//------------------------------//
// Layovers are the Worst 
// Story: Entrenchment 
// by SFaccountant 
//------------------------------//

Entrenchment
An Age of Iron story


Chapter 7
Layovers are the Worst


****


Harvest of Steel – psionic isolation cell


A buzzing noise came from the vox caster on the wall, and Twilight looked up from her dataslate to see who was trying to meet with her.
“Hi, Spike! Come on in!” Twilight stepped over to the room’s console and pressed a few buttons with her hoof. One side of the circular cell rolled open, admitting the young dragon inside.
“Hey, Twi. How’re you holding up?” Spike entered the cell hesitantly.
“Oh, just fine! This place is great! A little lonely, but, you know, that’s why they call it an isolation cell! Ha ha!” She grinned somewhat anxiously. “What’ve you got for me today? Or tonight? Is it night time?”
Spike was carrying a dataslate and a bag with him, and he set the first item down before looking over the cell. The entire room was cylinder-shaped, and perhaps five meters in diameter. The interior was a pure enamel white, and that plus the bright lumens in the ceiling gave the cell a distinctly sanitized, surgical room look. Which wasn’t a bad thing on the face of it, but it clashed so completely with the gloomy industrial appearance of the rest of the ship that Spike honestly found the isolation cell creepier.
“There is no night time, remember? Space.” Spike looked over to a small pile of ration tins off to the side. “Have you been eating more than one ration a day? Didn’t you say that wasn’t a good idea?”
“Yes, I did! But don’t worry, I’ve been exercising! Sometimes I pace back and forth for hours! I won’t get fat!” Twilight insisted.
Spike winced. “That wasn’t really… uh… anyway! I got you a dataslate on spectral trans-Warp theory and its applications.” He pointed down at the dataslate on the floor. “Not the sort of information that just anyone can download! It was hard to convince the Techpriest to let me have it, and he definitely didn’t know I was going to give it to someone else. So keep this one hush-hush, all right?”
“Thank you, Spike!” Twilight gushed, grabbing her assistant into a hug.
“You’re welcome, Twi.” The young dragon patted her foreleg gently, and then waited for her to let go.
She didn’t.
“Uh… Twilight? You okay?” Spike asked nervously after a full minute passed.
The mare sniffled.
“Oh boy… what’s wrong? I thought you were doing fine in here!”
Twilight sniffled again. “I’m just… just a little lonely, you know? I miss you guys!” She clutched Spike even tighter, nuzzling against his head crest.
“It’s only been like three days!” Spike protested.
“The design of this room enhances the effects of physical isolation. It’s intensely psychological,” Twilight explained. While still hugging Spike desperately. “It’s a psyker thing. If they FEEL alone, then their powers act like they’re alone, and have difficulty perceiving others outside of the mundane senses. And being generally disconnected from the passage of time – in the form of night and day – inherently makes periods of depression seem longer and more pronounced!”
“So they don’t have any rooms that can protect you from daemons AND aren’t designed to make you miserable?”
“As a rule, Chaos only tends to want one of those things at a time.” Twilight started petting Spike gently along his back.
“Okay, well, can’t you talk to anyone? They didn’t take away your armor, did they? And that cogitator should have a vox connection.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true. I was talking to Gaela fairly often at the beginning. Too often, maybe. Because she started blocking my vox links.” Twilight paused, her ears flipping down. “And then I tried talking to Solon, and he did the same thing. And then Kaelith-“
“You tried to strike up a conversation with Kaelith?” Spike interrupted. “Aren’t you two still mad at each other over the daemon attacks?”
“I thought we could talk it out!” Twilight insisted. “Besides, I only tried him after selecting a few Dark Techpriests at random to try to chat with.” She cleared her throat. “Long story short, the entire Dark Mechanicus is ignoring me right now.”
“Twi, this isn’t really like you,” Spike squirmed slightly, but was unable to make any progress in getting free. “I would think you’d be pretty happy to be locked in a room with dozens of books. I mean, that was pretty much your entire school experience after sixth grade.”
“Not true!” Twilight said sharply. “I went to the senior prom, remember?”
“Because they held it in the LIBRARY,” Spike retorted, “I’m pretty sure you were there first and just refused to leave once they started setting up. But never mind that. Seriously, what’s the matter?”
Twilight pouted indignantly, but slowly released Spike from her grasp. “You’re right. I’m not just lonely. I’m scared. REALLY scared.” Spike watched the purple mare shiver, her wings shuffling uneasily on her back. “I didn’t take this trip thinking it would be easy, and everyone has been nothing but honest about the danger, but even THEY didn’t expect what happened last week.”
Twilight crouched on the floor, quivering, and Spike felt a wrenching sensation in his chest. He had always thought of Twilight Sparkle as one of the strongest, most courageous ponies he knew. And of the other ponies that earned that distinction, Twilight was one of the even rarer equines who could actually justify her courage. Seeing her now, curled up on the floor and shaking…
“Monsters were literally tearing themselves out of the bulkheads to kill me. ME, personally. The galaxy has a ACTUAL grudge against me, and… well… I guess I’m having some difficulty processing that.” Twilight’s voice wavered. “Is there any limit to that kind of power? Is this the work of some centralized intelligence? An organization? Are they going to chase me for the rest of my life? Is Equestria at risk? There are so many questions, and no answers!”
She felt Spike’s scales against her side again. This time her assistant was embracing her rather than vice versa, and his eyes silently asked her to continue.
“… I miss the girls. A lot. I really wish I had offered to let one or two of them come along. Isn’t that selfish? For all I know the daemons could want them dead too.”
“You don’t know that. It isn’t selfish,” Spike reassured her.
“Selfish or fair, it’s still futile. They’re not here. And the Iron Warriors…” she sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t complain. They’re working to protect me. But they’re really not a comforting bunch.”
“They have a lot of work to do on the ‘friendship’ thing, true. Gaela, too,” Spike mumbled.
“Again, not really fair. She has a job. And she refuses to be treated as a full-time foal-sitter, no matter how many ponies beg for her time and attention.” She paused. “Her exact words, actually.”
“I know. I read her noosphere notes too.”
“Maybe… in time this won’t seem like such a big deal,” Twilight reasoned, “when aliens first arrived, I thought serious warfare was horrifying. When I saw a pony kill another creature out of hatred, I felt like my world had unraveled a little bit. I thought at some point that swearing myself to fight for Solon was the most awful thing I’d ever have to do. And fighting Orks quickly went from terrifying maelstrom to a dangerous chore. Maybe this is just… the next step? Another hurdle to suffer through and overcome?”
“Another step on the path to what?” Spike asked.
Twilight decided very quickly that she didn’t want to think about that question. “Thank you for being here, Spike.”
“I can make time to be here more often, if you’d like,” the dragon offered, scratching lightly at Twilight’s withers. “I didn’t know you were so… so rattled.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Twilight whispered, smiling. “Just until we get out of Warp space. Which can’t happen too soon, as far as I’m concerned.”


The floor jolted, and Spike was flung backward into the wall. Twilight was already prone, so she merely flipped over onto her back with her eyes wide.
Bulkheads groaned and squealed all around her, and alarm klaxons began roaring in the halls outside.
Warning! Emergency Warp exit has been engaged! snarled a voice on the shipwide vox channel. All hands to battle stations!
The shaking intensified, and Twilight and Spike bounced around in a helpless panic for roughly twenty seconds.
Then the quaking started to weaken, and eventually it stopped. Spike and Twilight didn’t move, merely staring at each other bug-eyed.
Warp exit complete! All sections, damage report!
The vox caster cut out with a blast of static. The room was silent once again.


“…… I’m sorry,” Twilight whimpered, hanging her head.
“Not your fault!” Spike insisted, massaging his skull. “Not your fault at all! …… Right?”
They heard power armored boots stomping off outside the chamber. There had been a pair of Iron Warriors standing guard at the entrance as a further security measure against daemonic attack. Evidently they had both decided they had something better to do.
Twilight stared at the door for a few seconds, and then stood up fully. “Well, my fault or not, it looks like we’re in real space now. Which means I don’t have to be here anymore.”
Her horn flashed, and then her power armor appeared around her. “Let’s get out of here, Spike!” Her helmet winked into place next to her and she spent a moment to float it onto her head.
“You seem to be feeling a little better already,” he mumbled as he climbed up her side.
“Yes, actually. Dealing with a general catastrophe that only affects me incidentally is a relief.” The helmet seals engaged with a sharp hiss. “Apparently, this is what my comfort zone looks like now.”


The isolation cell slid open, and she trotted out into the hall. The entire interior of the ship was jumbled, with metal crates scattered across the flooring. A deck slave was being carried away down the hall by two other men, all of them looking somewhat battered. Still, the damage seemed to be of a strictly minor nature, at least in this section.
“Hear those alarms? That’s a tertius-level alert,” Twilight explained, “that means that we’re not under immediate threat of destruction. Whatever happened can’t be that bad.”
“Then why have an alarm for it?” Spike wondered aloud. “Also, where are we going? To find Gaela?”
“No, not this time. I don’t think Gaela is going to know much more about this than we do. It seemed to catch everybody by surprise.” Twilight frowned as she worked through her visor display. “Hold on, I’m uploading the local noosphere alerts.”
She galloped along through the halls in silence for several minutes after that. Iron Warriors ran past in the opposite direction, all of them with bolters at the ready. There was no indication they’d need them, but Spike supposed that with the sudden invasion in Warp space they weren’t taking any chances.
“Okay, apparently we had to exit because a Warp storm suddenly appeared on top of us,” Twilight said.
“A Warp storm? Like what was protecting Equestria from attacks?”
“Yes. You weren’t there for the battle against the Space Hulk, but I can assure you that those can tear apart even massive ships in short order.”
“Okay. So, where are we? Like, in the galaxy, I mean. Did we make it to the Face of Fear?”
“Eye of Terror, Spike.”
“Same difference.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and stopped at a transit hub. The stations acted as boarding platforms for a series of high-speed trains that brought crew swiftly between different portions of the ship, given that the ship itself was far too large to navigate quickly by foot. They also functioned as defensive hardpoints, because the Iron Warriors turned every location of importance into a defensive hardpoint.
“I’m pretty sure we’re not there yet. Or very close, either. According to the log, we’re in deep space. Nothing around for hundreds of thousands of kilometers in all directions.”
Twilight didn’t sound especially bothered by that, but Spike cringed. Being surrounded by vast, nearly unfathomable distances in all directions was not a comforting thought to him.


The transit car squealed into place in front of the access platform, and a number of lumens flashed danger warnings at the pair of Equestrians waiting to board.
As soon as the doors opened up a pair of Iron Warriors charged out of it, followed by two Dark Techpriests straining their augments in order to keep up. None paid the slightest attention to the alicorn or her passenger, which made Twilight glad she had thought not to stand directly in front of the exit.
She entered the train car and accessed the cogitator through her visor. “Section 2, please.”
“Acknowledged,” buzzed the robotic voice from above. The door swiftly shut before the entire car lurched into motion, accelerating far faster than was probably safe.
“Why do they have the weird robot voice do the unnecessary responses in the shuttle trains, the angry male voice do the automated messages explaining what’s going on, and happy-sounding girl voice for the deadly combat robots?” Spike asked. “Don’t you think those could be switched around a little?”
“It’s probably the result of a ruling class that sees psychology as a weakness to be overcome rather than a trait to be managed,” Twilight guessed. “But never mind that. I got another update. The fleet managed to exit safely, and there was very little structural damage to the vessels. Several crew injuries, but even there, nothing major, apparently. All the ships are ready to go.”
“That’s good!” Spike said brightly.
“Unfortunately, the local Warp space is still experiencing a dangerous storm. Until it stops or we travel far enough to get outside of its corresponding radius in the Empyrean, we can’t enter the Warp.”
“That’s bad,” Spike noted sadly.
“Correct. Without Warp travel, I’m pretty sure our ETA is longer than our natural lifetimes.”
Spike frowned. “But I’m a dragon, and you’re an alicorn Princess.”
“Oh, right! Good point. Our ETA would only be longer than YOUR natural lifetime.” She chuckled lightly as Spike boggled at the thought. “But even so, there’s no way it would take us that long to reach a point in space that wasn’t rife with Warp turbulence, so don’t worry.”
“I’m a little worried anyway!” Spike protested. “Even if we’re pretty sure we won’t DIE of old age during the trip, I didn’t leave Equestria thinking I’d be gone for years! Or is it decades? Centuries? ‘Shorter than a dragon’s lifetime’ doesn’t exactly narrow it down much!”
“Spike, just stay calm,” Twilight said firmly, “don’t forget that we’re not alone here. There are thousands of experienced crew members who all want to reach our destination as fast as physically possible. This can’t possibly be the first time they’ve had Warp travel difficulties; generally speaking, it really is one of their less reliable technologies.”
The young dragon huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “And to think, earlier you were hugging me in terror, afraid that monsters might pour out of the walls…”
“Right? Putting aside that we’re stranded in empty void, seriously, I am SO glad to be out of the Warp!” Twilight smiled under her helmet as the rail shuttle started to slow down.
“Approaching section 2,” announced the cogitator vox caster. The shuttle finally came to a complete stop, and the door slid open.


Twilight stepped out quickly, barely managing to get out of the way before a team of Scavurel and another Dark Techpriest rushed into the car behind her.
Then she galloped further down the hall, eventually coming to yet another defensive fortification. This one was the heaviest yet, with numerous ceiling-mounted turrets and even a pair of bunkers boxing in a reinforced gate. A full dozen Chaos Space Marines stood at the ready before this entrance, and every one of them turned toward her with their bolters up.
“Hi! Is Warsmith Solon at the bridge yet?” Twilight asked, clearly unbothered by being a few finger twitches away from oblivion. Spike wasn’t quite so jaded and fidgeted nervously.
The unit Champion growled. “Negative. The Warsmith is still in his forge. Lord Sliver has the bridge.”
“Okay! Thanks!” Twilight chirped. Then she vanished in a flash of purple.


****


Harvest of Steel – bridge


“Minor hull breaches in section 4, deck 11 and section 8, deck 9 have been sealed.”
“Dark Techpriest Baan has confirmed that the ship drives are undamaged.”
“System checks complete. Reactor core system capacity stable… 65% and holding.”
“The Harvest screams! She is lost! Adrift! The Warp boils around her, and-“
“Be ssilent, sslave.”


All discussion and shouting halted at the command of the Iron Warrior standing in the middle of the bridge. Sliver sat the head of his great hammer on the floor, his hands resting on the hilt.
“Group the fleet. Defenssive formation. Thiss may be the work of raiderss,” Sliver hissed.
“A Warp storm, the work of raiders?” asked a Warpsmith, clearly skeptical.
Sliver turned to face him. “We are a fleet of raiderss who have ussed Warp sstormss to our advantage, are we not? I do not pressume that we are alone in thiss ability. There may be other posssibilitiess, but until we ssettle on a hypothessiss, I will not let my guard down.”
“Acknowledged, Lord. Vessels have been ordered into circlet formation.”
“Alter our heading,” Sliver added, “if we are sstumbling into an ambush, the foe may have predicted our route.”
“Acknowledged, Lord. Altering course.”
“And ssomeone get the Warssmith up here!” Sliver growled. “I need to sspeak to ssomeone who actually hass an inkling what iss happening!”
A fizzling noise came from next to him, and then Twilight Sparkle appeared in a flash of purple with Spike sitting on her back.
“Hi,” greeted the dragon, waving nervously.
Sliver honestly considered swatting the uninvited pony and her passenger away with his hammer like a croquet ball. In the end, however, his inherent practicality won out over his irritation. “Ssparkle, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to be available in case I could help, Lord Sliver,” Twilight answered. It felt slightly awkward to her to be addressing the fleet’s Vice-Commander as the only available superior officer. It was a situation she usually strived to avoid. It also meant she couldn’t remove her helmet, lest she be overwhelmed by the Chaos Lord’s stench.
“Nobody requessted your pressence,” Sliver growled.
“Not yet, no. But as the only actual psyker remaining in the fleet, I thought it would be better if I didn’t wait to review the situation.”
“The witch has a point, Lord,” interjected one of the Warpsmiths, “if there is some sort of psychic trickery afoot, it will be helpful to have her close at hand.”
Twilight smiled under her helmet when Sliver grumbled something unintelligible in reply. It was always nice to be taken seriously by the troops, especially when certain leaders tried their absolute hardest to dismiss her.
Her smirk withered somewhat as the giant eyeball above the bridge shifted its gaze to stare straight at her. “Why do they even need that thing?” she mumbled.
Sliver stepped over to a large hololithic map displaying the Company fleet. “Very well, Ssparkle,” he spat, “you may sstart by explaining how a Warp sstorm appeared on top of uss without warning. The Nethalican’ss power wass intended to enssure clear and sspeedy travel all the way through the Ssegmentum Ssolar.”
Twilight winced. “Oh. Uh… I don’t know that, actually.”
Sliver took up his hammer and then pulled it back in preparation to swing at her.
“No! Wait! Hold on! I have theories!” Twilight yelped, flinching away. When the Chaos Lord hesitated, she continued. “Okay, so, one idea is that this is another effort by daemonic forces to get to me. They may have been hoping that we wouldn’t be able to exit the Warp storm in time and that we would all be destroyed, or perhaps that you would be willing to trade me for unobstructed passage through the Warp.”
“In resspect to the latter posssibility, they would be correct,” Sliver snarled, “sso you’d besst have another explanation, witch.”
“I do!” the alicorn yelped. “The other likely cause is a problem with the Nethalican itself! Since it’s clearly capable of generating Warp anomalies and affecting the Warp currents even at our current distance – and was in fact helping to move us at the time that the storm began – it’s possible that something happened to the Dark portal back in Equestria!”
Spike raised his hand. “I vote for theory number two.”
“You don’t VOTE on theories, Spike,” Twilight reminded him.
“The Harvest speaks!” shouted one of the crew members entombed in the walls. “She wishes to know if she can eat the purple thing now.”
“No, she can’t eat me!” Twilight shouted angrily.
“Obviously the Harvest wasn’t asking you, Lady Sparkle.”
“Why would it even ask?! There’s plenty of fuel, and we’re in the middle of a-“
Twilight was cut off when Sliver slammed his hammer into the floor, causing the entire room to shake slightly. She bounced off the floor and squeaked in surprise. The entombed crew flinched away, cowering in their terrifying alcoves.
“Ssilence,” Sliver commanded. Then he turned away, toward the pair of Warpsmiths on the bridge. “We will proceed under the asssumption that the Nethalican hass failed. It would not be the firsst time, after all.”
“How shall we contact them? Can the equine witch send astropathic messages?”
“Astro-what, now?” Twilight asked, answering the Marine’s question.
Sliver snorted in disgust. “Usselesss. We’ll have to enlisst a daemonic messsenger to contact the colony.”
“That could take weeks,” growled the Warpsmith, “if it works at all.”
“Actually,” Twilight interjected, “I may not be capable of astropathic messages – whatever those are, exactly – but I have a means of contacting Equestria. Er… maybe.”
All eyes – and hollow, withered eye sockets – were instantly on her.
“Explain,” Sliver commanded.
“Spike can send magic messages that go directly to Princess Celestia. The process is instantaneous… in theory.”
“In theory?”
“There’s nothing in the magical calculations or principles that suggest it would be affected by even astronomical distances…” Twilight hesitated before adding. “But I must point out that we’ve never really considered the possibility before now. We’ve never had to contend with distances that challenge even light-speed transmission. There may be some delay that we’ve never noticed, or a range limitation that was simply never relevant before when we only had to contend with the distances presented by a single planet’s surface. And, of course, as a magical effect, there’s a slight chance that it will be affected by the Warp storm itself.” She smiled somewhat nervously. “Still, there’s no harm in trying, right?”
“Damnable witchcraft,” Sliver snarled. “Do it. Pterax, contact the Cultisstss. We’ll disspatch a daemonic messsage as well.”
“Acknowledged, Lord Sliver,” replied one of the Warpsmiths.
Spike pulled a scroll from his belt holster with one hand and a pen with the other, preparing to write. “So, um… who’s dictating?” he asked, glancing between Twilight and Sliver.
“I should probably do it,” Twilight volunteered, “and, hey! At least we have plenty of time to wait for a response, or for the Warp storm to clear up on its own. Out of all the places in the galaxy where we could have randomly dropped into, it’s nice that we actually got a safe location. Right?”
“The Warp bleeds!” shouted one of the crew-mummies, gasping. Spike jumped in surprise, fumbling his pen on the floor.
“Lord Sliver, we’re reading new Warp exits in quadrant three!” announced Pterax, opening up new holoscreens.
Sliver turned to stare at the table showing the fleet disposition. “Our craft are all accounted for. Thesse contactss are not of our fleet.”
“Confirmed, Lord! We’re reading six Warp breaches! Eight! Eleven!”
Twilight stared wide-eyed as the Warpsmith continued shouting ever-greater numbers at them. On the hololithic table, new vessels started flickering into place behind the Company fleet. “Why can’t I keep my big mouth shut?” she murmured under her breath.
When Sliver spoke again, she was surprised to hear that his voice was solemn, rather than enraged or exasperated. “Inform all vessselss to hold fire and relay hailss to the flagship. Maintain formation, sstrategem Delta. Reactor levelss at minimum.” Then he turned away and placed a hand to the side of his helmet. “Warssmith Ssolon! We need you on the bridge, NOW!”
“All right, all right, I’m coming! Ish thish about the Warp shtorm? You know I can’t fix that, right?” grumbled Solon’s voice from the vox.
“No. It’ss worsse,” Sliver growled, “an Imperium battle group jusst dropped out of Warp sspace right on top of uss. About three timess our fleet sstrength, and already in optimal range. We could usse your guidance, Warssmith. Ssliver out.”


****


Imperial Cruiser Wrath of Promethius – bridge


“Would anybody like to tell me what the blazes just happened?!”
The bridge crew of the fleet flagship had descended into near-anarchy, with deck officers screaming at each other and aides dashing across the floor. Some people were being carried off the bridge unconscious, while new crew officers and soldiers rushed to get past them.
“I want damage and situational reports!” barked the Captain. “Raise the other ships! And someone escort the Head Navigator to the bridge immediately! I demand an explanation for this!”
“We have hull breaches on deck 23… deck 7… deck 10…”
“Repair crews dispatched, Lord Captain. Techpriest Herran has confirmed that the drive systems are intact and operational. The damage does not seem to be critical.”
“Thank the Emperor for small favors,” the Captain groused, falling back into his command throne, “still, to have a Warp storm suddenly bloom in front of us like that is nothing short of catastrophic. Why didn’t the Navigators see anything?”
“Captain Bennet!” shouted another officer. “There’s another fleet in attack range! They’re right on top of us!”
The Captain immediately jumped up again. “Xeno?”
“Negative, Lord Captain… it looks to be a freighter fleet. Definitely Imperial design. No active weapon signatures.”
Captain Bennet frowned, sitting back down. “Most likely caught in the same blasted storm we were. I want all weapons at the ready, but I need to take stock of our own fleet, quickly. We’ll deal with them later.”
“Captain, I’m receiving an update request from the Astartes strike cruisers,” said another officer with a hint of nervousness, “the Salamanders wish to speak with you.”
Bennet grimaced. “Of course… keep an eye on those freighters and continue compiling the damage reports. And someone get me an ETA on the Navigator! NOW!!”


****


Harvest of Steel – bridge


“Well, ishn’t thish a fine messh.” Solon’s fingers summoned and dismissed flickering screens of orange light in rapid sequence, bringing up data displays and making inputs faster than the others on the bridge could keep track of. His optics cluster pulsed and whirled, and occasionally a puff of dark smoke would shoot from his smoke stack, as if in agitation.
Other than the Warsmith, however, no one was taking any obvious action. The others waited calmly for his decision. Twilight wasn’t sure whether their patience was comforting or not; she was used to the Iron Warriors - particularly Sliver - reacting to every threat with varying levels of explosive violence and agitation.
“Well, I have shome good newsh. The Imperial fleet didn’t weather the Warp shtorm nearly ash well ash we did,” Solon announced. “They’re hurt, panicked, and clearly aren’t very worried about ush. They haven’t even attempted a hail yet.”
“That will not lasst,” Sliver grumbled.
“Clearly. Missh Shparkle, how ish that letter coming along?”
“All done!” Twilight announced, holding up a sheet of tan parchment with her levitation. She had elected to write it herself rather than dictating it to Spike, since she didn’t want to have to talk over the Chaos Lords’ deliberations. “Dear Princess Celes-“
“We don’t CARE what it ssayss! Ssend it, you idiot!” Sliver snapped.
Twilight shot a heated glare at the Vice-Commander, but wrapped up the scroll promptly. “Spike?”
Spike sucked in a breath, and then blasted the scroll with a jet of green flame. The Chaos Space Marines watched mutely, each one confirming with their visor that the sorcerous stationary had vanished on the particulate level.
“I can’t believe it’ss come to thiss,” Sliver groaned. “That the fleet’ss ssurvival may come down to the ssuccesss of your abssurd witchcraft.”
“Well, do we have any OTHER options?” Twilight huffed.
“Many, actually,” Solon confirmed, “but mosht of them are bad. We could attack, begin a full retreat, attempt a shtealthy withdrawal, attempt to allay any shushpicion that we are anything but a group of freightersh caught in the shame shtorm ash they were…”
“Yeah, uh, about that...” Spike began, wincing at the display on the naval hololith. “How long are they just going to sit there, anyway? Aren’t they going to figure out that we’re an enemy eventually?”
“Not from a dishtance,” Solon explained, “all the vesshelsh in the fleet posshessh shpoofing relaysh and encrypted identity codesh ripped from actual Imperial ship yardsh. And I take every opportunity to alter Imperial data nodesh with redundant and conflicting data to mashk the dishcrepenciesh our deceit generatesh.” He gestured to a vid-screen. “Even our hailsh are modified with imaging programsh to allow ush to shpeak to the enemy while projecting the appearance of shimple Imperial merchantsh.”
“So… they really can’t tell that we’re an enemy ship?” Twilight asked, surprised.
“No. Unlessh they board ush, of courshe,” Solon replied.
“As Imperial patrolss are wont to do,” Sliver added sourly, “we cannot posssibly deny them entry without revealing oursselvess as foess.”
“Can we win a void engagement if we have the first strike?” Warpsmith Pterax asked. “We, too, are at optimal combat range, and could quickly dispatch boarding parties.”
Sliver pointed to two particular vessels in the enemy fleet. “In the abssence of enemy Sspace Mariness, and with perfect luck, we could conceivably defeat thiss fleet. But the pressence of the Ssalamanderss tipss the balance fully in the favor of the enemy. We could conceivably win, but the only ssurvivor would be the Harvesst of Ssteel. Ssuch losssess are unacceptable.”


Spike suddenly started coughing, and Twilight literally jumped for joy when he spat out a scroll in a burst of green flame. “It worked! Yes! Everything is going to be just fine!”
“Shplendid!” Solon watched the pony lift and unroll the scroll with her magic while Sliver grumbled something to himself. “If the Nethalican hash been damaged, it may be a matter of national attention. What doesh your mentor shay?”
Twilight started reading the message aloud, her voice becoming weaker and more confused as she progressed.
“Dearest Twilight: I’m afraid I didn’t understand your last message at all. I can only imagine the fleet you speak of is the 38th Company space craft, but as I understand it those have already left the planet. As for the Chaos Temple in Ponyville, it is undisturbed as far as I am aware. There have been no attacks or incidents within the village recently. Please explain further. Sincerely, Princess Celestia.” Twilight tilted her head to one side.
“That wash lessh helpful than I would have liked,” Solon remarked.
“And yet sso perfectly conssisstent with her passt behavior,” Sliver mumbled.
“Hold on, we can clear this up!” Twilight said, nodding to Spike. “The important thing is that we have a method of instantaneous communication!”
The young dragon unfurled another sheet of parchment and readied his pen.
“Dear Princess: I know the fleet has left the planet. I went with them, just as you asked me to do. We need you to contact High Sorcerer Serith as quickly as possible and ask him to check the Nethalican. It is of critical importance that he confirm it’s working properly. Sincerely, Twilight.”
Sliver turned away. “I will began preparing for the inevitable boarding and dessperate void combat sscenarioss. I can ssee that thiss iss going nowhere fasst.” A soft green glow briefly reflected off of Sliver’s armor as Spike sent the next message.
“The Harvest still wants to eat the purple thing, when you’re done with her,” pointed out one of the crew entombed in the wall.
“Not now!” Solon snapped.
“Not EVER!” Twilight corrected.
“The Harvest ponders,” hissed another crew-mummy, “why do we never do what she wishes to do?”
“She really feels like she deserves to eat the horse,” clarified another.
“There is an entire armada of potential snacks floating right next to us, and you seriously want-“ Twilight’s rebuttal was cut off when Spike coughed and spat a scroll into the back of her helmet. “Ugh. Hold on…”
The armored alicorn quickly unfurled the new message and started reading. “Twilight, I never asked you to go with the Iron Warriors. Why would I do something like that? Does that mean you’re in space? Where… Where are…” Twilight’s voice broke, leaving the last few sentences unfinished. No one could see her expression under her helmet, but they got the distinct impression she was in the opening stages of a nervous breakdown.
“Aw, man! Seriously?!” Spike slapped a claw against his face. “I knew there was something weird about her sending the order through the regular mail!”
“No matter,” Solon said, “what about the portal? Ish she contacting Sherith?”
Twilight didn’t answer. She continued staring at the letter in stunned silence, with her breathing slowly getting heavier and heavier.
“Shparkle?” Solon asked again. “SHPARKLE!!”
She still didn’t seem to hear him. The room seemed to spin around Twilight, and her stomach felt like it was tying itself in knots. It reminded her of the time she and her friends had negotiated for the salvation of their planet before the Ork invasion, except that at least back then the situation had been perfectly clear and their impending doom had an obvious and direct cause. She couldn’t even start mentally organizing all the questions she had right now.
The Warsmith raised one leg and hammered it into the floor, causing Twilight to jump in surprise.
“LISHTEN to me, damn you!” the Chaos Lord shouted.
Twilight snapped her head up, terrified but suddenly focused.
“The Nethalican! What doesh she shay about the blashted Nethalican?!”
Twilight sucked in a deep breath, staving off her immediate panic attack. Immediate crises first, retrospective crises later.
“She s-says that she’s dispatching g-guards and messengers to try to t-tell Serith.” She swallowed. “But s-she wants to know what’s h-happening.”
“Fine. Explain it to her if you wish. Jusht ash long ash Sherith doesh hish job.” Solon waved a hand dismissively, returning to his data reports.

“Warsmith,” Pterax warned, “we have an incoming hail. It seems the loyalist dregs are at last in a state to pay attention to us.”
Solon started turning, but Sliver rounded on him first.
“Warssmith, what about the equine?” Sliver demanded. “Will your program obsscure her as well? We cannot be sseen holding audience with a xeno.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already updated it to account for her and the young one,” Solon assured his second, “we’ll be fine. Thish ish the eashy part.” Then he turned to his Warpsmiths and nodded. “Let’sh begin. On-shcreen.”


****


Imperial Cruiser Wrath of Promethius – bridge


“Vid connection established, Lord Captain. Link confirmed, comms codes accepted,” mumbled a communications technician, “coming on-screen.”
The main communications monitor flickered, and a streaming vid quickly crystalized. An image of an elderly void ship Captain, with a thick beard and the Imperium’s Aquila stamped over his uniform’s chest, dominated the screen. Next to him was a portly merchant type, sporting a long and thin mustache.
“My name is Captain Bennet, Master of the Imperial flagship Wrath of Promethius. Identify yourselves, citizens!”
“I am Captain Geoff of the freighter flagship Ionish. Thish ish my aide, Theodore,” said the bearded man.
Bennet grimaced. Judging by the man’s voice, he was thoroughly intoxicated. While it was extremely bad form to speak with military captains under such conditions, he supposed it couldn’t be helped. The freighter had almost certainly been driven out of the Warp unexpectedly, as they had.
“Well met, Captain Geoff. As I’m sure you’re aware, a Warp storm has suddenly taken this region. We were forced out of the Immaterium on short order, as I imagine you were as well.”
“Indeed. Quite a bad shpot. I washn’t aware that Warp shtormsh happened like that.”
“Evidently, neither were our Navigators,” Bennet sniffed, “I would like a report from yours, to see if there’s any discrepancies or oddities we could investigate. I also insist that you submit your navigation records for review.”
“The Navigator ish going to be an isshue, I’m afraid,” Geoff said sourly, “oursh fell unconshcioush during the Warp exit, and shushtained non-fatal injuriesh. She’sh reshting in our medicae.”
One of the communications officers sniggered, mumbling under his breath. “Bloke is completely sloshed…”
Bennet, for his part, wasn’t so sure. His civilian counterpart seemed completely lucid, slurred speech aside.
“I can shumbit our navigation transhcript without issue, however. Jusht a moment.” Geoff leaned to the side, tapping against a holoscreen.
In that moment, however, Bennet started in surprise. When the freighter Captain stood straight again, obscuring the… creature behind him, Captain Bennet blinked repeatedly, wondering if he had been mistaken. A quick look at the other men around the bridge banished the thought, however. They all looked confused, clearly wondering the same thing.
“Uh… transmission complete, Captain,” muttered one bridge officer, shaking his head.
“Analyze the data, then send it to the Salamander strike cruisers,” Bennet demanded of his officer. Then he turned back to the screen. “We are working to understand and overcome this unexpected impediment, Captain Geoff. I’m sure I can count on your cooperation should we require your assistance, yes?”
“Affirmative, Captain! Anything to aid the heroesh of the Imperium!”
“Good. As of now, however, the important thing is fully assessing the damage caused to our fleet. On the advice of Salamanders Captain Orobes, we are conducting deck-by-deck sweeps to search for any unusual contamination from our brief exposure to the Warp storm. The Astartes have even mooted the possibility of daemonic infiltration.”
Geoff recoiled in horror and his aide shifted, clearly disturbed by the suggestion. The movement was smaller this time, but again, Bennet glimpsed something strange standing in the background behind the Captain.
“Theodore, shee to it that our armshmen do a complete check of the ship. Every shingle deck! Extend the order to the other shipsh ash well! Report any anomaliesh to Captain Bennet immediately!”
“Yess, Captain. Right away.” Theodore bowed and slipped away, moving out of frame.
“So, then, you won’t be needing security forces to check your vessels? The Salamanders have been volunteering their kill teams to perform sweeps. Certainly the Astartes would be well-suited to combating any potential infestations,” Bennet offered.
Geoff seemed to hesitate. “I’m shure the Ashtartesh have better thingsh to do than dig around a freighter during this tumultuoush incident. And… if I may shay sho, Captain, I feel it would be better for morale not to have the Emperor’sh Angelsh of Death rummaging through the decksh. At leasht, not until we’ve found a problem.”
“Very well, Captain. I expect a report once your sweep is completed, or when your head Navigator regains consciousness. Whichever comes first.”
“Of courshe, Captain Bennet. Good day.”
Geoff shifted to turn off the vid-link, but Bennet suddenly held up a hand.
“Hold on, please. I must ask, before you go…” he paused, wetting his lips. The bearded man on the screen tilted his head to the side. “… Why do you have a horse on your bridge?”
Geoff turned to look over his shoulder. Indeed, sitting on the floor next to a support pylon was a chestnut-colored horse with a white, diamond-shaped patch on its face. It looked just like any of the mounts used by the division of Rough Riders carried by the fleet, except that their animals obviously weren’t allowed in the nerve center of the flagship.
“Oh, her? I ride her. Obvioushly.”
Bennet blinked. “You… ride her. In your ship?”
The horse looked over toward the screen and whinnied softly.
“Yesh, in the ship. Look at thish thing; it’sh huge! Takesh hoursh to walk anywhere.” Geoff snorted. “Is that all, Captain Bennet?”
“Quite. Good day, Captain Geoff.”


****


Harvest of Steel – bridge


“Insholent worm,” Solon murmured after he confirmed that the transmission was terminated.
“The modified navigation recordss should prove perfectly uninteressting to the loyalisst dogss,” Sliver reminded the Warsmith. “However, we can only buy oursselvess sso much time. Eventually they’ll find ssome reasson to board uss.”
“How are we coming on the Nethalican?” Solon swiveled around to face the pony sitting behind him.
“Well, uh, the situation is unchanged,” Twilight confessed. Although she sounded slightly less distressed than before, there was definitely still an undercurrent of anxiety in her voice. “Princess Celestia sent ponies to find Serith and contact the Chaos temple, but it will be some time before they can report back. Hours, maybe.”
Spike started coughing, and then spat another scroll onto the floor before wheezing in exhaustion.
“Ish that the report?” Solon asked, his chassis rising slightly.
“I don’t think so.” The alicorn Princess unfolded the new message with her magic. “Right now we’re just discussing why and how I received orders from her to go on this trip when she didn’t send any such orders.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Solon said with surprising firmness, causing Twilight to recoil a bit. “My entire fleet and army ish one minishcule error away from complete obliteration. YOU included. Sho shtop your ushelessh shimpering and focush on the tashk at hand, Shparkle!”
The mare backed up a step, feeling a quiver run down her spine. “Y-Yes, Warsmith,” she said, hanging her head.
“Good. Inform your mentor that I don’t want to shee any further communicationsh unlessh she hash shomething usheful to shay about the Dark Portal.”
“Yes, Warsmith,” Twilight said again, this time with more confidence, “I assure you, they’ll address this matter with all haste! Canterlot won’t let us down!”


****


Centaur III – Canterlot Castle
Royal Library


“Oh, there he is! Thank Celestia!”
A Royal Guard dashed around a bookcase and rushed toward a tall, armored figure standing in a corner and thumbing through a book.
“Lord Serith! Lord Serith, I have a-“
Serith didn’t turn to look at the pony, but instead raised one hand toward it, pointing his index finger.
The guard’s eyes fluttered closed mid-stride, and then he slumped to the ground in a heap, unconscious. A few seconds later, a rumbling snore came from the equine soldier.
Serith turned the page of his book.


****


Imperial Cruiser Wrath of Promethius – strategium


Captain Bennet sat at the head of a long table, drumming his fingers on the surface while holoscreens floated around him.
At the other end of the table sat a frail, wiry old woman. She wore gilded robes and had an intricate series of faded tattoos across her face. Most of those tattoos surrounded or pointed to her forehead, where the lids of her third eye were squeezed firmly shut against the harsh lumens of the room.
She was clearly exhausted, and her arm was wrapped in bandages from an earlier injury. A medicae technician stood behind her, waiting at attention.
The figure who dominated the room, however, was the giant who stood at the side of the table in green power armor edged with gold. A power maul hung at his side, along with a flamer decorated with ivory fangs. His helmet was off, revealing skin that was almost charcoal black and eyes that were a fierce crimson.


“So what you’re saying is that this storm is no accident,” Bennet growled, “our being stranded here is the result of some heretical design.”
The Head Navigator winced. “I am not saying that, Captain, although that is absolutely a possibility.” She wet her lips, casting a nervous glance at the Space Marine Captain. “But I absolutely believe this storm was created. Not of the ordinary turmoil of the Immaterium, but through the will of mortal minds.”
The  Salamander narrowed his bright red eyes. First at the Navigator, then at the ship’s Captain. “Such witchcraft is far beyond the abilities of most psykers. There is only one force I’m aware of that can roil the Warp to this extent and with such hateful precision as to waylay a battle fleet: Chaos.”
“If this is a trap, however, whoever set it is certainly taking their time in springing it,” Bennet reminded the others, “we are stranded, damaged, and confused, yet find ourselves with ample time to collect our bearings and prepare.”
“What of the freighters?” asked the Space Marine. “They were already here once we translated back to real space. Are we sure they pose no threat?”
“We’ve already contacted them, Captain Orobes,” Bennet nodded reassuringly, “their navigation records and ID signatures check out, and we’ve had no reported problems from them so far. We’re watching them carefully, however.”
The Salamander Captain grunted slightly. “I don’t trust a band of merchants and businessmen to manage possible Warp corruption. If there is some greater plot at work, here, those ships are the most obvious stages for an attack. My brothers are almost finished sweeping our main combat vessels; I’ll send them to check the freighters next.”
“I see. I shall inform the Captain, then,” Bennet clasped his hands behind his back. “Ultimately, however, if this is an artificially created obstacle, I think it more likely that its creator intended mainly to keep us from our destination. Sub-sector Auris may not last long without our aid. So whatever we do in the meantime, ultimately it is CRITICAL that we are able to take to the Warp again.”
The Head Navigator hissed. “A dangerous thing, certainly, to ask in the heart of a Warp storm. Losing our fleet to the Empyrean will only aid whatever malign force willed the storm into being, Captains.”
“Agreed. Study this storm further. Find a weakness, or a cause. Anything. We must find a way to proceed.” Captain Bennet leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. “If that is all…”
“Actually, Captain,” the Navigator interrupted, “there is one other thing I wish to tell you. A… vision, perhaps, that appeared before me in the moments right before the storm manifested.”
“What was it?” Orobes asked, intently interested.
“For barely a second, I saw, in my Warp Sight… a face. Xeno in origin, clearly, but not any sort that I am familiar with. Dark exterior, perhaps chitin. But the face… it was elongated, with sharp, pronounced fangs and large, green eyes that seemed to burn with corrupt power.”
“Most likely the architect of our current predicament,” Orobes rumbled.
“Perhaps, Lord. Yet… the face was terrified. Lost. In that moment, pulsing through the Warp, I felt the creature’s fear and confusion. It did not feel like an expression of malice or intent.” She shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter what it felt. Do you have any idea where it is?” asked the Salamander.
“No, my lord. I’m afraid that my vision contained no such clues.”
“Then our plan of action remains the same,” Orobes growled, “continue the repairs, monitor the storm, search for any anomalies. The moment the Warp clears, we leave this empty void. By the Emperor’s will!”
“By the Emperor’s will,” the others intoned solemnly.


****


Harvest of Steel – bridge


“What the blazesh ish taking sho long?” Solon groused. He was still scanning and poking at hololiths and screens as before, but now seemed to be doing so with a tangible sense of irritation. “Perhapsh the Nethalican might not be fixed yet, but it shouldn’t take thish long to get a messhage to the Chaosh temple!”
Twilight fidgeted nervously. “Well, we have no idea how long it could really take them to contact Serith. I mean, when he doesn’t want to be found, you’re the only one who can find him!”
“Even sho, it shouldn’t take long to contact the Nethalican! The temple hash a shimple vox shyshtem!”
Twilight fidgeted some more. “Ah. Right. But… Canterlot doesn’t.”
“What?” Solon stopped working on the data screens. “Of courshe it doesh. Delgan hash shold vox shyshtemsh in Canterlot.”
“Right. Yes, he has. But not to Canterlot Castle or the royal family,” Twilight offered a high-pitched laugh. “Princess Celestia hasn’t had a vox system installed, and doesn’t really want one. She actually sent out a pegasus messenger.”
“She eshtablished a way to communicate with you inshtanteoushly acrossh millionsh of light yearsh, but she’ll wait hoursh to contact a village within vishual dishtance of her home? When better alternativesh are readily available?” Solon asked, bewildered.
“Ha! Yeah! Seems kind of silly when we put it in perspective like that, doesn’t it?” Twilight laughed some more, and then sighed weakly.
Sliver wordlessly walked up to Spike. The young dragon slapped a hand over his nose, but otherwise gave the Chaos Lord his full attention.
“Tell me, lizard: doess your witchfyre ssterilize the messagess that you ssend to your leader?”
Spike cringed. “It’s, uh, never really come up…”
“Let’ss find out,” Sliver growled.
“Shliver, no,” Solon warned, “remember, if we kill the white one, the planet shtopsh.”
“Couldn’t Princesss Luna manage both the ssolar and lunar cycless?” Sliver grumbled, turning away from Spike.
“Even if she could, I intend to take her with ush at shome point, you know. I don’t want her tethered the planet like that.” Solon shook his head. “Let’sh be patient. We have the Imperialsh fooled, and no reashon to turn thish into a battle.”
“Lord Warsmith, we have another message,” warned a Warpsmith. “One-way vox this time, prioritus secundus. Accessing.”
A blast of static came from the console, followed by the voice of the communications officer. “This is the Wrath of Promethius to the megafreighter Ionish… wait, Ionis? Did he slur that word, or… whatever.”
Spike immediately started snickering. Sliver glanced down at him again, and he stopped immediately and looked away.
“Under the authority granted to the Imperial Navy and the Emperor’s Angels of Death, the Adeptus Astartes, you are to submit your vessels for inspection. The Salamanders are currently aiding internal sweeps of the fleet’s combat vessels. Once they are complete, gunships will be deployed to your formation. You are ordered to lower your shields and any defensive measures you may possess and receive them at such time. Glory to the Emperor, forever our master and shepherd.” The message ended.
Solon sighed.


****


Centaur III – Ponyville


Outside the Chaos temple, just below the cloud level, a single gasping pegasus in combat armor swooped in for a landing.
While the route between Canterlot and Ponyville wasn’t THAT demanding, she had been ordered to make the journey at maximum speed. Combined with the surprisingly unruly weather lately, she’d had to fight quite a few air currents in order to make her current time. Which still wasn’t great, because Princess Celestia had been rather distraught and distracted when she’d given the messenger her mission.
“Geez, what’s the big deal that Sparkle left the planet? She’s coming back, right?” The pegasus slowed, beating her wings heavily and dropping onto the ground in front of the temple steps. “And really, even if she wasn’t, WHO CARES? Not like we need to rely on a half-dozen mares to protect the kingdom anymore. Hay, I’m more nervous that the Warsmith left the planet! Bet we wouldn’t be starting up wars with all our neighbors on his watch…”
She trotted up to the front gates, and then barely managed to dodge backwards before they swung open suddenly.
“Go on! Get! Get out of here!” A fairly large herd of sheep rushed out of the building, spilling onto the streets of Ponyville. Behind them was a Cultist with a barbed whip, and another with a crackling taser goad.
“Bloody animals! Get out!”
“I know I said we needed to grow our flock, but this is ridiculous! HAH!”
“I swear to ALL the Gods I will electrocute you, Garret.”
The messenger stepped out in front of the Cultists and raised a wing in greeting. “Hey, guys! Can I talk to you for a minute? Urgent message from the palace!”
She had the Cultists’ attention immediately. “What, Princess Celestia? What does she want?”
“Status report on the Nethalican, Sir! We have reason to believe it’s malfunctioning!”
The Cultists paused to look at each other.
“That does make some sense, actually.”
“I thought the color was a bit off this morning.”
One of them turned and called into the temple. “Father Virgil! We require your guidance!”


They waited silently until another man approached the gates. Virgil was carrying a young calf in his arms that had blood streaked across its face in a manner similar to war paint, but otherwise he seemed entirely bored to be here.
“What is the matter?” the Chaos Priest said, still holding the cow in his arms.
“Canterlot dispatched a messenger, it seems. They want to know if the Nethalican is on the fritz.”
Virgil looked down toward the pegasus. “The Dark Portal has indeed been affected. Possibly by a creature that may have infiltrated the temple disguised as a fellow monk. Maybe.”
The other clergy looked surprised and alarmed at this. “Wait, we’ve been sabotaged? There’s a spy?”
Virgil shrugged. “Meh… I wonder what prompted the palace to contact us, however.”
“Princess Celestia received a message from the 38th Company’s fleet in transit,” the pegasus explained. “I… don’t really get it myself, but I guess a Warp storm forced them into space, and then there’s this other fleet in space, and they’re not fighting, but maybe they could? Does that make sense?”
The humans stared at her.
“How is it that Princess Celestia is receiving messages from our fleet?” Virgil asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Oh, she can send magic messages to Twilight Sparkle. Who’s on the flagship. Apparently. That kind of came as a surprise to us.” She shook her head. “But that’s not important! We need to fix the Nethalican, pronto!”
“This is a problem,” Virgil mumbled. The calf in his arms mooed in a forlorn tone. “Only Lord Serith knows the mechanisms of the Dark Portal well enough to control the tides of the Warp. I do not know where the Sorcerer is.”
“Oh, we know where he is,” the pony said, “some guards outside the library were found in a near-catatonic state, so we’re pretty sure he’s inside, studying all the forbidden lore.”
“Then should you not have contacted him first? Or brought him with you?” asked one of the other Cultists.
“Well… yeah, actually. It is kind of weird I was sent ahead without him. I wonder if anything’s wrong…”


****


Canterlot Castle – Royal Library


“Hello!? Lord Serith? Fire Strike? Wind Whip? Anypony?” Flash Sentry stuck his head around a book case, nervously making his way through the massive library of the royal family.
“What happened to everypony? Am I seriously the first one to check on this place? Can’t be! We found those guards an hour ago!”
Grimacing, the stallion soldier sped up his search, whipping his head back and forth down each aisle.
A sound came from up ahead, and his ear twitched. It was a soft rumble, almost nasal. Like… a snore?
To his surprise, Flash Sentry found Serith at the source of the sound. To his dismay, he also found all the other guards that had been sent ahead of him.
The soldier stumbled to a halt, his eyes wide. There were equines bodies lying all over the aisle, and would have seemed like the sight of a horrific massacre if not for the snoring and distinct lack of blood.
Serith didn’t turn to look at the guard, but raised a single hand to point at him.
“Waitnopleasedon-“ Flash Sentry hit the ground like a sack of sand, immediately curling up and falling asleep.


****


Harvest of Steel – bridge


“We’ll have to concentrate fire on the Asstartess sstrike cruisserss firsst. We will have the firsst sstrike, but barely. The Imperialss have their guard up, and their confussion will not sstay their hand for long.” Sliver pointed to the two green void ships at each end of the enemy fleet. “The Ssalamanderss musst be removed quickly, sso they cannot counter our boarding partiess.”
He then started pointing to each cruiser in turn. “After the initial blow iss sstruck, we musst get as many Iron Warriorss as posssible onto the enemy shipss.”
Pterax grimaced as the hololith brought up the vessel’s combat data. “That’s going to be far from easy against that defensive web. The men disembarking from the Harvest’s tendrils will be fine, but we’ll suffer heavy losses amongst the boarding craft.”
“And yet, they’ll sstill be ssafer than had they remained on the shipss. Thiss will be a lossing battle, Warpssmith, but we need not go quietly.”
Solon grunted in aggravation. “No, no, no! Thish won’t do at all. We need to buy more time!”
“We could perhapss ssacrifice one vesssel by telling the Imperialss that it hass been corrupted,” Sliver mused, “sset up traps and dark iconss, and make them fight to ssecure the ship…” He looked up at the Warsmith. “Of coursse, if the ssituation on Centaur III iss not ressolved before they are done – or if the Nethalican iss not truly ressponssible – then the enemy will be more determined than ever to ssecure our craft, and we will be a ship down.”
“Tch!” Solon made a disapproving noise. “We need to generate a divershion, but on THEIR shipsh, not oursh!”
“And how are we to do that without revealing oursselvess as the ssource of the dissturbance?” Sliver asked, his voice somewhat incredulous. “They will be able to track the ssource of any teleportss, and their void shieldss are up, besidess.”
Solon lowered his head briefly. “Of courshe. Our teleportsh won’t work.” Then he turned his head around.
Twilight Sparkle felt her hackles rise as she stared into the Warsmith’s optical cluster. “Y-Yes?”
“You can teleport ash well, Princessh. And I doubt your shorcery shuffersh the limitationsh of the teleportarium,” Solon pointed out. Sliver and the Warpsmiths also turned to stare at the pony, and she winced badly under her helmet.
“Well, that’s, uhm, true. But it suffers from other, equally problematic limitations,” she said uneasily, “you see, my teleportation magic is very short-ranged, especially considering the distances involved in a naval engagement!”
She stepped up to the hololith table and reared, propping her forelegs against the table edge. “Normally I can’t even manage the distance between Canterlot and Ponyville. If I understand the scale correctly, the distance between us and the nearest enemy ship is, what, a hundred kilometers? Two hundred?” Her visor flashed a number in front of her. “Two hundred and eighty-two! The amount of magic energy it would take would be enormous, even before considering the margin of directional error!”
Sliver was already preparing a contemptuous retort, but Solon spoke first. “And what if we could get you closher? Up to the enemy’sh hull? Could you get inshide then, through the void shieldsh and armor?”
Twilight blinked. “Yes. I mean, I can’t think of any reason why not. How would you do that?”
“By catapulting you into hard void at extreme velocity,” Solon answered.
Sliver watched Twilight recoil. Then he looked up at Solon. “I like thiss plan. Let’ss do that.”
“Whoa, wait, you mean you’re going to send Twi into the enemy ship ALONE? You seriously think she can take on an entire crew by herself?” Spike asked.
“No, I do not. But she needn’t do shuch a thing. She need only get through the troubleshome barriersh that protect the foe’sh precioush shyshtemsh from my technologiesh.” Solon briefly turned his head away, speaking into his vox. “Magosh Kaelith! Meet me in shector shix, ballishticsh room D-twelve! Bring Malectush Beta! And the Geisht node!” He started heading toward the exit, walking past Twilight and Spike. “Come, Princessh Shparkle. It will be your effortsh that shave my army from deshtruction!”
Twilight gulped, but hung her head and followed the Warsmith out into the hall.
“The Harvest wishes blessings upon the purple creature, such that it may return safely!” called out one of the mummy-crewmen. “Because she wants to eat you when you get back.”
“Thanks. Almost,” Twilight grumbled bitterly on the way out.


****


Harvest of Steel – ballistics chamber D-12


“All right, please explain to me how this is supposed to work.” Twilight was standing on a raised metal platform while Solon loomed over her side and installed something in her armor. It was a small disk, barely larger than a tea saucer.
“Which part? The initial approach, or the shabotage?” Solon asked while he plucked various wires from an open plate on Twilight’s back.
“Let’s start with the approach, and continue all the way to the EXTRACTION, please.”
Kaelith was standing across the room at another table, working on something that Twilight couldn’t see. “Irrelevance. Analytical: Unit Twilight Sparkle’s estimated chance of survival is seven-point-three-nine percent.”
“Maybe I could IMPROVE those odds if I actually knew what I was getting into!” Twilight retorted.
“Negative,” was the cyborg’s reply, followed by a crackling noise that she had come to recognize as the Binaric equivalent of laughter.
“Ash far ash getting you to the enemy vesshel, we’re going to load you into a massh driver,” Solon explained while a mechatendril welded the disk into place. “You’re rather shmall, and we don’t actually intend for you to damage the enemy shipsh directly, sho we can fire you at very low power sho that the Imperialsh don’t detect anything. Once you reach the enemy void ship, teleport inshide. Preferably before you hit the void shield.”
“Okay. Got it. It sounds terrible so far, but I understand,” Twilight said. “Then what?”
“Explanatory: Then you use this.” Kaelith scuttled over and placed something next to the armored pony.
It looked like some kind of large chip, but Twilight didn’t get a good look before Solon reached over and yanked her head away to face him.
“Shtop! Don’t shcan it!” Solon warned. “Even tertiary data contact can be dangeroush!”
Twilight was understandably alarmed. “What is that thing?”
“Explanatory profile: Malectus Beta. An experimental, highly contagious daemonic viral engram using a physical data hive for transmission. Expansion: After activation, the virus corrupts a cogitator system and even the local noosphere nodes, driving the machine spirits to madness and nullifying manual overrides. Complete daemonic corruption follows. The damage is physical, severe, and irreversible.”
“The limitation of shuch a weapon being, of courshe, that we have to get it into the enemy shyshtemsh directly,” Solon added, “you’ll need to find an alpha-directive command conshole. There are a few throughout the ship; on the bridge, obvioushly, but alsho near the reactor core, Captain’sh quartersh, and enginarium. Infect one of thoshe consholesh, and the entire ship will go mad. That should convince the Shalamandersh that they have better thingsh to do than inshpect our cargo.”
“Okay. Got it. Find the important console, and plug in the virus chip.” She wet her lips anxiously. “On the topic of Salamanders, though… what am I supposed to do about all the people on the ship while I’m trying to sabotage it?”
“The module I’m inshtalling in your armor ish a bit of Tau handiwork. Their Lamman Shept hash shome clever ideash about hiding from Imperial augers.” Solon tapped the disc in the middle of the mare’s back. “I could build a better shyshtem given enough time, but thish will have to do. It will allow you to move undetected to the ship and within it. Moshtly.”
“Mostly?”
“Any jumpsh in your conventional energy output will reveal you to active shcannersh. Sho ushing your flight pack or force harmonizer are not recommended. And obvioushly, we will be out of contact entirely.” The Warsmith shrugged. “Alsho, I’ve updated your vishor to decrypt Imperial logic engine accessh nodesh. Try to shcan the command conshole before you infect it; it will rip shome data for our archivesh, and inshert new falshe data nodesh for me.”
“Sure. I’ll see if I can do that.” Twilight paused. “So, I believe that just leaves escape.”
Kaelith started making the static laughing noise again.
“Knock it off! I’m not going on any suicide missions!” the Princess snapped.
“That part ish up to you,” Solon confessed, “I recommend capturing a boarding craft, or ushing a shavior pod. We cannot make any movesh until the shtorm clearsh. You’re a clever girl, I’m shure you’ll think of shomething.”
Kaelith zapped the Malectus Beta wafer with a mechatendril, and it was suddenly wrapped in a muted  yellow glow. “Directive: Place the wafer within the cogitator internals and strike it to shatter the containment barrier.” Kaelith stuck the wafer onto the underside of Twilight’s shoulder pad, where it clung to the armor with a firm magnetic grip.
“Strike it?” asked the pony. “Won’t that damage the wafer if I use too much force?”
“Conclusive: That is acceptable. The pain will only drive the infection further and faster.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “It feels PAIN?!”
“We are ready to deploy. Massh driver turret twelve, charge accelerator coilsh to ten percent capacity.” Solon turned toward a bulkhead and pointed toward a maintenance access door. It unlocked with a hiss, and then opened into a relatively tiny airlock. “Check your void shealsh, Shparkle.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure.” Twilight quivered slightly as her armor systems flashed green. “Uhm, before I go, let’s check in with Spike and make sure Princess Cele-“
Solon grabbed Twilight by the head, ignoring the pony’s frightened yelp. “No time. Now get out there and break shomething!” Then he tossed her into the airlock.


Twilight managed to keep herself from smashing her face into the door. Which, in retrospect, may have broken her visor and gotten her out of this crazy mission.
Or they might have just demanded she go through with it with a broken visor. That seemed unfortunately plausible to her.
The door behind her sealed, and the door in front of her opened. The air was sucked out into the maintenance tunnel, and the armored pony entered the section of the turret assembly that was exposed to the chill of empty space.
“So this is what vacuum is like,” Twilight said to herself, her voice echoing in her ears. “I can even feel the lack of gravity plating. Fascinating. And generally disturbing.” Her every step adhered each boot to the tunnel floor with a magnetic seal, making the short journey seem tortuously long and clumsy.
And yet, it seemed all too short once she climbed up into the receiver of a mass driver. Magnetic rails circled the circumference of the turret barrel, and Twilight could see several gray blobs in the distance that she guessed were the Imperial ships.
“Okay, let’s stay positive. This is sure to be WAY less stressful than my first experience as a projectile! I mean, I can’t even imagine what would happen if Tellis was here!” Twilight shuddered.
Her vox system crackled to life. “Targeting now. We’re aiming you at the cruisher Heart of Vengeance. Shliver felt that the fleet’sh flagship would be too ambitioush. He wantsh you to have SHOME chance of shurvival.”
“What a guy,” Twilight deadpanned. The gun twitched to one side to aim. The shift was miniscule – almost undetectable – yet would make a substantial difference when stretched out over a matter of a hundred or so kilometers.
“So, is there some particular spot I should be standiAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”


Twilight ripped forward through the driver barrel, her suit compensators barely able to block the worst of the G-forces. Her scream of panic soon trailed off to gasping, and finally mild panting. She hurtled through the void, spinning wildly end over end.
She wasn’t sure how long the trip lasted, but the proximity warning on her visor seemed to come shockingly quickly. Her horn flashed, and Twilight Sparkle was suddenly stopped dead in the void, wrapped in a purple sphere.
Before her was the Heart of Vengeance. An Imperium war cruiser.
The sight left her breathless at first, which she was fairly certain wasn’t just an after-effect of her hypersonic acceleration. She’d seen the ships of the 38th Company, which had been specifically engineered to be as unimpressive and harmless-looking as possible, and the void ships of the Tau, which were fairly sleek and relatively compact affairs. They were a world away from an Imperial cruiser.
Massive edifices were everywhere. Huge towers stretched upward while batteries of guns bristled from platforms the size of city blocks. Carvings and spikes were everywhere, giving the space craft a distinctly cathedral-esque feel. It wasn’t as big as the Harvest of Steel, and certainly lacked the subtle menace of secretly being a soul-chomping monster, but the Heart of Vengeance was perfectly monstrous in its own way; a behemoth of metal with sufficient power to strip entire continents – perhaps a whole planet! – of life.
“No vox. No support. No escape plan. Thousands of enemies to fight on their turf, behind their defenses. And every time I use my weapons, I risk bringing the entire crew on top of me.” Twilight explained her mission to the empty void while her visor worked out the nearest empty space within the ship she could reach. “Not even to save Equestria, this time! No, this mission is to save our fleet of pirate ships from being justifiably annihilated by the military of our victims! Ugh…”
The calculations flickered on her HUD. Twilight sucked in a breath. “Let’s go to work.”
Her horn flashed, and then Twilight Sparkle disappeared.


****


Heart of Vengeance – maintenance alcove T-61


Twilight reappeared in a small, cramped tunnel overrun with wires and surrounded by control panels. There was no one else around, and a small door on the end. There was also a skull with glowing red sensors in its sockets, which seemed a little unnecessary to her.
“Where do they GET all these skulls, anyway? Chaos uses them as trophies and decorations, and the Imperium uses them in their construction? Aren’t they trying to convey an image of nobility and righteousness?”
It was only after her questions echoed through the room did Twilight remember that she was no longer in empty void, and that it might be a good idea to keep her voice down. She switched off her helmet caster, so that at least it wouldn’t automatically project her voice for her.
“Okay, whatever. Stage one complete,” she whispered to herself, “as for the other stages, I think my diversion could use a little diversion of its own.”
Her visor searched the controls, labeling each item in turn. Eventually she found the manual overrides for the local fire suppression systems and switched all of them off with a single pulse of magic.
Twilight then stepped over to the doorway, staring at the bundles of cabling on the floor behind her. A small fireball shot from her horn, lighting the room ablaze in short order.


“That should give them some trouble.” She magically pushed the door access button, and it slid open in front of her.
… To reveal a deck rating on the other side.
“By the Emperor!” the man shouted, stumbling backward.
Twilight’s heart jumped into her throat, and her horn flashed again. A laser-like bolt of purple shot forward into the hapless crewman, burning a hole in his chest. He screamed in pain and fell onto his side, clutching his chest.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no…” Twilight snapped her head left and right, her pulse thundering in her ears. “What am I doing? Is he dead? I think he’s dead! I need to get out of here!”
An alarm started sounding, raising her immediate sense of panic another few steps closer to giving her a stroke.
“Warning!” sounded a feminine voice from a vox caster above. “Conflagration detected on deck 19, section lambda! Fire suppression systems off-line! Warning!”
Twilight felt slightly comforted that the alarm was in response to the problem she meant to cause rather than the one that had surprised her. 
“All right, teleporting out to-“ she stepped across the hall, but then hesitated. “Wait! If they find this guy’s body, then they’ll know something killed him! He obviously didn’t die from the fire! I should-“
“What the blazes is that?!” shouted another crewman rounding the corner. He and a woman in red Mechanicus robes skidded to a halt, stunned at the sight of the equine-shaped power armor.
“NOOOO!!” Twilight screamed, loosing a fireball at the two newcomers. They were drawing laspistols when the spell hit, blasting them off their feet and immolating them entirely.
It didn’t kill them immediately, though, and Twilight cringed as the humans screamed and started flailing about while on fire.
“Sorry! Sorry! I mean, I can’t let you live, but I’m seriously very sorry!” A volley of magic missiles hammered the unprotected humans into the ground, breaking their burning bodies with ease. They crumpled to the floor, still burning.
“Okay! I can do this!” she said, unconsciously shouting again. “Just another firebolt for the-“
“Golden Throne, what is that?!” came a shout from behind.
Twilight screamed incoherently as she whirled around, launching the firebolt at the first body she saw. The deck gunner fell backward, fire blooming from a scorched hole in his chest, but another man from behind was drawing his own laspistol.
“Would you people just give me a minute to think?!” the alicorn shrieked.
Two lasblasts washed over her chest and shoulder pads to little effect, but she answered with a blade of magic that cut into the man’s shoulder and nearly ripped him in two. He fell to the ground, his death scream booming throughout the halls.
“Oh, forget it! I’m out of here!” Twilight snapped, facing the nearest bulkhead. She could already hear the sound of boots running through the halls, as well as the crackling noise of the power conduits cooking behind her.
Her visor calculated the distance to the next room and even detected that there was nobody inside to immediately notice her; a function she really should have remembered a minute ago. Her horn flashed, and once again, Twilight Sparkle slipped through the fabric of space and time.


****


Imperial Cruiser Wrath of Promethius – strategium


“Lord Captain! We have something!”
Captain Bennet looked up from his strategic holomaps. “Report.” Across the railing, Captain Orobes circled around to listen as well.
“A report just came in from the Heart of Vengeance! They’ve found evidence of an intrusion!”
Bennet frowned. “The Heart of Vengeance? They already declared that vessel cleared… what have they found?”
“Sabotage, Lord Captain! There was a fire set in the port section, near a defensive battery, and the fire suppression systems were disabled! A handful of crew were also found dead, some with their bodies scorched by flames and others with strange, unnatural wounds! They are fighting to get the flames under control and are searching for the intruder, but they currently have no further leads!”
“Daemons,” snarled Orobes. “No other beast could have appeared so swiftly from nowhere and so easily eluded the crew.”
“What shall we do, my lord?” asked Captain Bennet.
“Redouble the sweeps of our vessels! Complete searches! Open every crate and check every vent!” the Astartes ordered. “We have little else to do until the Warp storm clears, anyway.”
Bennet bowed. “Of course, my lord. I thank you for your counsel.”
Orobes favored the man with a nod before he started walking toward the exit. On the way, he tapped the vox bead on his head. “Purgatus Squad, Excelsior Squad, turn around and head to the Heart of Vengeance! We have an infestation to purge!”
“What of the freighter fleet, Captain?” crackled a voice in his ear.
“Forget them. The integrity of our fighting forces takes first priority! Board the cruiser, locate the saboteur, and CLEANSE it.”
“Yes, Brother-Captain. For the glory of the Imperium!”


****


Centaur III – Canterlot Royal Library


Serith flipped through the pages of the latest tome to catch his interest, his visor glittering in the dim candle light.
He reached the last page, stared up in contemplation, and then closed the book. Then he placed it back into the dusty slot where it had come from.
He walked down the aisle, unconsciously stepping around the comatose ponies in his path. The finger of his gauntlet ran over the spines of several new tomes as he walked, before suddenly stopping on one in particular.
“Lord Serith, what are you doing?” asked a voice to his side. “We require your assistance.”
Serith raised a hand toward the interruption, instantly seeking out the intruder’s mental presence. Once contacted, it was a simple matter to lull the weak mind to rest.
Except it wasn’t a simple matter, in this case. Serith’s power was rebuffed, his tendrils of psionic force washing against a barrier like water splashing at the face of a dam.
The Sorcerer made a disappointed noise. “What do you want, Priest?” Serith finally turned around to give the intruder his full attention.
“The Nethalican has been unsettled. I have been ordered to restore it with all haste,” Virgil explained.
“Unsettled?” Serith repeated sharply. “Such a thing is not easy to do. Yet you came to allow the single most important structure on this world to be damaged? Despite our unrivaled military strength, and your own considerable rapport with the Dark Gods?”
“Looks like it,” Virgil admitted blandly, “little help?”
A tortured sigh came from the Sorcerer. “Very well. I would hate for anything unfortunate to happen to our allies currently in transit.”
“Actually, I’ve received word that the fleet is-“
“Please, Priest. Do not mistake my dry humor for actual concern. You may spare me the details of Lord Sliver’s inevitable complaints of deadlines and quotas.” He walked past Virgil, still stepping over and around the scattered sleeping ponies.
“As you wish…” Virgil mumbled, bowing his head slightly and following Serith to the exit.


****


Heart of Vengeance – munitorium loading tunnels


“Okay, then. This is getting pretty serious.”
Twilight huddled on the floor next to a conveyance strip in the middle of a tunnel used for transporting ordnance to various weapons. Alarms roared in the hallways above and below her, and every minute or so she would hear the sound of boots running across the grates above her hiding spot.
“I killed humans. Several of them. Who were only trying to respond appropriately to defend themselves and their space ship. Which I’m still planning to sabotage. So, in all likelihood, that’s only the beginning of the casualties I’ll be inflicting.”
Twilight sucked in a deep breath, pressing her side against the wall. Her voice was cool and even, but she wasn’t fooling herself.
“Okay, no. Stop this, Twilight. This isn’t about right and wrong. This is about survival. Every one of these humans will kill you if they get the chance. And not just because you’re on their ship! But also because you’re allies with their mortal enemies! Their horrible, corrupt, brutal enemies that shot you at an enemy war ship to create a distraction.”
She banged her helmet against the wall. “I want to go home… why am I even out here? Celestia didn’t send that letter, and now the Nethalican is failing… what’s going on back in Equestria?”
No answer was forthcoming from the gloomy bulkheads, obviously, nor the otherwise extremely useful helmet cogitator. She continued staring into the empty gloom, unbroken save for the parallel strips of light bleeding through from the hall lumens above.
“… Okay, just two more minutes of feeling sorry for myself, then I really have to go,” the pony mumbled, “I have an incomprehensibly dangerous superweapon to… uh oh…”
The sound of footsteps came from above her again, but this time they bore a much heavier, metallic gait that she was quite familiar with.
“Space Marines!” she hissed under her breath, stepping back from the grate.
Her voice was extremely low, and further muted by her helmet. Twilight completely underestimated the amount of noise her own power-armored steps made, however.
The sound of armored footsteps stopped, and for a moment so did her heart.
“What was that?” rumbled a vox-altered voice. Not as harsh as those used by the Iron Warriors, she noted absently.
“An air vent?”
“No. It came from the ordnance loading tubes.”
Twilight started walking backward, trying desperately to move slowly enough that her metal boots wouldn’t make a sound against the metal flooring. It wasn’t easy. Her pulse was roaring in her ears again, which made it very hard to judge which noises would be audible to the super-soldiers right above her.
A clanging noise came from the grate above. Twilight kept backing away at a snail’s pace.
“I don’t see anything. Is there an access point?”
“Not here. The grate is too small for power armor. Hold position.”
Twilight glanced back at the tube behind her. She didn’t know if there was a larger entrance, as she had teleported through the bulkheads, but the tunnel itself was plenty large for an Astartes or two to move through. Still, if they had to leave to get in, then she was sure she could cover more ground in the opposite direction.
Twilight had just started working out which direction would be ideal for her escape when a loud hum filled the entire tunnel. The floor and walls started to glow.
“What?! Waugh!” Twilight was suddenly suspended in the air, her armor magnetically levitated above the tracked flooring. She floated and flailed about for a few seconds until she realized that she was making an entirely unnecessary amount of noise.
“There’s definitely something down there.”
“That didn’t sound like a daemon. Crew, perhaps?”
“Whoever is down there, if you are a servant of the Emperor, you shall be spared! Reveal yourself at once!”


Twilight Sparkle was not a servant of any Emperor, obviously, and had no illusions of potential mercy. Her flight pack spread open, and she flipped about to face away from the Salamanders. She launched herself forward through the air, rocketing through the tunnels.
“Okay, Solon said that they should be able to pick up my flight pack’s energy emissions.” She said to herself. “I’ll need to find a good point to stop where I can quickly teleport away and put some physical barriers between me and my last known location.”
Her visor displayed the local-area map, revealing the corridors above and below the tunnel and labeling them appropriately.
“Okay, I’m pretty sure the bridge and reactor are going to be extremely well-fortified and defended, since those would be the obvious places to sabotage a ship. I should go for the command console in the officers’ quarters. I think it should be…” she creased her brow as she noticed something odd in the map. It looked like a bulkhead wall was moving through the tunnel she was speeding through, but moving in the opposite direction.
She banished the map from her display, and then quickly determined the cause of the confusion: a giant cannon shell in a mag-harness, rocketing through the tunnel straight toward her.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA-“ Twilight winked out of reality a split-second before impact, reappearing behind the munition. “-AAAAAAAAAAH!!”
The shell and the pony streaked off in opposite directions, collision avoided. Twilight sucked in a deep breath, and then scowled.
“So that’s what those Marines were doing! They were just going to run ordnance through the tunnels to squash anything hiding in it!” She shook her head. “Never mind. Have to focus. The crew quarters should be ahead and below. I just need to-“
Her visor flashed again, alerting the Princess to another incoming shell. “And, of course, they wouldn’t just let up after the first try. The hay with this.” As the new warhead became visible up ahead, Twilight marked out a location below for teleport. Then she vanished yet again in a flash of purple.


****


Twilight Sparkle re-appeared in a fairly small corridor that branched off ahead of her. A quick look around revealed no nearby crew and a sign over her head that labeled the section as the officer’s dormitorium.
“All right. Here I am. Almost done. Kind of. Excepting the whole ‘escape’ thing.” She whispered to herself, creeping forward. “They’ll have tracked me through the tunnel, so they know that I came this far and disappeared. While apparently running headlong into two ordnance loads. That’s okay. It’s better if they’re confused.”
She reached an intersection and peeked around the corner. Two human guards stood in front of a door, each carrying boarding shotguns. Twilight couldn’t get a good look at the door, but despite being one of a dozen such entrances it seemed to be the only one that warranted armed guards.
Twilight’s horn glowed, and an aura of purple energy engulfed the two men. They staggered drunkenly for a few seconds, and then slid onto the floor, unconscious.
“Perfect.” Twilight crept up to the door, noting the golden nameplate that said “Herate”. Her visor confirmed that was the name of the ship’s Captain.
She was about to teleport inside, but then hesitated and looked back up at the nameplate. It was shaped like a double-headed eagle, and composed of gilded durasteel. Not exceptionally ostentatious, but a step above the plain iron plates adorning the other doors.
Twilight turned her head back and forth, and then used her magic to tear the plate off the door.
“Well, I AM a space pirate now, technically,” she murmured, mag-locking the plate against the inside of her leg, “may as well nab a souvenir while I’m on mission.”
In a flicker of purple light, Twilight vanished from the hallway.


The inside of the Captain’s quarters were positively luxurious compared to the rest of the ship, to say nothing of the accommodations on the Harvest. Plush carpets, upholstered furniture, and actual finery dominated the interior. The entry room split off into three other rooms: the bedroom, the washroom, and a large office.
If Twilight had been of a mind to nab more “souvenirs”, there was quite a collection of interesting trinkets scattered around the place. But at this point she was entirely focused on the objective at hand, and how she might escape once it was complete.
She entered the office and zeroed in on the cogitator console built into the desk.
“Yes! This is it! I did it!” she squealed to herself, racing around the desk to the vid screen. Her visor locked on to the screen, and after a moment it started to flicker, activating its boot-up sequence.
“All right, so let’s think about this. This is an alpha-directive command console. It has at least partial access to all ship systems. I should be able to figure out where the savior pods are with this and which one will launch toward the Company fleet. If I can just get within a few kilometers – and outside the range of the smaller Imperial guns – then I can break out and just fly back to the ship.”
It was a simple plan. A little too simple for her tastes, actually. But then, she was fairly new to this. Not completely new, granted, but she wasn’t sure how many covert sabotage operations one had to complete before one got to be an “expert”.
The logic engine finished booting, and an access prompt appeared on the vid screen. A message read “Access level Alpha-Primarus. Gene-print identification required.”
The equine infiltrator ignored the gene-scanner next to the screen. “Crack it,” Twilight ordered her power armor, leaning her face toward the screen. At her command, numbers started streaming across her visor, and a progress bar on the vid screen appeared. One by one, hundreds of numbers were drawn from the digitized rivers of data, dropping into a flashing sequence that grew proportionately with the progress bar. Twilight couldn’t make any sense of the process, naturally, and definitely decided she’d have to thank Solon for his personal brilliance in developing her armor’s cogitator systems. She was absolutely sure she would have teleported into a wall or in the middle of a group of soldiers by now without it.
The progress bar filled up, and the vid-screen flickered.
“I’m in! Perfect! Now let’s do that scan, and-“
Her visor flashed “system scan complete” in front of her face.
“Efficient! REALLY have to thank Solon again for this thing. Almost makes it reasonable to be frequently sent on these ridiculous missions!” Twilight then focused on the vid-screen. “All right, I have a map of the whole ship now, so let’s check out the savior pods and plan a route off this thing! It looks like the hard part’s over! I’m almost home free!”


****


Heart of Vengeance – bridge


“Captain Herate, I’m getting some very unusual readings over the ship’s cogitator networks.” A Techpriest turned toward the ship’s head officer curiously, one optic fixed on her station’s console.
“What is it? Anything about that blasted intruder?” the Captain growled.
“Perhaps, Lord Captain. According to the networks, it is currently being accessed by your personal office logic engine. It is an authorized access.”
The Captain stared incredulously at the engineer-cultist. “You’re telling me that a daemon has accessed my command console?”
“That is an interesting hypothesis. There are no known records I am aware of in which daemonic entities have-“
“I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANY RECORDS OF WHAT DID OR DID NOT HAPPEN! I AM CONCERNED WITH WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW!!” bellowed the Naval officer. Then he whirled on the vox officer. “Tell every spare man with a gun to surround and move in on the crew quarters! Surround it on all halls and floors! Inform the Astartes too! FIND that miserable rodent, and KILL IT!!”
“Yes, Lord Captain! Right away!”


****


Heart of Vengeance – Captain’s quarters


“Okay, I think I can make this work. Lock down one of the pods with an access codex, and I can even prevent anyone else from using it before I arrive!”
Her visor danced with icons and shrinking and expanding circles, guiding her usage of the console just as much as the gentle pulses of telekinesis upon the screen. Honestly, this device seemed so convenient, Twilight seriously wondered if she should even risk using the daemon virus. She could probably fire a weapon from here, shut down a vital system, or transmit a message that indicated treasonous intent. Why risk releasing a literal monster when all she needed to do was cause enough of a ruckus to divert attention from the “harmless freighters” nearby? Maybe if she proved her technical competence and brought back Malectus Beta unused, it would even earn a pixel of respect from Kaelith.
The vid-screen flickered again, and a new message scrolled up. “Who are you, and how did you access this ship system? Are you a daemon? It is our working hypothesis, but I have come to believe it is incorrect.”
Twilight stared. The text box didn’t seem connected to any of the programs she was using. She was actually tempted to type out a response for a second, but quickly produced a long list of reasons that was a bad idea.
Then more text appeared. “I am only asking for posterity. Your infiltration will be studied in order to prevent similar incursions in the future. It would greatly aid this cause if you were captured in a conscious state to be interrogated and dissected, so I advise you submit immediately.”
Twilight quickly tried to bring up an auger scan of the deck she was on, but the program closed as soon as she opened it. To her increasing alarm, all of the ship system menus she was rooting through were closing.
“Someone must be using another one of the main consoles to shut me out! Can they do that?” The question seemed academic as the screen suddenly returned to the starting menu.
It seemed downright unimportant when she heard the sound of Space Marines running through the halls.
“PONYFEATHERS!” Twilight cursed, telekinetically hitting the button to the office door. The barrier slid shut just as she saw the door to the hallway slide open, revealing two giants in gleaming green armor.


“Okay, no more time to mess around!” Twilight squeaked, dropping to the floor and facing the main logic engine housing. “Time to do this the Chaos way!”
While her telekinesis engaged the door lock, her force harmonizer popped off her back and floated next to her head. Feeding a small sliver of energy into the weapon, she generated a relatively tiny energy blade and sliced off the front of the housing.
A beeping noise came from the door as the Salamanders tried to open it the easy way. Next came the hard way, Twilight was sure. That door wouldn’t stand up to a krak grenade.
The chip on the underside of her shoulder pad floated into the cogitator housing, and Twilight pulled back a leg. “I really hope Kaelith isn’t into practical jokes, because I need this to work!”
Her boot came down on the gleaming data wafer at the same time as the door exploded.


The two Salamanders stood on either side of the doorway, peering inside. One had flamer at the ready, the other a bolt pistol and chainsword. They couldn’t see anything initially, but their visors quickly picked up an energy signature behind the desk.
“The Captain’s office has been breached. Target confirmed. Engaging!”
The man with the flamer went first, his partner splitting off to the other side with the intent of attacking the intruder in a pincer.
Twilight didn’t bother to marvel at their speed or tactical nuance. She knew Space Marines well enough to know that she was at a severe disadvantage in such cramped quarters. She teleported away from the desk, into the next room. Her force harmonizer detached immediately, quickly shifting into a shield.
She had been hoping that the Astartes would be at least a little confused at her instantaneous retreat, but they rounded on her immediately.
“Witchcraft!”
“The enemy! It is…”
Luckily for Twilight, they DID seem slightly taken aback when they got their first real look at her. Which was good, as she was busy working out the best location for her next teleport and eventual escape.
“What in the Emperor’s name is THAT?”
“That’s no daemon...”
Their diversion was short-lived, and the weapons came up. Twilight Sparkle prepared her own retreat, deciding that any random corridor was likely safer than this place.
Then she heard a heartbeat. Not her own.
It thrummed heavily in her ear, like a drum being hammered right next to her. Her visor was briefly consumed with static, cutting off the calculations she was going to use for her teleportation spell. After a moment she realized that the sound had come from her vox system, and that the Salamanders must have experienced it too since they hadn’t tried to murder her with fire yet.
Her visor cleared, the static reduced to the edges of her vision. The Space Marines were staggering, clutching at their helmets to rip them off. Evidently their suit systems weren’t handling the anomaly as well as hers.
The heartbeat came again. Then the long, creaking groan of the ship’s superstructure shifting.
After another moment, Twilight realized that the alarms had stopped. They had been such a constant since she’d reached the ship that she’d eventually dismissed them as empty background noise. Now they were gone, and it definitely wasn’t because the problems she had caused had been resolved.
The clunk of two helmets landing on the floor reminded the equine that she was technically still in a battle. The two Salamanders glared angrily at the armored pony, their faces black as coal and their eyes pits of blazing crimson.
“What have you done, alien?!” demanded the Space Marine with the flamer.
“Diverted your attention from the true threat right under your noses,” Twilight answered with complete sincerity, “as well as a second, more immediate threat ALSO right under your noses.” She lowered her head. “I, uhm, realize that it’s a little late for this, but I really am sorry about all this. It’s nothing personal, you know? I’m just doing my job.”
The Salamanders were fairly surprised to hear the creature apologize, but it changed nothing regarding their mission. The ship once again groaned around them, and the thrumming heartbeat continued pulsing across the vox network.
“Do you surrender then, xeno?” demanded the soldier with the flamer. “There is no escape. All the surrounding decks are guarded. You will face the Emperor’s judgment.”
The pulse kept growing louder. Humming noises started rolling through the ship, and Twilight’s visor kept breaking into static and then rapidly clearing every few seconds. The static started collecting in small clusters, appearing close enough to form coherent shapes. Those shapes were letters, and they formed a rather unnerving, semi-coherent message to the pony.
DESTROY CONSUME KILL SUFFERING DEATH
“Look, guys, I’m getting out of here. I REALLY recommend you do the same.” Twilight’s horn flashed.
In the same instant, the Salamanders fired. Fire washed over Twilight’s shield and licked at her while a bolt round slammed into the barrier and shook the iron cross that powered it. The alicorn kept her concentration, however, and then winked away in a flash of purple.


****


When Twilight reappeared, her visor was again consumed by static such that she couldn’t see her immediate surroundings. She also still had that ominous heartbeat in her ears, but that didn’t obscure her hearing as much as the static obscured her sight.
So at least she had SOME warning before being pelted with lasgun fire.
“THERE IT IS!”
“The blazes is that thing? Is that power armor?”
“Doesn’t matter! Kill it!”
Twilight turned and ran, only to immediately run into a man’s leg and stumble.
“Oof! Sorry!” she kept going, shouting her apology even as she crushed the soldier’s shin under her hooves. Screams and angry shouting followed her down the hall, along with a prodigious amount of red laser beams.
Her visor finally cleared, helpfully revealing that there were armsmen ahead of her, too.
“Get out of the way!” Twilight screamed, activating her flight pack and harmonizer shield. She bowled into the men like a shining purple comet, shielding her face from the incoming fire and pushing further down the hall.
“Seriously, am I the only one who noticed that the ship is acting strange?! Which would make sense, actually, since I am the one who caused it and would be expecting a response, but-YEEP!” Twilight landed hard as a plasma blast slammed into her shield, causing it to flicker and almost overloading the barrier. She kicked away a man next to her, and then quickly spotted the plasma gunner sweeping around to get another shot.
Another short-range teleport took her right in front of the plasma gunner, and she reared up and slammed a hoof into the weapon receiver. The gun cracked in two, and the soldier bearing it flailed backward in shock.
“That thing is nearly as dangerous to you as to me! Don’t be reckless!” Twilight snapped before a shotgun blast pitched her head to the side. “Ow! Quit it!”
Her flight pack took her into the air again, and she rocketed down the halls toward a set of blast doors that sealed off that section of the ship from the rest.
Then her horn casing glowed, and the armored equine disappeared once more.


“Damnation! Daemonic sorcery!” spat a squad commander before he slammed a hand onto his helmet vox. “This is Sergeant Lonn! The target has escaped heading toward the bow on deck 30-C!”
The vox crackled with static for several seconds, along with a fairly disturbing thrumming noise, before he got a response.
“Confirmed, Sergeant. Have the blast doors been breached?”
“Negative! Bloody thing can teleport! Winks in and out as it damn well pleases!”
“That explains how it was able to navigate around the ship… Astartes are en route to assist.”
“It also… talks, Sir,” the soldier added, frowning, “it, uh… said something about the ship acting up? Is there… any truth to that?”
“We’re experiencing some system malfunctions, yes. But the Techpriests will-“
A feral, ear-piercing screech suddenly came from the vox, filling the corridors with terrifying noise. The floor trembled, and the entire superstructure groaned again.
The Sergeant ripped his headset off, nearly deafened. The others clutched their ears to try to block out some portion of the noise.
“Are we… are we moving? That felt like a combat maneuver just then.”
Then another familiar sound came from the surrounding bulkheads, echoing through the halls in rhythmic thuds. Weapons fire.
“We’re shooting? At who? There’s no one around except… oh no…”
“Emperor preserve us all…”


****


Imperial Cruiser Wrath of Promethius – bridge


“What the hell is going on here?!” Captain Bennet roared to his crew, staring at the tactical hololith below his command throne.
The bridge officers were working feverishly yet again, yelling to each other and racing from terminal to terminal to make sense of the situation.
“This is… no, but…”
“It’s confirmed! The Heart of Vengeance has opened fire!”
“On WHO?! Who do they think they’re shooting at?!” Bennet demanded.
“Everyone, Lord Captain! Each weapon seems to have simply fired at the closest available void ship!”
“She’s coming around, Lord! It looks like she’s lining up her lance batteries next!”
“All ships, prepare for evasive maneuvers!” The Captain shouted. “Someone open up a hailing frequency to the Heart of Vengeance!”
“Confirmed, Captain. There’s a lot of signal corruption, but we have a link.”


When the vid-screen opened up, it was immediately evident what the comms technician had been talking about. Static crackled around the edges of the image, and Bennet could barely make out human shapes racing across the bridge in an even greater panic than his own crew.
“Captain Herate! Explain yourself! What’s going on down there?!”
The response was badly muffled, breaking up frequently as to make most of the speech inaudible.
“… systems have…... corrosive… completely…… the Techpriests…”
“You must shut down your systems at once! I don’t know what’s happening down there, but you are targeting friendly vessels! If you do not get your vessel under control, we WILL be forced to open fire!”
A scream came from the vid-screen. Several of the human-looking shadows lurched back, flailing. It wasn’t at all clear what, if anything, was attacking them.
“… can’t stop…… dying, must……”
“The corruption is getting worse, Lord Captain. I’m seeing some elements of the signal attempting to creep into our own systems and infect them,” announced a Techpriest, “terminating signum.” The vid-screen went black.
“The Heart is firing lances! Direct hit against the Juraan Blade! It looks like they have a hull breach!” On the tactical display, one of the escort ships flashed red.
Captain Bennet slammed a fist onto the arm rest of his throne. “Alert all vessels. The Heart of Vengeance… is lost.” The bridge fell silent in an instant, all the crew stopping to hear the impending death sentence.
Bennet’s voice was tight and somber. “The Adon and Final Word are to make an attack run while we come about on the starboard flank. I want our own lance batteries charged and ready to fire as soon as the void shields are down. Alert all other vessels in the fleet. Kill that ship.”
Silence greeted his orders at first, but after a few seconds the crew went to work. One officer, however, took a deep breath and spoke up.
“Lord Captain… the Salamanders are still on the Heart of Vengeance attempting to neutralize the intruder. If we destroy the cruiser before they can extract…”
“I realize the enormity of the losses we face,” the Captain said bitterly, “but with the greatest respect to the Astartes, the deaths of several Space Marines cannot be seriously weighed against the loss of entire void ships and their crews. They will realize the threat soon enough, and hopefully find a way off the vessel in time. Tell the turret gunners they may fire at will.”
“Yes, Lord Captain.” The officer sounded positively defeated, which was an accurate reflection of the entire crew’s feelings. The Heart of Vengeance had indeed been defeated; and not in any contest of power or strategy, but by trickery and dark witchcraft.
“… Oh, hey. The Head Navigator sent a message,” mumbled another officer, “it looks like the Warp storm has cleared.”
“Then at least this vile diversion will be short-lived. Destroy that vessel, and then prepare for Warp transit.”
“Aye, Lord Captain.”


****


Centaur III – Nethalican


“There. I have found the distant disturbance and quelled it,” Serith grumbled, closing his spell book, “the way forward is clear again, and the currents are once again running to the fleet’s favor. They’ll be fine.”
Behind the Sorcerer, several of the Cultists shared dubious glances.
“Well, actually my lord-“ one began, only to be swiftly interrupted.
“Do not mistake my idle musings for an attempt at conversation, mortal.” Serith turned around, tilting his helmet down to stare at Virgil. “Will there be any further trifles you wish to test me with?”
Virgil leaned to the side to see past the psyker to the Dark Portal. It was once again a seething, angry red. He straightened.
“Not unless you wish to help investigate the cause of the disturbance.”
“Feh. No doubt one of the equines got curious as to how their magics might interact with the portal. It is no matter,” the Sorcerer dismissed the idea, walking past the clergy.
“Of course, Lord,” Virgil agreed, sounding completely unconvinced, “that must be it.”
Serith was already out the door by the time the priest finished speaking, and a moment later the front gate slammed shut.


****


Heart of Vengeance – deck 19-A


“Excuse me! Coming through!”
Twilight blasted over the head of a combat servitor before it had a chance to swing at her, and dove directly into the Techpriest standing behind the veritable barricade of cyborgs. She slammed her front boots right into his chest, knocking him onto his back and sending the Techpriest’s power axe spinning across the floor.
Twilight jumped away just as a servo arm snapped toward her neck, landing in a straight gallop down the corridor.
“I seriously think you all have bigger things to worry about right now! Why is everyone trying to kill me rather than evacuating?!”
As if to punctuate her point, the floor suddenly shook violently from a hefty impact nearby. This threw off the aim of a gun servitor enough to leave a shaky string of heavy bolter impacts on the bulkhead next to Twilight rather than on her armor. Quite fortunate, as her suit had already endured quite a bit of punishment already.
Twilight weathered the tremors well enough to make it to the next set of blast doors, and once again vanished in a flash of purple.


****


When she rematerialized, her visor was again briefly lost to static. It was extremely frustrating, but she dared not take her helmet off at this point. The ship was clearly deteriorating in its functions, and she didn’t know how long life support would last. That was on top of the tendency for Imperial soldiers to aim for her head, which was located at the height that human soldiers usually fired at when targeting enemy troops in a firefight.
She panted as her visor cleared, feeling the magical strain from her frequent teleports. She would have much preferred to make her escape using the ordnance transportation tunnels again, which would cut down on the number of teleports and enemy resistance, but judging by all the shaking those facilities were definitely being used.
“Okay… the route is… uh…” Twilight’s visor had cleared, but the flickering HUD didn’t give her a clear heading like it did before. This blast door was located at a four-way intersection, which left her with a decision to make.
“The savior pods are located on either side of the ship, and I was near the starboard edge, I think. So I should go…” she turned left.
Four Space Marines promptly rounded the corner of that corridor, charging directly for her. “FOR THE EMPEROR!!”
“Detour! Detour!” Twilight howled, leaping down another hall. The roar of bolters followed her, raining upon the bulkheads. “This is ridiculous! Are you all willing to die just to get me? Why?! Why does everything in space hate me so much?!”
She rounded another corner just ahead of the power-armored boots, and then raced into a room. She didn’t pause to take stock of what the room was, as she was in a hurry. Unfortunately, this led to her tripping over one of the bodies that was sprawled on the floor.
The Princess crashed gracelessly, slamming her armored face into the deck plating before bouncing onto her side. She started scrambling upright immediately, but this gave her a brief opportunity to see her surroundings.
The reason she tripped was because there were numerous bodies on the floor. The bodies of Techpriests and Enginseers, to be specific, as well as a few servitors. They all looked to be dead, which wouldn’t be THAT bizarre or interesting, but they also had coils of black wires running into their augmetics. The black wires all spread out from a single cogitator bank on the wall, and they pulsed like the veins of a living thing.
The ship lurched violently again, sending the pony rolling across the floor. Showers of sparks blasted from the cogitator banks, and something on the ceiling split open and started pouring a cloudy vapor into the room.
As soon as Twilight got upright again, that shroud parted around a mass of green armor.


Twilight leapt behind the cogitator bank as quickly as she could, but the Salamander had already opened fire. A bolter round struck her in the rear leg and knocked her over yet again; even though the armor protected her from direct damage, the sheer force of a boltgun shot was enough to throw her off her hooves.
Luckily, her pursuer followed that up with a grenade tossed after her. Twilight teleported the weapon back with barely a thought, scraping her way more deeply into cover.
As the explosive went off and the Space Marines started cursing, Twilight took stock of her options to continue retreating. Ideally options that didn’t rely on heavy magic use, since she was starting to exhaust her prodigious mana reserves.
Then she noticed a black wire slithering across the ground toward her.
“No! Stop that! I’m on your side, sort of!” She scorched the end of the wire with a tiny jolt of magic to drive it off.
It didn’t like that, apparently.


A furious howl boomed through the area, amplified by Twilight’s vox to the point that she nearly fell over again just from the volume.
The dead cyborgs on the floor jerked to life, their limbs quivering and twitching while they pushed themselves upright. Their optics flickered on, their weaponry hummed, and the various servo arms started snapping at the air wildly like enraged beasts.
“The Techpriests! They’re still alive?” asked a Salamander, recoiling.
“Negative! They’re corrupted!”
One of the figures in dark red stood up straight, a feral screech coming from his Binaric vocalizer. He leapt for the Space Marines, all the while still tethered to the ship by the black cabling.
“Cut them down! Purge them all!”


Twilight elected not to stay for the battle against the corrupted dead and the Astartes, leaping for the closest exit corridor and racing down it.
The ship continued to shake, and she idly noticed that its pulse was speeding up. She couldn’t be sure that the daemonic virus-controlled space craft followed the same rules as living creatures, but between that and the constant tremors she got the impression that the vessel was dying with tremendous violence.
Another set of blast doors came up ahead, and she again disappeared in a flash of purple light.


****


Twilight quickly brought her harmonizer shield around to protect her front as her visor exploded into static again.
“Come on… Come on…” she hissed.
The ship groaned and churned with echoing noise. The pounding of guns reverberated through the corridors, along with the sound of detonations and shrieks of the dying. Twilight was fairly certain that last subset of noises shouldn’t have been QUITE so audible to her, all things considered, but Chaos tended to emphasize such things.
Eventually her vision was mostly clear again, and she checked the new corridor.
“Yes! I’m here! Those are the savior pods up ahead!” She galloped forward, almost squealing with glee. She could even see that most of the pods were still present. If she escaped while the infected ship was still fighting, she could easily contact the Company fleet and get picked up without anyone noticing!
That was the plan, anyway. Although no part of that plan accounted for yet ANOTHER Space Marine stepping out of an adjoining corridor straight in her path.
“Are you serious?!” Twilight shouted, swinging her shield around to block an initial bolt pistol shot. “We’re right next to the savior pods! You can escape too! I’m not going to stop you! Don’t fight me here!”
This new Salamander was more extensively armored than the others, and carried a power maul along with a bolt pistol and a flamer. A scaly cloak hung from his shoulder pads, which was as good an indicator as any that the Astartes held rank.
“You will find no escape here, daemon!” Captain Orobes announced, charging across the deck.
“I’m not a daemon!” Twilight protested, her horn lighting up. “I don’t even like daemons! I work with daemons as an act of necessity, and nothing more!” She cast a spell to cover the deck floor between them with ice, and then spread her flight pack to fly over it to the pods.
The ice didn’t slow Orobes down. In fact, it did quite the opposite. He shifted his weight once his boots landed on the frozen surface, and slid across it straight toward his target. His maul smashed Twilight’s force harmonizer out of the way, and he slammed his other hand into the side of her helmet an instant later.
Twilight was sent sprawling across the deck, rolling haphazardly from the blow. She slid to a stop and started to stand, only for two bolt shells to strike her in separate legs. Again, the armor held but her legs didn’t, slipping under her and causing her to collapse onto her side.
Orobes bore down on his foe without mercy, the head of his power maul glowing bright blue as it streaked through the air. Twilight’s flight pack activated while she was still on the ground, blasting her forward in a clumsy and desperate dodge.
Orobes missed his swing, but wasn’t able to follow his opponent immediately. A tremendous jolt lifted the deck up underneath him, throwing the Space Marine to the ground as the bulkheads screeched around him. Panels collapsed and sputtered sparks onto the deck, and a howl of pain and fury reverberated through the vox.
Twilight’s barely-planned flight ended with her scraping up against a wall, and she collapsed back onto the floor while the corridor started coming apart. Her visor was a mess, with angry warnings, sensor intercepts, and a confusing jumble of scrapcode-inspired data all competing for her attention among the constant, flickering bursts of static. Her ears were ringing and her legs ached, and she wasn’t completely sure that her armor hadn’t been breached.
But she knew she still had a chance. She just needed to teleport into a savior pod.
“You die today, creature!” Orobes raged, surging to his feet and bolting forward. “The Emperor’s justice be upon you!”
Twilight’s horn casing began to glow again, its circuit-like seams blazing purple.
The ship quaked again, much more violently than before, rending the outer bulkheads. Twilight completely lost her concentration, was smashed in the side by a chunk of metal, and was thrown hard into the wall on the other side of the corridor. Her only consolation was that the same exact thing happened to the Salamander Captain, hurling him into a pile of supply crates that spilled small parts across the deck and partially buried him in metal boxes.


It took some time for Twilight to come to her senses. She wasn’t sure how much time; everything was a little hazy from the constant collisions and the extraordinary amount of stress she’d been under.
By the time she was able to remember that she was still in terrible danger and lucid enough to do something about it, she immediately noticed that there seemed to be some environmental differences. She felt weightless, a sure sign that the gravity plating had failed, and completely new and exciting warnings had taken a place of prominence on her HUD. She recognized them as indicators that the corridor had depressurized, and that she was now in a zero-oxygen environment. A brief search of her surroundings revealed why, and she felt her heart sink.
An enormous tear now ran through the outer bulkheads, revealing the empty void to her. Or, at least, it had been empty before the Heart of Vengeance had started leaking debris from its hull. Twisted wreckage and globs of cooling plasma surrounded the breach. And no doubt the savior pods Twilight was intending to commandeer made up a considerable portion of the ruins.
The pony’s mind stalled. Her thoughts became muddy. She tried to think, tried to come up with a new plan, tried even to panic blindly, but she simply felt numb. The Salamander was right: there was no escape. What was she supposed to do now?
In that sense, she was almost glad for a bolt shell pounding the side of her helmet. Twilight was thrown to the side again, but at least avoided another crash thanks to her weightlessness. She activated her flight pack and spun around to face her enemy.
Orobes was on his feet again, smoke floating from his bolt pistol. To Twilight’s surprise, a local-area vox signal connected to her helmet.
“You even have a functional vox system. Impressive. Whatever deranged fanatic forged your armor is quite skilled, creature. It is a shame his talents are wasted on heretical pursuits and feeble cowards like you.” The Salamander pointed his power maul at the pony. “Someday I hope that I may find and kill him, as well.”
Twilight felt her fur prickle along her back. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this alive, Space Marine. You had your chance. I’m the last thing you’ll EVER kill.” Her boots trembled, and then she was pulled down onto the floor, where they mag-locked to the ruined deck. “IF you manage to do that before the ship just explodes or crushes us.” Her eyes darted over to the force harmonizer, now floating in the air along with an assortment of other supplies. The metal cross hardly stood out from the rest of the detritus, and she could still move it without the aura of her magic giving it away.
“Whether by my hand or the mighty guns of our fleet, the righteous shall slay the unholy.” Orobes started walking toward her, his gait much slower now that he had to secure himself onto the floor. “The exact expression of the Emperor’s will matters little. His message remains the same: you are a disease upon the stars, and humanity shall cure you with fire and steel.”
Twilight clenched her teeth. “Just die, already.”
The force harmonizer’s blade flashed to life, darting for the Captain’s head. Orobes swung his maul upward, its power field crackling loudly, and blocked the attack. Then he knocked the blade away and sent the harmonizer spinning wildly, Twilight’s telekinesis proving too weak against an Astartes' brutes strength. His next move struck the cross directly, and Orobes smashed the force harmonizer like a baseball, sending it through the hull breach and into the empty void.
Twilight blinked in surprise, and by the time she was finished the Space Marine was striding toward her again. “All right, fine! Plan D it is!”
The ship trembled again, and deck panels began peeling from the sub-structure and floating around them. Neither combatant took particular notice, utterly focused on each other.
Twilight’s horn seethed with magic, flashing brightly. Her aura surrounded the Space Marine, trying to stop him directly, to change his body to some form more manageable and ideally inanimate. Her magic seeped into his flesh, but then that flesh REBELLED. She felt his will push back against her spell, and his matter simply refused her.
“Perish, monster.” The vox line was cut, and Orobes made his attack.


Twilight tried to dodge again, but that was a difficult prospect even before taking into account that she was magnetically locked to the floor. The power maul smashed into her chest, throwing her face-first into the bulkhead wall.
Her visor cracked from the impact, and several alerts flashed on her HUD briefly before they were scrambled into incoherence. She could probably guess what they were trying to warn her about, though; she could hear a noisy hiss, like a balloon being deflated. Her armor was depressurizing. That was on top of the painful throbbing in her head and legs, of course.
She ignored it. Additional peril was really quite redundant at this point.
Twilight pushed away from the wall and her flight pack sputtered to life. At the very least she had better zero-g mobility than the Space Marine, since he had no form of aerial movement.
Evidently Orobes realized this as well, and promptly corrected his oversight. A single bolt shot struck the mare’s wing, hitting the repulsor disk. It failed immediately, and Twilight yelped when she found herself spinning in the space above the deck.
She managed to stabilize herself by latching back onto the floor again, but that simply left her stuck in place once more as the Astartes charged. What could she do now? Her magic was practically exhausted. Her weapons were lost or expended. Her armor was shattered, and probably had less than a minute’s oxygen supplies. This was it. She was out of options. The Space Marine was right. There was no escape.
Her horn sparked again, desperately grasping for the last few motes of energy. A final fireball, a single magic missile. Anything to at least keep fighting to the end.
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, and a flash of light bloomed between her and the Salamander. Orobes went for the kill, throwing his full weight behind an overhead swing of his power maul.


The power maul struck ceramite, sparking viciously as the crackling flanges dug into the outer armor layers of a shoulder pad.  The results were patently underwhelming; the armor was not breached, and the flesh underneath obviously unharmed.
In fairness, Orobes had not struck the enemy he was expecting.
The hulking mass of terminator armor looked brittle and corroded, an illusion betrayed by the laughable dent made by the Captain’s power weapon. Black and yellow warning chevrons and tarnished gold decorated the armor, along with an ominous trio of circles upon its belt. A helmet bearing two drum gas filters and a single red optic lens turned to stare down at Orobes, regarding him in the manner a man might look upon a small, obnoxious dog.
Orobes didn’t move for a moment, stunned. Then he immediately pulled back for another attack.
Sliver’s hand moved like a striking viper, belying his size. He grabbed the haft of the maul, stopping it dead, and his other hand seized the Space Marine by the helmet.
Orobes brought up his bolt pistol and fired point-blank into the Chaos Lord, desperately unloading the magazine and trying to create a breach in the armor, or damage some important component. He did not do so before the weapon clicked empty.
Sliver, in turn, squeezed the Captain’s helmet. After a few seconds, the first layers of ceramite buckled under his fingers, and the left eye lens broke inward. Orobes beat furiously at the rusted giant with his pistol and tugged at his power weapon, but Sliver didn’t acknowledge the warrior’s efforts. After several seconds he ripped off the green helmet, shattering the pressure seals and spilling cracked bits of armor all around on a wave of released air.
The Chaos Lord held up the helmet briefly, staring at it. He did not look at the Salamander’s coal-black face, strained with fury and screaming noiselessly at him.
Then Sliver tossed the helmet away toward the breach in the ship, just as one would discard a piece of trash. He let go of the power maul and turned around.
Twilight Sparkle stared up at him, a web of cracks running through her eye lenses and much of her leg plating. Wires hung freely from a hole in her flight pack, and Sliver even thought he could see a tuft of purple feathers peeking out of the wing casing.
The Salamander’s power maul struck Sliver in the back, but he ignored it. He reached down for the pony, placing his hand over her helmet. Again and again the maul battered and sparked against his daemonic plate, but each blow was noticeably weaker than the last.
As Sliver’s armor began to glow, violent bursts of fire rolled through the corridor. Huge clouds of plasma and debris vomited out of the hull, and the bulkheads warped and fell apart even as the Nurglite and his “cargo” was consumed with light.
They vanished, and Orobes swiped his maul through empty void.


****


Harvest of Steel – teleportarium


Twilight gasped deeply as soon as she could, confirming that she was once again in a place with actual, breathable air. She collapsed almost instantly, and then started pawing at her helmet to take it off.
After a few seconds she managed to do so, and Twilight laid in the middle of the teleportarium array, panting. Then she looked up.
Sliver walked away from the array, stomping toward the corridor with a single hand on the side of his helmet.
“Ssparkle iss back. And sstill alive. Hurry, let’ss go before the loyalisst filth get their bearingss,” he growled bitterly. He actually sped up somewhat as he spoke, as if he had somewhere important to be during a routine Warp space translation. Or perhaps as if he was trying to get out of the room before Twilight recovered enough to ask questions.
The vox caster crackled, and then Solon’s voice poured from the walls. “Acknowledged. All vesshelsh, prepare for transhlation. Accelerate to entry shpeed on heading nine-shix-eight-two-nine.”
The ship trembled, although after the deck-quakes Twilight had lived through recently she barely noticed. Her eyes were focused on Sliver’s back, which finally disappeared from view once he entered the adjoining hall and the doors shut behind him.
“Good work, Princessh Shparkle,” came Solon’s voice again, only this time from Twilight's collar, “I think I jusht might owe you a gold bolt for thish one.”


The deck shook and lurched again, and once again the Harvest of Steel raced into the tides of the Immaterium.