, "our earlier combat has attracted the biker team. Prepare for combat."
Spike cringed, looked down at his laspistol, and then looked back up at Gaela.
"... Right. Never mind. Get behind me," Gaela mumbled. In retrospect, it wouldn't have been much of a burden to take along Twilight Sparkle, and it would have considerably increased their total fighting power in a case like this.
Ah... hindsight.
"This is Cog Tertius, requesting immediate fire support," Gaela said into her vox system, cycling to the Tau frequencies. If she recalled the briefing map correctly, they would be the best placed to help. "Get a battlesuit team here immediately. We have Ork scouts moving to intercept."
The sound of machine guns drowned out the noise of bike engines, and as the first few Ork Bikers crested the hill a wide spray of bullets started sawing across the ground. It was nowhere near Gaela, of course, but given enough time and ammunition the alien marauders would surely hit her or the listening post. And considering that the recon device was packed with high explosives, she wasn't sure which would be worse.
"Come in, Xenis Command! This is Cog Tertius, requesting immediate support!" Gaela shouted, aiming her ion blaster.
A bolt of crackling blue slammed into the first of the oncoming Orks, and the rider howled in pain before his bike tilted over and then scraped him across the ground.
Two more raced over the hill to replace the fallen warrior, and one happened to have its guns aiming in the right direction before it started spewing ammunition at the Dark Techpriest.
Gaela staggered as Orks sped by her and bullets hammered her armor, peppering her robes with small tears.
"Spike, get on my back!" she commanded before she fired her heavy laser at the offending Biker. The motorcycle's front plating dissolved and fell apart, spilling its rider roughly into the dirt.
"Where are those damned grayskins?!" Gaela shouted as she felt Spike latch onto her servo harness. "This is Cog Tertius! To any units close enough to lend support! The Orks are overrunning this position!"
More Bikers were cresting the hills, although now that several of their mob were already circling her they weren't using their guns.
The Ork Bikers were utterly unimpressed by the losses they had taken thus far, and one popped a wheelie before slamming hard onto its booster and bursting forward directly at the armored machine-cultist.
Gaela met the charge directly, her power axe crackling as it carved into the front of the bike and then through the chest of the Ork on top of it. The force of the bike's impact, however, threw her off her feet and slammed her into the dirt next to her nearly-complete listening post. Spike yelped as he lost his grip and bounced away, rolling to a stop next to a gretchin's eviscerated corpse.
Gaela took a moment to gather her senses, and then started to stand up again.
Then an Ork Biker parked on top of her.

"Heh heh heh... dis one shur is fighty," the Biker chuckled before he turned off the engine and then jumped off his vehicle.
Gaela's servo arms were already twisting about to start ripping apart the motorbike, but the Ork brought down his choppa and cut off the closest one.
"Lotsa bitz on dis wun!" the greenskin cheered, holding up the dismembered servo limb. "Look! Grab sumfin' and cut it off, ladz! It's lootin' time!"
Spike stared in horror as more Orks surrounded the Dark Techpriest, choppas in hand. Many were eyeing the servo arms, but one of them was clearly angling himself to seize her legs, which he distinctly recalled were NOT mechanical.
"Aw, dis is borin'!" one boy complained, pouting. "Nuffin' out heah but wun humie! I taut we wuz gonna fight spiky boyz?"
"Spike!" Gaela hissed, watching her visor's pressure readouts shift as the Orks started grabbing hold of her servo arms to cut them off. "The post! Shoot the detonator!"
Spike's eyes widened, and he glanced over to the exposed inner casing of the listening post. The explosive block was still visible, and a detonator key was set in the body and displaying green lights. He didn't know how sensitive it was, but Gaela surely did. If a lasblast would set it off... he cringed.
His hesitation at the prospect of committing explosive suicide proved too long. Before Spike's trembling claws even closed around the laspistol, a dirty green hand seized his arm and hauled him up.
"Wuzzis?" murmured the Ork marauder, staring at the terrified dragon. "'Ey, dis liddel fing has mo' loot!"
Gaela spat a profanity in Binary, and then tried to pull her ion blaster arm away from an Ork that was inspecting it greedily.
She halted when a new contact appeared on her heads-up display.
"I still sez we'z missin' da gud fightin'!" another Biker bellowed. "I wanna fight spiky boyz!"
"Good news, then," Gaela interrupted, still face-down in the dirt, "it seems somebody received my emergency vox."
The impatient alien gave Gaela a swift kick in the side, his iron-shod boot impacting with a hefty CLANG. "Oi, shut it! We don' need nun o'yer lip, humie!"
The Dark Techpriest grunted painfully. "If you dislike banter from your opponents, you're going to HATE what's coming."
"Wuzzat?" mumbled another Ork who was still on his motorcycle, squinting up into the sky as he heard something far above. The sun was already setting and the day's light waning, but he could still make out a jet contrail that seemed to be heading toward them.
"IRON WITHIN, BECOME THE IRON WITHOUT! BLOOD! FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

Tellis hit the first Ork Biker like a meteor, breaking the alien warrior and then the motorbike in half.
"Oh, man! I feel like it's been ages since I got to use my catch-phrase!" the Iron Warrior said cheerfully before he stepped out of the furrow he had cut into the ground. "Hi, guys! Who wants claws to the face?"
"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" the battle cry of the greenskin horde boomed through the air as the Bikers raised their arms to the challenge. Some bolted for their parked bikes, but most of the dismounted warriors simply rushed forward on foot.
"All right, all right! Calm down!" Tellis said before he plunged his right-hand claws into the chest of the nearest Biker. "There's enough murder for everybody! Wait your turn!" He used the impaled Ork as a shield against the others as he pushed forward, lashing out with his free hand and cutting down another foe with each swipe.
The Ork that had picked up Spike discarded the dragon and quickly re-mounted his motorbike, revving the engine and then driving in a wide arc behind the Chaos Lord.
"I'm gonna turn ya inta spiky roadkill!" the Ork laughed before he gunned the engine and sped forward toward the Iron Warrior's back.
He made it about half-way before he met an unexpected obstacle. An unexpected, invisible, armored, pony-shaped obstacle.
"YEEK!" a surprised squeak followed a sharp cracking noise, and the Biker's head - followed by the rest of his body - was flung backward off his vehicle.
Fluttershy tumbled to the ground in a heap, quite surprised but unhurt. The motorbike sped off on its own, missing the combat entirely.
"C'mon you guys, take this seriously!" Tellis shouted as he backhanded an Ork's face in and then kicked another's shin to splinters before plunging his claws into its neck. "Do you need some time to get back on your bikes? I feel like I kind of caught you out of your element, here!"
He slammed both fists down onto another warrior, and then his flight pack launched him into the air.
Seeing an Ork that had already mounted his vehicle and was circling the battle, the Iron Warrior tilted his descent and lined up above and behind his new target.
"Bikes are pretty rad," he said while his altitude bled away, "I could've been a Biker. I like flying too much, though. But a bike definitely would've been my second choice."
He made a relatively soft landing on the back of the Ork motorbike, and then seized its rider's head and snapped it sharply to the side.
"Then again, who says I have to choose?" Tellis asked nobody, throwing the Ork corpse to the side and sliding into the driver's seat. "I'm a bike Raptor now! WHOOOOOO!!"

Gaela's augmetic arms squealed as she lifted herself up off the ground, pushing the Ork motorbike off her back and onto its side.
"Oh, Miss Gaela! Are you hurt? Me and Mister Murderer came as fast as we could after we heard you call for help!"
Gaela looked over as she stood up. There was a small distortion in the air at her feet, indicating an active cloaking field. It was effectively marred by the stripe of crimson splashed across the armor's chest plate, however, which was completely visible.
"Not your blood, I take it?" Gaela asked before she started a full system check on her armor.
"Oh, no. It was completely my fault, though. I really shouldn't be flying around invisible when there's so much traffic," Fluttershy explained.
"I see no other prospect for you to directly injure the enemy, so on the contrary, you should keep doing that," the Dark Techpriest countered, "to answer your earlier question, I have sustained no flesh-wounds, although all but one of my servo limbs are non-functional and there is severe damage in the waist actuator tracking."
Fluttershy was silent for a few seconds, allowing the sound of vox-distorted laughter and rumbling engines to dominate the area.
"I... can't really help with that," she admitted.
"Naturally. See to the dragon," Gaela commanded, lifting the arm that housed her ion blaster. The heat vents under the elbow blasted a cloud of blistering hot steam, and a lash of blue energy crawled around the tri-claws while the weapon charged again.
Turning back to the battle, though, Gaela had to wonder if she should even bother.
"WOOHOO!! BLOOD FOR BLOOD GOD, BITCHES!!" Tellis screamed, waving one arm in the air as the other guided the Ork motorbike in large circles and generated enormous clouds of smoke and dust.
The Orks, for their part, seemed to be enjoying this bizarre combat just as much as Tellis was, despite their numerous casualties and the hijacking of a vehicle. Riders whooped and cheered as they raced after the Iron Warrior, shaking their choppas in the air and laughing with glee. It seemed more like a hive gang's drag race than a battle.
"Maybe I should just finish arming the post and leave," Gaela mumbled.
"Seconded," Spike said quickly as Fluttershy carefully injected him with a painkiller.

Tellis laughed and banked his new bike into a power slide, the rear tire digging a furrow into the ground as it kicked even more dust and smoke into the air.
His Ork foes, not to be outdone, followed his maneuver as they pursued, machine guns rattling ineffectually all the while. One Biker leaned too far and crashed, spilling off his motorbike and tripping up the vehicle immediately behind him.
One Ork Biker proved more skillful, however, and as Tellis straightened out this particular Biker was already pulling up next to him.
"Dis rokk b'longs to da Orks now, spiky!" the alien bellowed before he pulled a chain loose from his chest and started whipping it in a circle over his head.
"We were here first, chump!" Tellis shouted back. "Well, second, technically, but Tau don't even use bikes, so screw them!"
The Ork lashed at Tellis with the chain, wrapping it around the Iron Warrior's arm.
Surprisingly, this did not end well.
Tellis yanked the Biker right out of his seat and flung the alien over his head. The Ork smashed into a rock outcropping, while his bike tilted sharply to the side and spun out onto the ground.
"Damn, this is fun!" the Chaos Lord laughed, checking the sensor intercepts on his visor. There were two more Ork Bikers left, and they were some distance behind him, approaching on either side.
And then the engine on his motorbike popped loudly and released a jet of flame into the air.
"Hey! What the hell, guys?!" Tellis complained after the rumbling motor died and his bike started to lose speed. "Stupid Ork tech! An internal combustion engine is not rocket science, people!"
He paused. "At least, I'm pretty sure it's not! You can ask the DarkMech nerd to make sure!"
"WAAAAAAAGH!!" roared the pair of Ork Bikers, shaking their choppas in the air as they raked bullets aimlessly across the clearing.
"Ugh, there's no talking to you guys," the Iron Warrior grumbled, leaning back in his seat.
Then, as the Orks passed by on either side, Tellis flung his arms out, claws crackling.
Both Bikers were unseated as the power blades shredded their vehicles, crashing painfully into the dirt while their bikes collapsed.

Tellis sighed while he looked around, noticing that a few of the Ork bikers were slowly pushing themselves up from their wipeouts. "I should probably go finish them off," he mumbled to himself. Killing was always generally better than not killing, but murdering dismounted riders was seriously anticlimactic after that awesome Biker duel.
The scream of a firing multilaser interrupted his musings, and Tellis glanced behind him to see that a Chimera was approaching the area and gunning down the helpless aliens.
It was a Dark Mechanicus Chimera.
"Hmmmmm..."

As the APC rolled into the clearing, Gaela finished sealing the casing of the post with her remaining welder.
+And so the eye opens, and reveals to its master the truth. Machine Spirit, see the foe and his weaknesses, and slay the alien that would think to disturb your vigilance.+
The lumens and displays on the listening post flickered as Gaela's augmetic hands left the casing, and the machine began transmitting without further incident.
+Dark Techpriest,+ buzzed a Scavurel that emerged from the Chimera access ramp, +we received your request for aid and arrived as quickly as possible.+
+Still too late, however,+ Gaela noted, +the enemy is beaten back for now. No thanks to the grayskins.+
The cyborg warrior looked back and forth at the bodies and motorbikes littering the ground, and his servo claws started scraping together anxiously. +Shall we begin scavenging operations?+
+Negative,+ Gaela said firmly, +enemy presence is too heavy. I believe that the main body of the enemy force is...+ her Binaric Cant trailed off as some very heavy footsteps came up from behind her.
"... Yes, Lord Tellis?" the Dark Techpriest asked without turning around. "How may I serve?"
Tellis dropped a smoldering Ork motorcycle next to her. "Can you fix that up so that it runs? Like, runs PROPERLY, so that I don't need a dumb reality-cheating magic field or whatever to use it?"
Gaela turned and looked down at the bike. Then she looked back up at Tellis.
"That can be done, yes. But... why?"
"Because it's AWESOME, obviously!" the Iron Warrior said, running a gauntlet over the bike frame. "With this thing I'll get all the babes!"
Gaela shared an inscrutable look with the Scavurel, and then looked back up at Tellis again. "And that's something you... want, Lord Tellis?"
Tellis stopped to think about it. "Oh, right. I guess not. Well, never mind, then."
He turned away. "Hey, Shy! Finish up with that opposite-of-murder thing you're doing, we're going to go find more Orks to kill!"
Fluttershy was sitting next to the listening post as Spike wiped the blood off of her armor with a rag, and she yelped at the command.
"Oh! Uh, I really think I should stay and make sure Spike is-"
Gaela cut her off. "Spike is in no medical danger and is currently my responsibility. He'll be leaving with me."
Fluttershy gulped. "Well, then maybe I should go with you as well, to-" she stopped talking when Tellis picked her up, and then sighed miserably.
"Catch ya later, nerds! Blood, skulls, etc.!"

****

Unnamed forest, 3 kilometers from Ork landing zone

Daniels couldn't hear the understated buzz of his rail rifle discharging among the deafening fury of the shootas, multilasers, and autocannons. He barely felt the discharge of the armor-piercing rail as it was accelerated through the rifle barrel and exited into the air. The rail rifle was a subtle weapon, not given to flashy displays of destruction or fiery ejections of wasted energy.
But when it came to results, the weapon was in a league of its own.
A howling warcry was reduced to a choking gasp when the rails punched through the mega armor of a charging Nob, exiting out his back in a dreadful spray of shredded metal and hot blood.
"Nob is down! Gager, get in there!"
A Sentinel with a heavy flamer quickly bound up to the Orks sheltering behind the trees, and as the aliens battered the walker's front armor panel with bullets it released its own weapon into the mob.
Within seconds half the unit was consumed in flames, and the rest of the Orks were bolting back into the forest.
One of them, however, paused long enough to fling a baton-shaped object at the feet of the sentinel.
The scout walker started backing up, but the stikkbomb exploded before it could get away. One of the legs wobbled after its actuator was ripped open, and the walker keeled over.
The Ork that had thrown the bomb didn't get any time to gloat, or suggest to his mob that they should turn around and keep fighting; a laser bolt speared through the side of his head and sent him stumbling to the ground.

"Get Gager out of there! We've got to move, people!" Daniels shouted, his chest heaving after the shooting died down.
Three of the mercenaries were gone, and the Sentinel boasting the heavy flamer was the fourth walker they had lost. Two more mercenaries were nursing injuries, while another was unharmed but had his hands full carrying a wounded pegasus.
"We've got more coming from the North!" warned a different pony hovering above the trees. "A lot of them! I see exhaust plumes too! They might have a Killa Kan!"
One of the trees in the Orks' path started shaking, and the pegasus winced behind his optics mask when it suddenly fell over. "Yeah, they've definitely got a Killa Kan."
"We're not waiting around for that," Daniels assured the pony as the Sentinel pilot crawled free of his walker. "We've got our intel and the listening posts are up! This mission is a wrap, folks! Let's go!"

Night had fallen by now, and the scouting team all had their visors in low-light mode as they rushed through the forest. The wounded among them were stuffed into the cockpits of the Sentinels or clung hard to the sides while the rest of the team made their way on foot.
Every once in a while they would hear sudden, distant bursts of gunfire, but each time it was too far away to possibly be targeting them. Perhaps the Orks had failed to track them and started fighting each other? Or were fighting the nocturnal wildlife?
Then several small screeching noises came from above, and many of the mercenaries halted and looked up. A swarm of small, leathery-winged creatures flew over the treetops, squeaking noisily.
Maybe something more fatal than wild animals had crossed the Orks, after all.
"You know, I have to say, it's kind of nice having creepy dark ponies and evil soldiers on our side, for once," a pegasus admitted, keeping his head down while the bats flew out of earshot.
"Hey!" shouted one of the snipers. "Don't call the batponies creepy! That is so rude!"
"They drink BLOOD," pointed out a mare.
"So what are they supposed to do? Stop? Who cares? It's not your blood."
"We don't know they don't drink pony blood!"
"No, I meant YOUR blood, specifically."
"Hey!" Daniels hissed suddenly before he held up his hand. "Shut up! All of you!"
The unit instantly halted and fell silent, and Daniels adjusted his optics to zoom in ahead.
"... Something up there. Advance. QUIETLY. Sentinels in the back."
"Should we break off and go get a look?" whispered a pegasus.
"No. Minimal approach profile. If this is an ambush we don't want to be separated," Daniels whispered back.
The scout team moved forward slowly, their footsteps gently scuffling against the ground. The Sentinels were - naturally - less stealthy, but even the whine of their leg servos was gentle enough that Daniel could hear a barely audible crackling noise ahead. There was also a glimmering light that was mostly obscured by the brush, and as the mercenaries took up firing positions behind the trees Daniels switched his visor to normal vision mode.
"Searchlights!" he bellowed.
Immediately the Sentinels flooded the next clearing with their headlights, and their weapons warmed up once more as they searched for targets.
There weren't any. The clearing was full of Orks, but the scorched bodies lying all over the ground were in no shape to fight off the handful of human and equine scouts. A battered Trukk had flattened its hood against a tree, and a large portion of its rear frame had been melted off. A small flame still burned over its engine, providing the flickering light and gentle noise that had attracted Daniels' attention.
"Well... this is convenient," mumbled a sniper.
Daniels kneeled down next to one of the aliens under the spotlight, zooming his optics onto its wound.
"Tau weapons," he mumbled, "and it looks like they came through recently. This is a classic Stealth Suit ambush."
"What are they doing back here? This is practically where they started. And we got that call to help out the DarkMech half an hour ago," another mercenary wondered.
"Maybe they were clearing our escape route?" suggested a Sentinel pilot.
"This is also THEIR escape route," a pony reminded them with a snort.
"Whatever," Daniels mumbled, "they're killing Orks rather than us, and that's all I can really hope for." He turned on his night vision optics again. "We're almost to our evac point. This mission is officially a success."
"And then we can stop the army, right? And those... really big things they have?" asked a pegasus.
"... One battle at a time, Cloudy," Daniels mumbled, "move it, lads."