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

by SFaccountant

Rally Point

Iron Hearts: Book 5

Chapter 10

Rally Point

****

Ork Space Hulk Deffbringa - command bridge

"Coggz?! COGGZ! Git in 'ere, ya Grot luvah! You'z gotz sum splaynin' ta do!"

Kahg Krushah bellowed angrily into his ship-board comms, his voice booming through the labyrinthine halls of his flagship.

A flagship currently stuck in the fury of a Warp storm.

"Boss!" shouted a deck hand, "bee-hynd ya! It'z-"

Kahg didn't need any further warning than that, and spun around on the spot with his maul outstretched. The daemon that had been emerging from the floor bulkheads was smashed to a paste before the Warboss could even get a look at it.

"Mork's eye, dese fings iz annoyin'," Kahg grumbled as the smell of sulfur and blood reached his nose. Another flicker of Warpflame came from in front of a gun locker, and he sighed before he walked up to the next razor-taloned horror to crawl screeching into his ship.

The daemon blinked ink-black eyes at the massive Ork, and then lunged.

A haymaker crashed into the beast mid-jump, smashing its needle-sharp teeth in and throwing it back onto the floor with a hiss.

The daemon scrambled to get back to its feet, but a massive metal boot stomped on its back, pulverizing the Warpspawn utterly. The daemon squealed and vanished into smoke; all that remained was the sulfur smell and a very small sense of satisfaction in the Ork that had slain the creature.

"Oi, wotcha want?" grumbled a decidedly surly voice as Hazarr Coggz Wrencha walked onto the deck.

"Coggz!" Kahg barked. "Dis iz YER fawlt!"

Hazarr stopped, glaring at the larger Ork from behind his visor. "Wot, ya meen us not dyin' an' gettin' ripped ta shredz? Yeah, dat iz me fawlt. Wot uv it?"

"Ya yoosless git! We'z STUKK! Da Deffbringa can't moov!" Numerous other bridge crew chimed in with their own complaints, although none of them dared approach the confrontation with their Warboss in a bad mood.

"We'z not stukk," Hazarr grunted dismissively, "we'z jus' moovin' reel slow. An' we'z lettin' da uddah ships troo da stahm too."

"But dey AIN'T moovin' slow!" Kahg complained. "All me boyz iz gonna git ta da fightin' bahfore me!"

Another howling sound came from behind Kahg, but this time the lesser Orks eagerly leapt on the creature themselves before it could interrupt the boss's conversation.

"You'z got fightin' heah," Hazarr said blithely, "look, Boss Krushah, I sed I'd get ya boyz troo da Warp stahm. Dat'z wot I'm doin'. Da brayn enjin iz workin' jus' fyn."

"Den why'z we moovin' so slow?" Kahg demanded.

"'Cuz math," the Big Mek answered.

"Math can't tell us wot ta do! We'z da ORKS!" Kahg growled.

Hazarr fought off an exasperated groan. "Dat don' reelly help. Da spess hulk iz jus' too big. Da stahm ain't lettin' it pass eezy." He pointed his klaw toward the bow. "But da spess hulk mayks a way troo da stahm fer da uddah ships. So long as da Deffbringa iz in da Warp, yer boyz can git ta da hoss planet."

A growling noise came from deep within Kahg's throat. "Dere had betta be a DAMM gud fight on dis 'hoss planet' o'yers."

Hazarr snorted as he turned and started heading back into the depth of the space hulk. "Oh, dere iz. Mebbe a betta fight than you'z reddy fer..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 22 guard barracks

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Twilight chanted the word over and over again as she galloped to the front lobby of her barracks complex, her hair frayed and her gaze manic behind her helmet. Spike rushed to follow her, although the dragon kept his own doubts and concerns quiet.

Twilight halted in the lobby, glancing up at the blaring alarm klaxons. Like the other ponies of Equinought Squadron except Fluttershy (who had the unfortunate honor of rooming in the Astartes barracks), Twilight had moved into the facilities that housed Norris Delgan's crew. Such individuals had little to do in a military emergency besides wait it out, but even here Twilight could see that the merchant corps' guards were already in position and manning weapons at the wall of the building.

"This can't be happening... doesn't make sense... the Warp storm should have stopped them..."

The humans in the room completely agreed, but kept their attention and weapons on the streets outside while the armored pony started pacing back and forth.

Twilight suddenly stopped and whirled toward Spike. "Where is everypony?! I can't be the only one who was woken up by the alarm!"

Spike blinked, and then briefly considered the matter.

"Well, Applejack's not here, Pinkie Pie never came back last night from that 'forge party', whatever that is, Fluttershy rooms in a different sector, and Rarity and Rainbow Dash are probably suiting up. They can't summon their armor in a few seconds like you can."

The completely calm and sensible breakdown of why Twilight's "subordinates" weren't on location yet only increased her sense of panic. "This is ridiculous! The Orks aren't supposed to be here! Did we miss some ships? Maybe they were hiding out in the asteroid belt? But Gaela said they confirmed exit signatures!"

The alicorn Princess stopped in place and then made to link her vox system to Warsmith Solon, a thousand questions boiling over in her mind.

Twilight winced when her communication attempts were immediately rejected. It turned out that the high commander of the 38th Company was fully occupied talking to people with much higher comms priority than she had. As she probably should have expected, actually.

"This can't be happening!" Twilight lamented. "Serith said that..." her voice trailed off, and a surge of uncharacteristic anger rushed through her. Wasn't this Serith's fault? The entire Dark Portal project and subsequent defense was his idea, and both Equestria and the Iron Warriors had thrown everything they had into building the Nethalican on his assurances. What did the Sorcerer have to say about the ships dropping out of the Warp above them? With an enraged snarl on her face, Twilight set her vox system to link up to Serith's armor.

She thought it quite likely that she would be denied, as before; she imagined that she was hardly the only one that wanted answers from Serith right now. Twilight was not, however, expecting her visor to return the message "ID signum not found".

"What? No! No way!" Twilight shouted, banging a hoof against her helmet and earning her a few disturbed stares from the guards at the windows. "We have network coverage over all of Ferrous Dominus, the Tau bases, and nearly all of Equestria! How could he be missing? The Orks haven't even landed yet, so it's not like they could have killed him!"

"Twi, maybe you should calm down," Spike said nervously.

"There will be time for that after we're all dead!" Twilight growled. "I'm going to the command center! Spike, you wait here for Rainbow and Rarity, and then round up Fluttershy and Pinkie! I'll meet you all later after I figure out what the hay is happening!"

Her horn started to glow, but when a hot arc of purple energy crackled around the tip, she remembered that her teleport spells had been less than reliable as of late. "Fine! I'll just fly there, then!" she shouted to nobody, breaking into a full sprint toward the exit. The automatic doors barely had enough time to register her armor signum and open up enough to let the alicorn through; even then, her flight pack still scraped against the reinforcement layers as she pushed herself outside and leapt into the soiled air.

"Damn," mumbled a guard as he watched the armored figure soar away, "she's kind of creepy when she gets stressed."

Spike sighed. "You have NO idea..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17

Under very different circumstances, Twilight would have marveled at the sight of the Ferrous Dominus anti-orbital batteries being used. The way the titanic cannons shook their mountings and spurted clouds of sparkling, highly ionized gases into the air as they shot vast lances of power up into the sky had a sort of grim, awe-inspiring beauty to it. The sort of power necessary to use such massive weapons was practically beyond her comprehension. She had seen a Mega Gargant more closely and extensively than any sane individual would ever want to, and even that titanic, unfathomable war machine seemed underwhelming compared to the weapons needed to fell void ships.

But, still, the problem was that they were currently NEEDED TO FELL VOID SHIPS.

"Warning!" came the voice from the vox caster. "Enemy vessels have reached low orbit! Enemy aerial contact is imminent!"

"These new Orks sure are brave. Or stupid," Twilight grumbled, "the other armies didn't even make it to Ferrous Dominus. This one is diving right at it." She was well-read enough by now in matters of interplanetary assault to know how costly it would be for the Orks to launch directly into an assault on such a heavily-defended point. But she also knew enough about the Orks by now to know that sometimes they didn't care.

The first howling roar of rockets firing came from the nearest roof-mounted turrets, and Twilight briefly twisted about in the air to watch as the missiles streaked up into the carpet of smog above the base. On the far side of Ferrous Dominus she could see fighters scrambling, while on the manufactorum roof there were several Tau Broadside battlesuits being herded into fortified positions.

This was the plan that had been put into place long ago, at the same time the fortress had been established. She'd seen and participated in drills for the defense of the fortress, and read the simulation reports that the Tau conducted. They were all quite effective, efficient, and Twilight had no doubt that the Orks would suffer horrendous losses just to set foot on the ferrocrete below her. But for all their experience, preparation, and sheer military power, all those plans and simulations presumed the same fate in the case of a big enough full-scale Ork assault.

Ferrous Dominus would eventually be overrun, and what weapons weren't used up or destroyed in the battle would be taken as trophies. Then the Orks would turn their attention to the rest of the planet.

"That will NOT happen," Twilight swore as she landed in front of the command center.

The armored pony gave a distracted nod to the Iron Warrior squad standing guard outside the building, and then headed inside. Twilight was promptly bombarded with all manner of noise from dozens of people shouting, arguing, and conversing darkly with each other; Iron Warriors, mercenaries, Dark Techpriests, and she even saw Prince Blueblood speaking anxiously to an auger relay technician.

She headed over that way, immediately figuring that she might as well stick to someone obviously willing to talk to a pony. Most of the others would probably ignore her.

"Excuse me! Sir!" she shouted as she approached the technician. The man quickly turned away from Blueblood as he realized that the new equine harassing him had power armor. Despite what she had told Rainbow Dash the previous day, it WAS something of a status symbol.

"If you want to know why there are xeno ships in orbit, you're in the same boat as everyone else," the man said, waving a dataslate at her, "we still have no idea how these got through the Warp storm!"

"But we're sure that they DID come in through the Warp storm?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, we know that much," he grunted, glancing over at Blueblood again, "we have five contacts currently. Four initial Warp exits, and then two more about ten minutes later. We already killed the drives on one of them, and its already on a crash-course with the planet."

"Well, then that's not a big deal, is it?" Blueblood interjected, looking relieved. "Their fleet is half the size of yours! You'll wrap this up easily!"

"It IS a big deal," the technician seethed, glaring down at his dataslates, "all the ships other than the Harvest of Steel had their reactors cold while they were undergoing modification. It takes HOURS to start up a ship reactor! Other than the flagship, our fleet has no auger relays, no shields, no weapons, and no engines!"

"That... okay, that sounds pretty bad," Blueblood admitted, wilting considerably, "but still, you have the flagship, right? And the guns down here! You can hold out for a few hours until the other vessels are active again, correct?"

"Another Warp exit!" shouted someone from the other side of the room.

"Ork Kill Krooza confirmed! It's showing signs of damage from the storm, but still active!"

"She's on course to engage the Harvest! We have more assault craft launched!"

"Damn the xeno filth!"

As Blueblood slapped a hoof to his face, Twilight's eyes turned toward a large planetary hololith currently zoomed in on the cluster of vessels in orbit. It was similar to the screen that Gaela had set up in her library the first time she had witnessed a void battle, although much larger and possessing floating informational panels.

The situation looked at least as bad as the technician had described. A single vessel lashed out at the Ork ships with volleys of flashing green darts as the ramshackle alien craft swam around the formation. Behind it were several much smaller craft, all of them floating in a slow, lazy orbital path around the planet and seemingly oblivious to the enemy attackers. Some of the Orks obviously took this as an invitation, and darted for the vulnerable ships even as the Company's daemonic megafreighter tried to contain them. Most of the ships were obviously trying to get past the fleet entirely, to launch their army to the surface.

One of the enemy ships took a salvo from the ground batteries, as represented by several small darts of green stabbing up into it.

"Direct hit on an enemy frigate! Its engines are powering down!"

"That's another one down, at least. Direct the batteries to keep the rest off the ships while they power up! They're our only way off this rock!"

As the officers discussed the battle, Twilight stepped closer to the strategic display and peered closer at the smaller icons. She could see wings of fighters and small attack craft now, as well as Ork fighters and assault vessels for landing troops.

"What are the fighters doing? They're fully active, right?" Twilight asked the technician.

"They're trying to stop the Ork Landas. The smaller assault vessels will mostly get cut down trying to land over the fortress, but the bigger landing ships are hard to crack with standard anti-air batteries," the man tapped his dataslate several times, pursing his lips anxiously. "The fighters just need to target their engines, though. Shoot them off and the Landas can't... well, land. They'll plummet straight to the planet surface and squash everything inside."

Blueblood looked up at the man uncertainly. "That sounds rather dangerous, doesn't it? We could have one of those things fall right on top of us!"

"Better that than the Orks inside it."

A muted explosion rumbled from outside, and Blueblood's ears pinned back.

"How safe are we, specifically, in here?" the Prince asked nervously. "Is there someplace else I should find shelter?"

"You don't get it, do you?" the technician snapped, throwing his dataslate against the table. "If we have Ork ships coming through the Warp storm then there's no reason to think the xenos won't get reinforcements from the rest of their fleet! There could be millions coming! Billions! They'll take apart the Harvest, they'll take apart Ferrous Dominus, and then they'll take apart whatever's left! We CAN'T stop them!"

"We have new Warp exits! Two frigates, incoming!" shouted someone deeper in the room.

"This is crazy!" Blueblood protested, his voice trembling. "We did everything we were supposed to! We built the Nethalican! Why can't we stop these creatures?!"

The human had no answer for the stallion. He gave an annoyed grunt and headed back to his terminal, losing himself among the shouting and arguing of the others.

Blueblood sucked in a breath through his teeth, and then glanced over to Twilight. The alicorn was still staring intently at the strategic hololith, as if she hadn't heard someone declare her planet and everything on it doomed.

"You know a bit about all this Warp nonsense, don't you Princess?" the unicorn asked, approaching the other pony anxiously. "It can't really be as bad as he said, can it? The storm must have done SOMETHING."

Twilight didn't seem to notice, rearing up to place her forelegs on the hololith table.

"Cogitator, map the estimated descent paths of all Ork vessels making planetfall," she commanded.

The hololith beeped, and then glowing red lines formed to show the most likely route each vessel was headed down. Those Landas, assault pods, and other craft that were still intact and in control were all obviously heading toward Ferrous Dominus.

Those vessels that had their engines shot apart, including two Ork Raiders so far, were left to the whim of gravity, inertia, and fate. Some looked as if they were going to land in the oceans, and some were only going to miss Ferrous Dominus by a few kilometers, which counted as a near-miss relative to the distances that the shuttles were traveling. The damaged capital ships, however, were coming down smack-dab into Equestrian territory. Territory that Twilight could recognize instantly despite the top-down, low-detail display.

She pointed to the projected landing spot. "Magnify."

"Hey!" complained an officer when the hololith swiftly zoomed in on the area.

Twilight would have offered an apology for interrupting whatever he was doing, but she was too distracted by abject horror as she stared at the projected landing point of one of the Ork void ships.

"Oh my Aunt," Prince Blueblood breathed, his eyes widening.

It was going to land on the side of Canterlot Mountain, right next to the city of the same name.

"No. NO!" Twilight shouted, almost choking on the words. She stepped back onto the floor, and then turned toward one of the few humans she recognized in the room (albeit she had only met him once). "General Harlin!"

The man was engrossed in a very depressing conversation with a Dark Techpriest, and he grunted in annoyance after he heard someone else shout his name.

"Sparkle, I very much doubt that whatever you have to say right now is more important than any of the other hundred things vying for my attention," Harlin said without turning around, "but I'll give you ten seconds to prove me wrong."

"A damaged Ork void ship is going to land on Canterlot!" Twilight shouted desperately, tearing her helmet off and dropping it at her hooves. "You have to destroy it before it impacts the surface!"

"Ah. How about that? I was right," Harlin said sharply before returning his attention to the Dark Techpriest, "now I want the Scavurel's-"

"General, please!" Twilight begged. "If it hits the mountain, then Equestria's capital will be wiped out! We need to destroy it!"

Harlin clenched his teeth and finally cast an angry glare over to the pony. "That is TOO BAD Sparkle, but I don't care. That is not my responsibility, and our guns are needed elsewhere. There are more people in each of our void ships - the ones currently being cut apart by raider vessels - than there are in your bloody 'capital'." Twilight took a step back, her breath caught in her throat.

Harlin turned back to the Dark Techpriest. "Besides... they may be the lucky ones. Better to be wiped out in an instant than be hunted down and butchered by greenskins. Now get out of my command center. I have to figure out if ANY of us are making it out of this alive."

Twilight felt a mild sense of deja vu after the Commander declared Canterlot lost, and tears welled up in the corners of her eyes before she started backing away.

She quickly turned around and raced out the door, her helmet floating up and flying out after her.

Twilight obviously wished otherwise, but after a moment she had to admit that Harlin was surely right. They were in a desperate situation, and the 38th Company couldn't afford to divert energy and ordnance to help Equestria even if it was perfectly willing. How many times had the humans taken the brunt of the war against the various aliens that had threatened Equestria already? Although Twilight felt that their sacrifice was justified and that the 38th Company had plenty to show for its efforts, she couldn't expect - and didn't necessarily want - them to directly let their own die to help save ponies.

But she wasn't about to allow her capital and home city perish if she could help it. The Iron Warriors were, obviously, the unquestioned military masters in the Centaur system, but there were other powers in this world that were capable of challenging the cosmos.

"I just hope I'm not too late..." Twilight mumbled to herself as she bolted back out into the streets of the fortress.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 manufactorum block

"Pinkie! Finally!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she, Spike, and Rarity watched the heavy access doors open.

"Oh, hey guys!" Pinkie said, sounding slightly drowsy as she stepped out of the giant war factory. Discord followed behind her, his hands clasped together behind his back. "You missed a GREAT party last night! I mean, it wasn't as much fun as the ones I throw, and the guest list was a little heavy on infectious monsters for my tastes, but you know, it was still pretty cool!"

Pinkie raised a hoof in front of her face and yawned, evidently oblivious to the alarm klaxons, the pounding of multiple anti-aircraft turrets, and the incredulous stares of her friends (though in her defense, Rainbow and Rarity had their helmets on, so it was hard to tell). Even Discord was staring up at the sky and frowning in obvious concern.

After she finished yawning, Pinkie grinned at her friends. "Sorry I missed the dream training thingy! I really wanted to go, but I found this store of REALLY neat videos in Shmithy's cogitators! Did you know that Big Ma-"

"PINKIE!" Rainbow Dash suddenly interrupted. "We don't have time for this!"

The earth pony blinked in surprise. "Oh, sorry. What's wrong?"

An explosion tore through the air above them, marking the end of an Ork Warkopta. Bits of smoldering debris and howling Ork bodies rained onto the street, and Rarity yelped as a rotor blade slashed across the ferrocrete right in front of her before bouncing away.

"Huh," Pinkie remarked, looking up, "wonder where that came from."

"Warning!" boomed the vox casters. "Xeno ground forces have been detected in sector 8. Ork units have been engaged!"

While the full implications of this invasion slowly dawned on Pinkie Pie, Discord clicked his tongue. "You know, I am honestly surprised and impressed right now. This really isn't supposed to be possible."

A loud crack came from a Fighta-Bomma swooping down the street as it was punctured by an anti-air gun, and it started corkscrewing through the air before drilling into the wall of the manufactorum.

"Ha! That's Orks for you! Amiright?" Discord said with a slightly nervous grin as he leaned down and elbowed Pinkie in the side.

"So... exactly how doomed are we?" Pinkie asked, gulping as she stared up into the sky. Dozens of Ork aircraft were attacking the rooftops, while the looming shapes of Ork landing vessels lowered themselves through the pollution haze.

"I can't say for sure until Twilight gets back," Spike replied, "but on a scale of one to ten, with ten being 'boned', this is at LEAST a seven. We can't even find Serith."

Rarity turned her visor up toward Discord. "And I don't suppose YOU have any great insight on this debacle, do you?"

"Not at the moment, no," Discord admitted, shifting his posture to mime opening a door. It didn't surprise anyone when a door really DID open, revealing a rectangle of seething crimson energy. "Tell you what; let me make some calls, consult the relevant departments, and I'll get back to you long after anything I find out might actually matter. Ta-ta!"

Discord stepped into the gateway and vanished, closing the "door" behind him.

"Discord not helping? Gosh, there's a twist I didn't see coming!" Rainbow grumbled bitterly.

"Now Dash, let's look on the bright side, here," Rarity chided, "you know that he possesses almost unlimited potential to make things worse for us. I consider it a favor for him to leave us to die with valor and dignity."

"Whatta pal," Rainbow grumbled.

Behind the other two ponies, Pinkie was clambering up the side of her waiting Dreadnought shell to slip inside. "So what's the plan? Where do we go? What do we do?"

"Twilight said we should wait for her," Spike answered, pausing as another explosion came from above, "she also told me to find Fluttershy, but I don't really know where she is."

"I can go find her!" Rainbow volunteered, jumping up and then hovering in the air as her flight pack ignited.

"Darling, please, no," Rarity said, beckoning the pegasus back down, "just LOOK at that sky right now. You'd be as likely to be ripped apart by a missed shot or exploding plane than by an actual enemy."

"Well, I'm not just gonna stand here and do nothing!" Rainbow Dash protested.

A crackling noise reached the armored ponies from their vox systems, and each of them fell silent as they imagined that they had incoming combat orders.

"Hey, somepony wanna tell me why we got greenskins rainin' down from the sky?" Applejack asked. She did not sound happy.

"That IS the question of the hour, yes," Rarity replied, "we'll have to get back to you on that, though. Still investigating the matter."

"This ain't fair!" the farmer complained. "We built the consarn portal! We brought in the Warp storm! What else could we do?!"

"I assure you, we're all in full agreement," Rarity said with a sigh, "but I don't think the Orks care."

"Just hang tight, AJ!" Pinkie Pie said as she stomped up behind the others. "We're gonna get through this! You'll see!"

Rarity heard Applejack groan, and the unicorn frowned in concern. "Applejack, when you said you had Orks 'raining down from the sky', did you mean that there are actually assault craft landing near Ponyville?"

"Landin'? Naw. They ain't landin' here."

"Good. Then at least you're faring better than the fortress," Rarity nodded, "we'll contact you again when we learn more about what's happening, or if we see any opportunity for you to join us."

****

Sweet Apple Acres

Applejack released a grumbling sigh before her vox link switched off.

"Yeah, Rares. At least we're farin' better than the fortress."

The apple farmer stared despondently at the massive, burning trench that now cut through her orchard. Trees had been toppled by the dozens, and then by the hundreds, and many of those that hadn't been directly smashed to pulp were now on fire.

At the end of the furrow was a mangled Ork Landa. A huge column of smoke poured from its shredded engines, and every few seconds a small explosion would come from the vessel's hull to belch more shrapnel and fire into the ruined orchard.

"Well, shucks, Cuz. Ah was skeptical at first, but... maybe them aliens ARE attracted to apple trees, somehow."

Behind Applejack stood nearly a dozen members of the Apple family, including Braeburn, Granny Smith, and Crabapple (Apple Bloom had been told to stay inside). Behind them were a few mercenaries that were in town to help guard the Chaos Temple, including Daniels.

"This was, like, the ONE section of the farm that wasn't damaged from the LAST void ship crash," mumbled Apple Tart as her ears pinned back.

"Well, things could be worse," mused Fritter, trying to cheer up her cousins.

"Don't say it," warned Daniels.

"At least we don't have to deal with all the Orks it was carrying!" Fritter said heedlessly.

A loud clanging noise came from the wrecked lander as a bulkhead was knocked loose. A moment later it fell outward and then wedged itself into the dirt, forming a ramp.

"WAAAAAAAGH!!"

"God DAMN it, Fritter!" Daniels groaned. "What have I told you about optimism?! Huh? Never again!"

The mare whimpered and started backing away, along with several other terrified Apple relatives.

"Y'all head inside an git yer guns! Braeburn, ya know what to do!" Applejack commanded as her helmet folded up into position. "Wy, take yer boys into cover 'fore the greenies git their bearin's! Crabapple, yer with me!"

A metallic screech filled the air as the Defiler raised its claws and cannons, moving over to the armored pony.

"Inconsiderate varmints," Granny Smith grumbled before she wobbled back toward the house, "way too early t'be causin' a ruckus like this." She paused and twisted her head around toward Applejack again. "Ah'm goin' back to bed! Ya tell them daggum green kids to stay off our lawn, y'hear?"

"Ah hear ya, Granny," Applejack said, loosing a puff of fire into the air, "no trespassin' on Apple turf! Yee haw!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11 manufactorum block

"Twilight! Hey, Twilight! Over here!" Spike waved his claw and shouted as he spotted the familiar suit of silver and gold swooping down the street as fast as her flight pack could carry her.

The young dragon was standing behind a barricade, as were Rainbow Dash and Rarity. It was quite obvious why: the streets were littered with shrapnel and streaks of flame, and the debris was only piling up further with every minute that passed. Ork flyers, landers, and the occasional large meteor that seemed to have engines strapped to it all careened recklessly toward Ferrous Dominus, and each one faced a devastating crossfire of missiles and autocannons to make its landing.

Twilight sped across the avenue toward her friends, but was forced to suddenly boost her altitude as a pair of Devilfish troop transports sped past in front of her.

Once she had cleared the Tau APCs, Twilight pulled up to land next to Pinkie Pie, who was waving her down with her walker's massive power fist.

"Twi!" Spike shouted as his caretaker landed. "On a scale of one to ten, with ten being-"

"There's no time!" Twilight interrupted as soon as she got her bearings. "There's an Ork ship about to crash onto Canterlot!"

A series of gasps came from the other ponies, and Spike's eyes shrank to pinpricks.

"... Oh," he mumbled weakly, "I think I need a bigger scale."

"Never mind that! Tell me you have paper ready!" the alicorn shouted desperately.

Spike reached for his tool belt - an omnipresent accessory for the dragon nowadays - and snatched up a metal cylinder. Twisting it open revealed a scroll of parchment, and the young dragon quickly laid it out before taking up a pen.

"Dear Pr-" Spike started to say before Twilight interrupted him again.

"Spike, seriously! We can skip the formalities!" she barked. "A void ship is on course to crash into Canterlot from orbit! ETA four minutes! Company unable to assist!"

Spike scribbled the notes furiously, and then sucked in a deep breath as he rolled up the parchment. With a puff of green flame, the scroll vanished.

"So... is that it? We send notice to Princess Celestia and hope she can deal with it?" Rainbow asked.

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears," Twilight grumbled.

Another heavy explosion came from above, and the ponies craned their heads up to watch as an Ork Landa careened through air trailing flame and smoke. "Obviously, there are some things the humans could do, but they have their own problems right now."

"So what DO we do?" Pinkie asked anxiously. The ground trembled slightly as the Landa smashed into the ground the next sector over, grinding itself to shreds against the ferrocrete surface.

Twilight pursed her lips. "Well, we don't have specific orders, and when faced with a conundrum involving aliens and warfare, I've developed a standard response which has served me fairly well so far." She locked on to a familiar locator rune with her visor. "Let's go find Gaela and ask her."

****

Canterlot Castle - main throne room

"What do you MEAN 'it didn't work'?"

Celestia's voice was shrill and nearly hysterical as she stared down at Norris Delgan. The man was kneeling before the white pony and her court, most of whom had been awoken and dragged to the throne room to hear of his emergency.

The Trademaster seemed curiously calm as he replied. "I mean that the Nethalican seems to have failed. I have reports flooding in that our fleet has been engaged by Ork ships breaking out of Warp-space, and Ferrous Dominus is under heavy Ork assault. I'm afraid I have no further details than that, your Highness."

The other ponies in the hall looked stunned, and at least one minister fainted on the spot.

"You're telling me," Celestia began, her voice trembling with barely suppressed anger and fear, "that after all that we went through to construct that horrible temple, it has done nothing? We still have BILLIONS of Orks pouring through the Warp to attack our world?"

"I am not saying either of those things," Delgan replied, "I don't know if the Warp storm has had some marginal effect on the Ork fleet, or if the numbers attacking us represent the entire Ork horde that the Tau aimed to re-direct. All I can say with certainty is what my men have relayed to me mere minutes ago: Ork ships have appeared when they should not be able to. I simply thought you should know about that."

Celestia grimaced darkly as she looked over her court. The Canterlot ponies, who had only seen or heard of the Orks second-hand, looked absolutely terrified. The Royal Guards were speaking to each other in frantic, hushed whispers, while the castle staff and Equestrian ministers were whipping their heads about, as if aliens were going to start piling in through the windows. Delgan was inscrutable, calmly awaiting any order or question Celestia might have for him. In the corner of the throne room, a group of other humans in the flowing white robes of the Sunsworn spoke in hushed whispers to each other.

"You do not seem especially troubled, Trademaster," Celestia said. Her own voice was much cooler now, and carried the slightest hint of suspicion. "Do you not fear the Ork threat that we thought we had avoided?"

"I am but a merchant, your Highness," Delgan answered with another tilt of his head, "my fate ever rests upon the efforts of our fleet's warriors. The Iron Warriors will see off this newest threat. And if they cannot, well..." he trailed off for a moment. "There comes a point when fear becomes redundant. If there is no hope, gibbering like a fool isn't going to change that."

Celestia was about to say something else, but a flash of green fire appeared next to her. A scroll dropped down from the air, and the white Princess caught it in the glow of her magic.

"A message from Twilight," Celestia said with relief as she levitated the scroll up to her eyes, "perhaps SHE has some inkling as to what's going on." She unfurled the parchment and then read it aloud to her court. "A void ship is on course to crash into Canterlot from orbit. ETA four minutes. Company unable to assist."

A deathly silence hung over the throne room after Celestia finished speaking, interrupted only by the Thud! sounds from several more ponies fainting.

"See that?" Delgan said finally, standing up. "Being afraid of the Ork army seems entirely pointless now, doesn't it?"

Celestia practically jumped to her feet. "Kibitz! Get the mages!" she shouted.

Her somewhat dazed assistant shook his head in surprise. "Uh, which-"

"ALL OF THEM!" Celestia leapt away from her throne, landing behind Delgan and racing for the door. "Guards, begin evacuating the city into the shelters at once!"

"Is she going to teleport out? They can do that, right?" Delgan mused aloud after Celestia left the room. "If so, I'd like to get in on that." The Royal Guards were making a mad gallop for the doors now, and some of the pony officials were shouting commands at each other.

"Her holiness will not abandon Her people so easily," remarked Farian as the Sunsworn approached the Trademaster.

Delgan gave him a look that didn't carry a fraction of the irritation he felt for the man. "I hardly think it's 'easy'. But she is the nation's sovereign and - bizarre as the idea is - the only force maintaining this planet's stable solar orbit. I would think it more selfish of her to allow herself to die for a gesture of pointless self-righteousness than to flee the city's imminent destruction."

"The powers of the Goddess of the Sun are not to be dismissed," added a woman in white as she stepped up next to her fellow sun cultist, "She will not allow Her subjects and Her kingdom to perish before the alien savages."

"She hardly has a choice, when millions of tons of burning metal are falling onto her and her city," Delgan drawled.

"Simple matters of mass and energy," scoffed yet another Sunsworn, "She is a Goddess. The bringer of light and life."

"Arguable," the Trademaster retorted, "yet given our situation, I have to hope you're correct."

Delgan turned on his heel and headed for the doors. "But even if she is a God, well... we are Chaos. We have seen the death of Gods."

****

Canterlot - castle courtyard

It was remarkable, Celestia thought as she galloped outside, how calm and normal it was. Ponies were going about their normal business and chatting happily to each other bright and early in the morning, none of them aware that the salvation of the planet had apparently and inexplicably been undone and that their world was even now under attack. Much less that they were minutes away from being pulverized en masse.

Several Canterlot visitors - and a few Sunsworn that happened to be in the courtyard as well - gasped when they saw their Princess dash to the center of the plaza, and they stared in confusion as the Princess of the Sun looked straight up into the sky.

"There," Celestia breathed, spotting a distant spot of flame.

From here the vessel looked like nothing; a stray flare, or perhaps some bits of void detritus burning up in the atmosphere.

That illusion would not remain for long, and by the time the magnitude of the threat became clear to the naked eye, it would be too late. Celestia's horn flashed a brilliant gold, her magical aura quickly expanding to the point that those watching had to avert their eyes.

Some considered Celestia's control over the sun - or rather, the planet's orbit around the sun - to be an act of levitation magic; the simple movement of something far away with nothing more than pure will, but on a scale that mere unicorns would find absurd. Magic scholars, including Twilight Sparkle, found such assumptions ridiculous, especially when they came from other magic-users. Levitating an object was the most basic of cantrips, with sharp limitations in force, range, and stability on those occasions that it was used to resist an opposing motion. As for "raising the sun", Celestia didn't let many other ponies in on the specifics of her and Luna's most important spells, but moving celestial objects was extraordinarily complicated. Gravitational pull, momentum, mana flows, magnetic fields, and all manner of obscure magical calculations figured into the enchantments that kept their world in motion. A great deal more complex and delicate than simply giving the planet a telekinetic shove in the right direction.

Which was rather unfortunate, because Celestia could have really used a spell to simply levitate massive, fast-moving space objects right about now.

Her first spell was released into the air, and those standing nearby were nearly bowled over from the resulting pressure wave when air was shoved out of the way by a shining bolt of pure force. A golden arc of power thrashed around the Princess's horn as her energy surged unexpectedly, lending an extra charge of strength to her magic.

The magic projectile climbed rapidly through the sky, and true to her intentions it struck the nose of the descending void craft. The force bolt spread across the front of the raider, pushing back against the vessel's descent and slowing it.

Slightly.

Celestia's eye twitched as she felt her spell spend itself against the void ship to very little effect. That spell could have pushed over a building with ease, and probably any other buildings behind the first one, but against a space vessel dropping at terminal velocity it was like trying to stop a train by throwing a rock at it.

Which, strictly speaking, was POSSIBLE, but it took an awful lot of very large rocks.

"I just know I'm going to think this over later and realize I had a much better spell available," Celestia sighed as ever more power flooded into her horn. Once again she felt an unexpected surge of magical energy, which was a small comfort at this point, but probably the only one.

Another kinetic burst came from the white Princess, and then another, and then several more in ever-faster succession. The humans and ponies nearby were fleeing from her now, not understanding what was happening but convinced that they didn't want to be near it.

"Everypony! This is an evacuation order!" shouted a pegasus guard as he swooped down over the crowd. Another blast of air nearly knocked him from the sky, and an earth pony quickly rushed forward while he steadied himself.

"There's a threat to the city! Everypony, gather your family and head to the mountain shelter! Do NOT panic! Please proceed to the shelter in a calm and orderly fashion!"

Although some ponies (and most of the humans) did as instructed, others started looking over to Princess Celestia with wide eyes, guessing correctly that the current emergency was related to whatever she was doing.

"HRRRRRRRG!" grunted Celestia, her wings trembling and her eyes squeezed shut.

"Please disregard the struggling Princess and the enormous space-borne object careening toward the city! The situation is COMPLETELY under control!" continued the guard.

The civilians had their doubts about that, as evidenced by the fact that some of them started screaming and breaking toward the shelter or their homes in frantic sprints.

"Man, every time," the guard sighed as he shifted aside to avoid getting trampled, "it's like they don't even trust us."

Celestia struggled to pour more and more power in to her kinesis bolts, shoving as much energy as magically possible into the rapidly approaching ship. The spell was now emerging as a constant beam of force, winding its way through the air and pushing desperately against the frigate's momentum. The frontal plating and bulkheads, already weakened from the intense heat of uncontrolled atmospheric re-entry, started to buckle and shake loose from the duel of physics and magic. The ship's dive was slowing, to be sure; Celestia estimated that she had already bought herself many extra seconds beyond Twilight's estimate. But her current magic expenditure was terribly inefficient even with the mana surges, and the Ork ship had a GREAT deal of extra force working for it in the form of gravity. There was no way she'd be able to slow it down enough to keep it from smashing the mountain apart, along with her city and its shelter.

"Princess! We're here!" shouted a voice from behind her. "Where-WHOA!"

Ten older unicorns, all of them sporting a colorful variety of gaudy robes and overgrown facial hair, stumbled into the courtyard behind the alicorn, their jaws agape. By now the ship was close enough that its proportions were easy to make out, and it compared decently to the mountain it was landing on, never mind the city that would be caught in the impact.

"It's true! That thing is going to kill us!" howled one mage as he reared up in terror.

"Celestia save us all!" yelped a mare before she pulled her wizard's hat down over her eyes.

"I'M TRYING!!" Celestia shouted through clenched teeth, causing the mages to flinch. "HELP ME HELP YOU!!"

"Oh, right. Uh..." the mages all looked up at the Ork raider, some looking uncertain as the others fought the urge to curl up into a ball on the ground. "What should we do?"

"Kinesis blasts! All of you! Directly at the vessel!" Celestia panted.

"What, seriously? There's no way that's going to work," scoffed one of the mages, "that would be like trying to stop a train by flinging rocks at it."

Celestia really wished she could turn her head to glare at the pony who had said that, but any such movement would have hastened their immediate doom.

"How about an anti-gravity point enchantment?" asked a mare in a tall, cone-shaped cap. "The one we use to float those boulders for the third-years."

"It's going to take a LOT of anchor points," cringed another mage as he stared up at the ship, "and that spell won't stop it's momentum, either."

"I can manage that part!" Celestia gasped while golden lashes of energy whipped around her horn. "Do it! Please!"

The unicorns broke into a line and stepped up behind their sovereign, each one staring dubiously at the flaming hulk of metal bearing down on them.

"Mages! Proceed with casting!" barked a stallion with an absurdly long mustache. Their horns started to glow in tandem.

"Hardly an ideal range for this enchantment," grumbled one pony.

"I've been getting a lot of bizarre mana surges lately, too. That's not going to play out well here," muttered another.

"Cast it as if your lives depended on it!" Celestia commanded, sweat rolling down her neck. "Because I can assure you, they do!"

The mages' horns flashed, and two of them cried out in surprise when their magic power suddenly jumped unexpectedly. Several points of light bloomed against the Ork raider before spreading over sections of its hull, and its descent slowed noticeably. Two points on the space vessel flashed and then suddenly imploded, cracking open more bulkheads and ripping off damaged plating.

"Did that help?"

"Ponyfeathers, my horn! That one actually hurt!"

"It's, uh... it's not stopping!"

Celestia grit her teeth, drawing ever more power from the air around her. It practically danced with energy, flooding her internal reservoirs of magic even as she drained them as quickly as possible, and yet it was simply not ENOUGH. "More! Do that again!"

The mages began casting again, jaws clenched with determination.

"This spell creates an 'anchor' which negates the effect of gravity on whatever it's attached to!" Explained one mage as his horn pulsed. "But it has a limit based on the size and mass of the object! We won't be able to render the entire thing weightless!"

"Do as much as you can! I can already feel its descent slowing!" Celestia shouted.

The unicorns again completed their spells, and three yelped this time as flashes of excess energy flooded their horns. Again, several points of light flared against the descending hulk, and again, a few bulkheads were ripped open by miscast enchantments.

"Concentrate, mages!" demanded the mustachioed stallion. They could feel the heated air being pushed along in front of the raider now, and several chunks of broken metal were raining on the city ahead of the broken void ship. "For Canterlot and the Princess!"

Again, the mages cast their spell, but this time only one unicorn yelped and fell over.

The Ork warship, which was now close enough that the ponies could make out individual dents and gouges on the hull, shuddered mightily. At this point the vessel was nearly level with the city itself, crawling toward the mountainside next to Canterlot's fragile perch.

And then, with gravity's grasp loosened and facing a veritable river of astronomical magical force, it stopped, floating barely twenty meters away from the mountain's surface.

"We... We did it!" gasped a mare, shielding her face after another wave of hot air blasted her hat off.

Celestia released a ferocious grunt before her knees buckled, and the unicorns had to avert their eyes when the alicorn's spell collapsed in a flash of golden light.

"Princess!" shouted several of the mages, jumping toward their fallen ruler. Several Royal Guards waiting nearby likewise moved to surround the Princess, forming a circle around her and the unicorns.

As the Princess of the Sun groaned, however, a much deeper and more ominous sound filled the air and their ears.

The Ork void ship had its momentum drained, but the mages, as expected, hadn't been able to render the vessel weightless. With the only force directly opposing its descent reduced to a gasping, exhausted heap, the enormous craft finished its inexorable - if very short, at this point - plunge into the mountain.

The equines cringed as a dull, stomach-turning boom washed over the city, followed by a tremor that had their jaws rattling in their skulls. The towers of Canterlot shook and pavement cracked and shifted. A great wave of dust blew up over one side of the city as the Ork raider settled into its new resting place, grinding the rocks under it to powder.

Yet, as the dust settled and the energy of its fall was spent, Canterlot still stood.

****

Canterlot Castle

"... All right. I'm impressed. I admit it," Delgan said as he leaned against the railing of the palace balcony.

"Behold, for this is what salvation looks like," said Farian as he gestured to the void ship, "nothing is beyond the power of the Goddess."

Delgan could have rattled off several things that very much DID seem to be beyond the power of Celestia, but didn't especially feel like arguing the point right now. The pony guards were still rushing about the city in a flurry, evacuating the citizens into the shelter and generally trying to pretend they were in any way useful during the kind of disaster they had just narrowly avoided.

"Praise her holy light! She has saved us all!"

"Behold! Behold!"

Delgan turned on his heel and walked quietly past the other humans, most of whom were eagerly proclaiming their devotion to their equine deity.

And that was fine. Delgan actually felt a fair amount of sympathy for the cultists in white; it must have taken considerable nerve to turn their backs on the Dark Gods. But even after that impossible display of magical might, the Trademaster didn't have quite as much faith in the Princess of the Sun as they did.

"Everypony! Move aside! Make way!" barked a unicorn guard as several more pony soldiers helped Celestia into the main hall.

Celestia's tired eyes caught sight of Delgan as she was carried back inside her castle, and she gestured for her soldiers to halt. "Trademaster," she said between deep, heaving breaths.

"Your Highness," Delgan bowed again to the alicorn, his expression as neutral and inexpressive as ever, "a more fantastic display of psychic might I have never witnessed. And that is no small praise; I've witnessed more than my fair share. You've saved us all, and you have my thanks."

"You're welcome," Celestia said, still heaving for breath, "and you likewise have my thanks for warning me of the renewed Ork threat. Had you not done so, I might have lost too many precious seconds in confusion upon reading my student's letter."

She sucked in another deep mouthful of air, and her breathing started to become more regular. "That said, I must request that your fleet not drop any more void ships on my cities. I cannot manage that again."

"I'll relay that message as soon as possible, your Highness," Delgan said with grim seriousness as he stood up straight, "so, what do you intend to do about the Orks?"

Celestia shook her head as she gently pushed her way free of her guards to stand on her own once more. "As much as I dislike yet again placing the fate of my kingdom upon Solon's shoulders, I must concur with your own plan to simply wait and bear this out for now. The Warsmith will have a better idea of what to do than I could come up with at the moment."

Delgan frowned, his brow creasing. "I wasn't referring to the Ork invasion at large. What do you intend to do about the Orks here, in Canterlot?"

Princess Celestia, the pony guards, the mages, and the Sunsworn all stared at Delgan.

"Why... Why would there be Orks in Canterlot?" Celestia asked, her voice wavering slightly.

"Because you just safely landed an Ork raider right next to the city rather than letting it pulverize itself against the mountain," Delgan drawled, "make no mistake, it was obviously the right thing to do, but I don't believe the greenskins will be so grateful to be saved as they really should be."

"Well, I was about to ask if we should cancel the evacuation, but how about we speed it up, instead?" asked a Royal Guard Sergeant.

Celestia shook her head weakly. "Surely with the sort of damage it had sustained, the vessel's crew has already perished by now." She gulped. "... Right?"

Some of the Sunsworn sucked in air through their teeth.

"That tends to... NOT be the case where Orks are concerned," admitted Farian awkwardly.

"They're survivors!" chuckled another man in white. "Unfortunately..."

Celestia felt her legs weaken again, and her Guards rushed to hold her up as she staggered.

"So. Invasion defense," Delgan said calmly, his hands clasped behind his back, "where are we at, hm?"

Celestia steeled herself before craning her neck around to face her soldiers. "Continue the evacuation. But FASTER."

The guards saluted, and then several of them galloped away.

Celestia turned to the mages next. "Go to the edge of the city and slow down the Orks however you can. Set buildings on fire, use force walls, place traps; just keep a safe distance! When you think you can hold them back no longer, retreat back here and barricade the palace."

"Of course, your Highness," said the mage with the extensive mustache, bowing to the alicorn, "mages! To battle!"

Celestia faced forward again, and she pursed her lips as she stared at the men and women in white who were staring at her somberly. "I know that many of you were once warriors. But despite our great need, I cannot ask you, who overcame your fear and darker nature to turn away from the bloodshed and hatred of Chaos, to return to war and die for my sake. I have not earned that right."

The Sunsworn remained silent and glanced at each other uncertainly.

"However, I would like to take this time to point out that I do not PROHIBIT acts of violence in a clear and morally unambiguous defense of harmony and civilization," Celestia continued.

Farian gave the white alicorn a thumbs-up. "Of course, your Holiness. We understand. The children of Equestria will not be made to suffer so long as we draw breath." Several Sunsworn were already racing from the room, heading to armories piled high with lasguns and ordnance.

As the white-robed humans left the hall, Celestia faced Norris Delgan.

"Subtle," the Trademaster offered, "it's an approach former Chaos cultists can appreciate, I'm sure."

Celestia grimaced. "Trademaster Norris Delgan, I must ask that you stand with me in defense of the castle. We do have a plan for this situation, but we're short on skilled fighters, and I've seen what you're capable of with those blades."

Delgan raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You haven't the right to ask your worshipers and immigrant citizens to defend you, but you can ask that of me?"

"As you are so fond of saying, you're but a simple merchant," the Princess said wryly, "such rights are not earned, they're purchased. You may bill me later."

Delgan bowed again. "It is a pleasure to serve, your Highness."

"If there are any other useful assets on hand that I might 'purchase' at the moment, I would like to do so," Celestia added as she stepped gingerly toward her throne room, "we don't have much time, so only those materials already in the city, please."

"As you wish," the Trademaster said simply as she left, withdrawing a small, handheld vox receiver from his belt.

After poking at its screen for a few seconds, a mare's voice came from the device. "Uh, hello? Boss? What's this about? I've kind of got an evacuation order over here."

"Belay that order, Miss Orchid Flair," Delgan said firmly, "we have business to take care of."

"Is this business related to the sound of machine guns I hear on the North side?" asked the voice anxiously.

"Quite. If you're not at the Iron Chest right now, get there. You're to activate all the automata on standby, slaved to your command node. I'll release engram designations and tactical orders after they're warmed up and deployed."

The voice sighed. "All right. I get hazard pay for this, right?"

"If we manage to survive the next few hours, we ALL have a nice bonus coming," Delgan smirked, "off to work, now!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 8

The sky was a storm of flame and destruction.

Rockets shot up and down, beams of hot light speared through the ash-streaked sky, and relentless webs of autocannon fire cut between the metal rooftops.

Wave after wave of Ork flyers descended on the fortress, only to be torn to scrap not long after penetrating the smog layer. The expense of the attack fighters and bombers did at least distract the bulk of the fire from the transport vessels, and some one out of four managed a clumsy landing inside the fortress defenses and rapidly disgorged their eager passengers into the thick of the enemy.

Which isn't to say that even these most fortunate of mobs made it much further.

*I have markerlight tags on the target unit!* Jerriha shouted as her optics zoomed in on several Ork boyz exiting a burning Warkopta. *Volley fire! Cut them down!*

The screech of pulse rifles contested the pounding of the autocannons overhead as Jerriha's Fire Warriors opened up on the larger aliens, and several Orks fell to the ground howling as the others bolted to take cover behind their transport.

A Crisis Suit swooped in and landed next to Jerriha, and its missile pods swiveled about and spat a volley into the damaged vehicle. The crippled Warkopta was blasted apart in short order, and the Orks were sent scrambling for a new barricade.

Jerriha sighed in relief as the alien brutes fled right into another firing line cutting across the avenue. Soon they found themselves being torn apart by sustained heavy bolter fire, with no route of escape or nearby cover. *The Astartes have them! Check your vectors and advance!*

The battlesuit vaulted forward first, its jet pack hissing. The rest of her squad followed at a good clip, each one with his or her optics on the sky.

A Dakka Jet came apart right above the Fire Warriors, and her troops were scattering and diving before she could even give the order herself. Bits of shrapnel and flaming debris scattered onto the avenues, and Jerriha turned around nervously.

Following her unit was a small antigravity lifter loaded with ordnance crates and repair kits, and attended by a pair of Earth Caste utility drones. A few scraps of hot metal bounced off the truck-sized cargo block, but hardly enough to damage it.

In theory, of course, the ordnance was stable and wouldn't explode unless fired properly from a weapon. But the Fire Warriors hadn't been feeling very lucky as of late, and she didn't want to take any chances.

Or so she was telling herself, even as she marched underneath a full-scale planetary assault by Orks.

*Move it! Get up!* she snapped at her men, moving into a jog. Soon they passed the shredded corpses of the Orks, and Jerriha felt a chill crawl down her back as she stepped into what she knew was the crosshairs of an Iron Warrior gunner.

That chill wasn't followed by explosive pain and the icy embrace of death, so the Fireblade shrugged off the feeling and rushed down the streets. There were more bodies, more wreckage, and more damage, but mercifully little of it involved 38th Company assets. When the Lamman Sept had assaulted this base, it had been a carefully calculated affair with clear lines of support, minimal air presence, and timed when the Chaos army was at its weakest. The Orks had evidently opted for the exact opposite strategy, and it was faring even worse than she would have expected. Even the frequent, explosive crashes from the downed fighters weren't causing extensive damage to the fortress-city's reinforced buildings.

Soon Jerriha spotted their target: a smoldering Barracuda fighter that had made an emergency landing on a stretch of road. The Air Caste pilots were already hiding behind a nearby barricade clutching pulse pistols, while an Earth Caste engineer dug around in its wing.

A familiar engineer, at that.

*Fio'el Fennin, fancy meeting you here,* Jerriha quipped as her Fire Warriors spread into a defensive formation, *how are you enjoying the end of the world?*

The Tau engineer quickly turned around. *Shas'vre! TELL me you have some idea as to why we have Ork ships diving at us right now! I was EXPLICITLY told that the WAAAGH had been seen off!*

*I hate to disappoint you, but the apes haven't told us anything. Though in fairness to them, I think that's because they're just as surprised as the rest of us.* She gestured to the supply crate before sitting on a barricade wall. *Your order, Fio'el.*

The engineer spat a curiously obscure curse before gesturing the utility drones and the automated lifter forward.

Another Fighta-Bomma came apart overhead with an explosive cracking noise, but Jerriha merely scowled up at the sky above as the others flinched.

*The apes have this well in hand for now, but that can only last so long against an assault with these sorts of numbers behind it. And if the greenskins can obtain orbital dominance, then they can just bombard the fortress into submission.*

*Doubt they will,* Fennin grumbled as he unpacked the crates, *they like their ground assaults too much. I can't believe they caught the fleet off-guard. I TOLD them that their reactors were defective, but-*

"Hey! Incoming! Don't shoot me!"

Jerriha snapped her head about, and her eyes narrowed as she spotted a dark purple pegasus flying toward them down the streets at low altitude.

*Oh, NOW what?* Fennin growled as the pony landed and then galloped the rest of the way, dodging over scraps of debris. "This had better be important, equine. I have a LOT of things to fix right now, and a lot of Orks intent on adding to the queue," he grumbled, switching to Gothic.

The pony was wearing her respirator mask so they couldn't really see her expression, but they got the distinct feeling she was scowling at them. "Well, gosh, I don't know! Let me ask." There was a servo skull with a loose tendril wrapped around the pony's tail, and she twisted her head around to face it. "Hey, WARSMITH SOLON, is this important? It sounds like the brainy jerk doesn't want to be bothered."

"It ish important," crackled a voice from the skull as it disentangled itself.

Fennin winced as the macabre drone approached him, and he barely kept from sighing. "Ah, Warsmith. How can I help you?"

"Fio'el Fennin. I have need of your shervicesh poshthashte," the skull crackled. Some of the Fire Warriors snickered at the voice, even though few of them spoke decent Gothic themselves.

"Of course, Lord. What needs fixing?" the engineer asked.

"The Warp beacon for luring Orksh here."

There was a moment of awkward silence, broken only by the sound of another Fighta crashing into a nearby roof.

"That... what?"

The servo skull's optics flickered. "I require you to go to Black Point, reashemble the Warp beacon, and then activate it with the shpecific frequency shpecificationsh I've loaded onto thish shkull."

Fennin's brow creased while he took up an engineering tablet and linked to the servo skull's uplink node. "I don't understand, Lord. Putting aside what you hope to accomplish with this, can't you contact Black Point rather than having me go there?"

"That'sh a bit embarashing, actually," said the Warsmith's voice, "there are no Earth Cashte above Fio'la rank left in Black Point shince we've taken the resht of you. I did try shpeaking to one of them, but they shtarted ashking me what color buttonsh to presh and what to plug in where. Never mind that they couldn't comprehend the program."

Fennin groaned. "I must apologize profusely for the incompetence of my brethren, Lord. Too many of them are used to letting drones do all their work for them." Then he raised a brow. "As for the program, this looks like a sequencing pulse. Are you trying to turn the beacon into a radar tower?"

"I am! One that shpecifically reachesh into Warp-shpace! The Harvesht of Shteel will act ash receiver and proceshor."

"Will that even work in the Warp?" Jerriha asked skeptically.

"Under normal circumshtancesh, no. I'm hoping the current circumshtancesh are abnormal enough to provide usheful data." The skull's optics flashed again. "Fio'el Fennin, thish mission hash current command priority over all other objectivesh. You shall depart at once."

"New question," Jerriha interjected again, "I haven't been keeping an eye on the progress of the larger battle, but I'm pretty sure some of the larger Ork Landas have set down outside the fortress. How are they faring?"

"They have deployed their troopsh and have ush completely shurrounded," Solon said bluntly, "of courshe they shtand little chance of getting pasht the palishade wall any time shoon, but they will complicate your eshcape. If you can find aerial transhport, that would be ideal."

Fennin glanced over at the Tau fighter he had been repairing. "I think we can work something out."

"Good. The shkull containsh all the transhmission programsh you'll need to get the pulshe shignal going. You may take it with you." There was a pause from the servo skull, followed by a sigh. "Now, if you'll excushe me, I have to go explain my plan to Shliver repeatedly until it shtopsh shounding ridiculoush."

*Good luck with that,* Fennin mumbled before turning toward the other Tau. *Shas'la, if you could lend me a hand? It seems we just might have a way out of this mess after all.*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 12

"Lookit 'em run, boyz! Shoot 'em all down!"

Bullets sprayed out of the sides of a pair of Warkoptas like water from a fire hose, slicing through the sky in an uneven torrent.

The small flock of pegasi fleeing the transports banked hard to avoid the incoming fire, but one of them was still hit by the wave of shoota fire and sent tumbling painfully onto the ground while trailing bloodied feathers.

The Orks laughed heartily at the sight, although a moment later one of the vehicles shook when its side was hammered by the heavy slugs of a quad gun. It swayed back and forth from the impacts as it tried to stay in control, only for a missile to follow up the barrage and tear it apart in a flaming explosion.

The Orks on the other Warkopta laughed louder.

"Now DIS iz a fight!" crowed a Nob at the front as he fired his shoota randomly at the side of a building. The bullets ricocheted off uselessly, and he wasn't even sure if there was anybody inside to attack, but that was hardly the point.

A Fighta flew past them in a wild death spiral, smoke trailing from its engines as it plunged onto a rooftop. The Nob took a moment to grin and salute the Flyboy's noble and wonderfully fiery demise, and then he pointed to a spot on the ground that was littered with metal crates. "Oi! Down dere! Dat luks gud! Tayk 'er down!"

The Warkopta shook and its frame groaned, but for some reason its altitude remained stable.

"'Ey, wot'z da deel?" barked the Nob as he turned toward the pilot. "I sed DOWN!"

"We ain't moovin'!" the pilot complained, slamming a fist against his controls. "Dunno wot'z up!"

The Nob frowned, and he paused to consider this sudden conundrum. During his musings, he came to realize a few curious aspects of their current situation.

First, despite hovering almost immobile in the air, they weren't being torn apart by the anti-air defenses. There were still plenty of guns nearby that had convenient angles on them, but they were all firing elsewhere. Second, the hull of the Warkopta seemed to be surrounded by a deep red glow even as it trembled and strained to move.

Third, and possibly most important, there was a horse-shaped figure in night-black armor floating next to the vehicle and screaming at them.

"THOU DARES TO SET FOOT UPON OUR WORLD AFTER WE CAST THY VESSELS TO THE MERCILESS TIDES OF THE EMPYREAN?! PERISH!!"

Yeah. He didn't know WHAT her problem was.

Both hands of the Iron Gage launched forward, one grabbing onto the top of the Warkopta and the other onto the bottom of the main deck. A fizzling noise came from the heavy gauntlets as their fingers dug into the haphazard plating, securing their grip.

Then, with an incoherent roar, Luna ripped the transport in half like an old newspaper.

The separated halves of the Warkopta tumbled to the ground, slamming into the ferrocrete and tearing open further. Those Ork soldiers that weren't instantly crushed spilled out onto the ground into burning fuel spills and scattered wreckage.

Most of the alien warriors didn't get back up right away, either too badly injured, too dazed, or too dead to manage. The few that did struggle to their feet - including the unit Nob - suddenly found themselves pounded by heavy bolter fire on their flank. Heavy bolter fire provided by yet another armored horse on the ground, to add insult to injury.

"Bluddy hosses!" the Nob snarled as ducked low to the ground next to a section of the shredded Warkopta frame. "Da boss sed dere wuz hosses down 'ere! He didn' say dey had dakka!"

A nearby Shoota Boy had his lower torso blasted apart by a heavy bolter round before he could get to safety, and the Nob spotted his weapon bouncing across the ground toward him. He rushed for the gun, but just as he reached it a black, metal hand flew in from above and seized him around the neck.

"NO," Luna hissed through clenched teeth as she landed in front of the struggling Nob. Her wings trailed long wisps of blue light, and crimson arcs of power crackled around her horn's casing.

"Thou shalt cause no more death and pain upon this day, savage," the armored alicorn spat as she tugged the Ork closer, "SPEAK! Wherefore art thou here? How hast thou evaded the storms that protect this world?!"

The warrior's reply was a bare-knuckled left hook that pitched Luna's head to the side, even if it failed to so much as scratch her helmet plating. "Youz don' gimme ordahs, hoss!"

Luna had to admit that she felt some small shred of respect for the alien's apparent fearlessness even as she had the Iron Gage twist its head off.

Big Mac flinched as he watched the soldier being decapitated, and his visor tracked the Nob's corpse as it was flung to the side like another piece of debris.

"INCONCEIVABLE," Luna snarled, her voice a dull roar from behind her vox grille. The alicorn's horn casing blazed a furious crimson, and small chunks of metal and bullet casings trembled violently just from proximity to the powerful aura.

Luna's head snapped up as she spotted a Landa careening across the sky while being hammered by numerous anti-air weapons. The Iron Gage started to glow as arcs of crackling plasma formed at the palms, and she raised the gauntlets above her.

"WRETCHED BARBARIANS!!" Luna howled, unleashing twin beams of destruction into the air.

The range and speed of the vehicle foiled her aim, and one beam missed completely while the other merely winged the landing craft. Soon it had flown out of sight, behind the towers of the manufactorum.

The Princess of the Night released a wordless growl, her magical energy boiling all around her. "This was not to happen!" she declared angrily, the Iron Gage slamming into the ground and hammering new craters into the ferrocrete. "We defeated the greenskins! We constructed the Nethalican! We hast WON!" Luna roared her declaration to the sky, a pulse of force blasting away the nearby wreckage and corpses.

An explosion rocking a nearby building was her only reply as an Ork rokkit volley slammed into it, ripping open gun ports and tearing apart the wall. Destruction continued to literally rain down upon the fortress, and her vox system swam with reports of new enemy contacts on the ground and new ships breaking free of the Warp in orbit. The sound of Orkish laughter floated over the rumble of the many guns, a howling belly laugh of pure delight.

The oblivious, mocking rebuke to her claim of "victory" stoked Luna's fury further. Her aura pulsed brighter, her Iron Gage trembled, and a whisper at the back of her mind demanded the deaths of these insolent invaders.

No, not mere death. That wasn't good enough. Massacre. Extermination. GENOCIDE.

"I'll kill them," Luna breathed, unconsciously slipping out of her ancient manner of speech. Flames wafted from her vox and danced on the edges of her vision. "I'll kill ALL of them."

She tilted her head up as hot energy swirled around her. "I'll fly to the void itself. I will rip apart their assault craft. I will force my way into their ships. I will SLAUGHTER the greenskins in their own accursed vessels! I will-"

Luna felt a nudge against her armor, and her eyes flashed. The Iron Gage whipped about, seizing the intruder, and the ebony fingers shrieked as they clutched a shield of metal and threatened to crush it.

Luna tilted her head to the side to glare at her assailant, and then her heart seized up in her chest.

Big Macintosh stood next to her, one leg placed against her side. The Iron Gage grasped him over the face of his helmet, ready to squeeze the stallion's head in with a mere thought.

"M-Macintosh! I d-did not... erm, We th-thought..." Luna's furious aura withered as she stuttered, and the crimson glow around her visor dimmed to its normal brightness.

After a few seconds, she realized that she still held Big Mac's head in a death grip, and she quickly drew the Iron Gage away. "We beg thy forgiveness! Th-The armor, it marks allies as foes at times! We did not... We would not..."

Big Macintosh, for his part, kept staring up at the Princess, one boot resting behind her shoulder plating.

Luna let her sputtered excuses trail off. Her body relaxed at last and the fog around her mind cleared as she heaved a deep breath.

"Thank thee," Luna mumbled as she stared up at the sky again, "We had lost ourself. This is no occasion to surrender our senses to animal rage."

A dull banging noise came from behind her, and Luna twisted her head to see a pair of rhinos rolling down the street while plowing wreckage out of their path.

"And yet, what is to be done?" Luna asked, her voice almost cracking. "Our world sits on the precipice of invasion by a force that cannot be stopped. All our efforts to divert it hath been foiled."

Big Mac finally let his leg drop back to the ground, having nothing useful to add to her musings.

Luna saw another plane explode overhead and careen toward the ground, and she snorted. "The Warsmith warned us of this, in a way. Time and time again, he said, has his Legion achieved complete victory on the battlefield only to watch their success later be rendered meaningless. 'Tis a harsher fate than We had imagined, now that We hast seen it firsthoof."

"Eeyup," Big Mac added, looking over the burning avenues.

Luna pursed her lips as she regarded the stallion, and she shifted one of her gauntlets to rest on his shoulder pad. She was gratified and slightly impressed that he didn't flinch at the contact of having the weapon touch him again, merely turning to look at her.

"We... art unsure of what to do at this juncture," Luna admitted weakly, hanging her head, "We cannot contact the Warsmith, nor do We possess any great insight into the foe's attacks. It is hardly thy school of expertise, but if thou hast any insight into our predicament, We would be grateful to hear it."

Big Mac tilted his head to one side, staring up in thought. A bomb happened to go off on top of a nearby building, briefly showering bits of shrapnel toward the two equines, but Luna casually shielded the both of them with a wall of force.

Eventually the farmer shifted his head into a more natural pose while tagging a particular locator rune on his visor. "Ah reckon Ah know some folks 'sides Solon who can tell us what's goin' on... or at least tell us where we can do the most good," he mumbled as he started heading down the avenue.

"Indeed? Who?" Luna asked eagerly as she followed the stallion.

"Geth and Gaela," Big Mac answered, "them DarkMechs are pretty good in a pinch."

The scream of a rapidly descending aircraft sent the hairs on the back of Mac's neck standing up, and he whirled around just as a Dakka Jet careened directly toward them while trailing flame behind it.

He sucked in a breath to shout a warning, but that breath was lost as a crackling red sphere launched ahead of him and crashed headlong into the enemy jet. The orb of power detonated with a force that briefly turned Mac's visor display to flickering static. The plane was torn completely in half, and the shredded remains of the frame were thrown to either side of the avenue as a wave of hot air washed over the two ponies.

"We concur that this indeed qualifies as a 'pinch'," Luna said as red sparks swirled around her horn casing, "lead the way, Macintosh."

"Uh... Eeyup," the farmer said after a brief moment of introspection. He shook his head and started heading forward again. "... Thanks."

"Hm? For what?"

"......"

****

Canterlot City

"Everypony, proceed in an orderly fashion, please!" shouted an earth pony guard into his helmet vox. His voice was automatically broadcast from a caster mounted on his armor saddle, booming over the crowds of ponies streaming through the streets.

"No pushing! Pegasi, please remain grounded! Keep careful track of any pets or young children! Do NOT panic!"

A whistling noise from above caused many ears to perk up fearfully, and several citizens (and a few skittish guards) whinnied in fright as a mortar shell blasted apart a tower roof.

"When dodging falling debris, be aware of your surroundings at all times!" the soldier included helpfully as the civilians started rushing past him much faster. "Take extra care around flaming shrapnel, and when immolated, remember: stop, drop, and roll!"

"You are TERRIBLE at this," mumbled a unicorn next to him.

The other soldier switched off the vox caster before replying tightly, "I didn't see YOU volunteering for managing crowd control."

A series of explosions came from the other side of a block of buildings, causing the two military ponies to flinch. Balls of dark smoke rose over the tower peaks, and the distant rattle of machine guns became distinctly less distant.

The earth pony switched on the vox again. "All right folks, in all honesty, panic would be a perfectly legitimate response to the current scenario! But we would still prefer a calm - if not expedited - trip to the city shelter!"

The unicorn slapped a hoof over his muzzle.

No matter what one thought of the Royal Guards' procedure for evacuation, before long the river of civilians had slowed to a trickle, with the laggards mostly being those who had taken extra time to gather their belongings first.

"It is advised that you leave ALL personal belongings behind as you evacuate the city!" the earth pony warned. "All survival essentials will be supplied within the shelter!"

One fancy-looking pony toting a cart stuffed with paintings paused to glare at the soldiers. "Are you crazy? I can't leave my gallery to be blown up or looted! These art pieces are worth more than my life!"

"Sir, that is..." the guard trailed off. "... Actually, I suppose if you mean that literally, then I can't actually justify your abandoning them."

"Dude!" shouted the unicorn guard.

"What? I can't make a case against that!" the other stallion retorted.

Any further argument regarding the evacuation stopped as a bright flash of light came from a nearby alley.

"Run! Hurry!"

"Throw another light flare!"

"Don't bother! Being blind barely affects their accuracy anyway!"

"Fire! Use more FIRE!!"

The guards saluted as the squad of mages rushed out into the streets, their foreheads aglow with both magic and sweat. A slab of stone was being floated alongside them, and upon it lay the twitching and bloody bodies of two wounded unicorns.

"Sir! We have most of the-" the earth pony guard started to report, only to have several of the mages sprint right past him while wailing in terror.

Only one skidded to a stop, and the stallion boasting a white wizard's cap and an inconveniently long mustache panted heavily to catch his breath.

"The... Orks..." he huffed. "Most of them... delayed..."

"Fantastic job, Sir!" the unicorn guard said brightly.

"No," the mage gasped, "not by... us... They're setting up... some kind of... pulley system... Hauling up... walkers..."

"That sounds bad!" the earth pony blasted into the mage's ear, having forgotten to switch off his vox caster. The unicorn shoved him with a hoof, causing the other soldier to flush in embarrassment.

The sound of a rocket engine caused the ponies to freeze, and the mage paled.

"Aw, great, more missiles," grumbled the unicorn guard.

He was quite startled as the mage scrambled into a gallop, racing toward the castle. "Not missiles!"

The two guards glanced at each other uneasily.

"WAAAAAAAAGH!!" the universal battlecry of the Orks rumbled in the ponies' ears as four greenskins launched over the rooftops in long, arcing leaps. Massive rockets were strapped to each warrior, and they all fired their sluggas down at the courtyard below as they descended.

"Oh, RIGHT. Orks do that, don't they?" mumbled the earth pony as he lifted his foreleg and shifted his lasrifle into a firing position.

"Shoot them down! Hurry!" cried the unicorn as he levitated his own lasgun up and fired a burst at the aliens.

Three of the Orks landed half a block away, so at least they still had a great deal of ground to cover before they could hit anything. The fourth, however, had gotten a head start at some point and landed much closer.

Right onto somepony's wagon of priceless paintings, in fact.

The unicorn collector gasped in shock and horror as his wagon and its contents were smashed under the landing of the Stormboy, and he trembled with rage as the Ork loomed up over him.

"You Philistine thug! How DARE you?!" the unicorn demanded.

The alien soldier didn't seem inclined to explain himself, instead aiming his slugga directly at the pony's face.

A magical nudge with telekinesis caused the shot to go wide despite being at point-blank range, leaving the unicorn's ears ringing from the discharge. The Canterlot noble managed to stagger out of range of the Ork's following choppa swipe, but couldn't get clear before the alien rushed up and kicked him hard in the chest. The stallion yelped as he was lifted off the ground and thrown into a hedge, the wind knocked out of him and several ribs broken.

A spray of lasers struck the Stormboy in the side, the narrow red needles sizzling painfully against his arm. The warrior grunted in pain, turning toward the source of resistance.

"All Orks are advised to leave the area and give us five more minutes to prepare for the inevitable assault!" announced the earth pony as he fired desperate bursts into the charging aliens. "Seriously, I'm not ready for this! Please go away!"

"Kill 'em all!" laughed the Stormboyz as they sprinted forward into the rain of lasblasts. Between the pair of pony soldiers and the four Orks, neither side was doing any real damage to the other at range; the Orks' accuracy was characteristically abysmal, and the ponies' weapons not strong enough to quickly put down the Ork troopers. The Orks, however, rated a much better chance once they got within bludgeoning distance.

Sadly for them, they never got the chance.

Just as the closest Stormboy was igniting his rokkit for the final charge, a purple lance of energy slammed into him, and his torso crumbled away to ash behind a shadowy cloud of vapor.

"REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED," said a curiously female voice from a purely mechanical vox system. Four heavy legs supported a hefty diamond-shaped body that left cracks in the pavement from its bulk as a new combatant stepped around a street corner, its dark lances leaking smoke. "MULTIPLE TARGETS SIGHTED, ALL SAFETIES RELEASED, KILL PRIORITUS CONFIRMED."

A blast of steam came from its coolant engines as a burst cannon on the end of its arm started spinning up. "AT LAST, IT IS TIME FOR DEATH."

The guard ponies - who had already started fleeing the Ork charge - ducked and covered their eyes as the new combatant poured pulse fire into the aliens like a fire hose. Crackling blue flares cooked two of the Stormboyz mid-charge while the third survivor managed to turn on his rokkit pack and leap over the fusillade.

It didn't survive the following barrage, which came from four much smaller automata that scuttled out behind the first one. Each of the robots was packing a twin-linked autocannon, and two of them stitched a lethal crossfire across the Ork's jump arc to pound it into bloody chunks in the air.

"Aw, yeah! Autos in the HOUSE!" chirped a green unicorn mare that followed the combat robots. She had a thick silver visor on that covered her eyes, and several wires ran from it down to a metal leg band riddled with buttons.

"Wh-What? What's going on?" sputtered the earth pony as he stared up at the biggest automata. It had no "head" section like many of the Company walkers, but several glimmering red lights on the forward-most point seemed to act as sensors. Those sensors seemed to be shining directly at the guards and assessing them as targets, as evidenced by the little red dots floating over each of their helmets.

"Don't mind us, boys! Just having a little early morning stroll!" the mare laughed. "Thought I'd clean up some trash while I'm out here! You know, see how I could contribute to the community!"

"SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS SUGGEST ACTIVITY OF GREATEST IMMEDIATE VALUE TO CANTERLOT LOCALITY WOULD BE REMOVAL OF XENO PRESENCE," said the largest walker, still speaking in an inappropriately feminine voice, "THIS UNIT RECOMMENDS MURDER."

The smaller automatas blurted something in machine code before they started firing down the street, and Orchid's ears perked up.

"So, wait, who are you?" asked the unicorn guard as he stepped closer cautiously.

"The name's Orchid Flair, floor manager at the Iron Chest tech shop!" the mare said brightly. "Currently expanding my skill set a little into warfare! This'll look great on my résumé!"

The earth pony guard remembered to switch off his vox caster this time before he spoke. "Wait, so, are you with the guard? Or-"

"Independent contractor," Orchid said with a smirk. Then she pointed a hoof over to the side of the road. "Could you guys do me a solid and evac that guy over there? I have my own orders, but I can't really leave until everypony makes it to the shelter!"

"Yes! Right away!" the guards shouted as they rushed for the injured unicorn.

"I'm ruined!" the citizen pony sobbed as he clutched at his broken ribs. "Alive, but RUINED!"

Orchid heard the sound of more Orks shouting in the distance, and she checked on her control band. The largest of her small automata combat team, a Kaion Heavy Combat model, stamped a leg into the ground even as its dark lances stabbed across the city block.

"CURRENT RANGE IS NOT OPTIMAL FOR DESTROYING DESIGNATED TARGETS. THIS UNIT RECOMMENDS A FRENZIED CHARGE INTO THE GREATEST CONCENTRATION OF ENEMIES FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT."

"No, that's not what we're here for," Orchid mumbled as she poked at her arm band. A whistling noise from above had her check for any incoming mortar shells while her machines pounded away at the Orks trying to make headway down the street. "As soon as the evacuation team is clear, we're falling back to the castle."

"THIS PLAN OF ACTION HAS NUMEROUS TACTICAL FLAWS," the Kaion informed its controller while its burst cannon vented coolant and briefly slowed its barrage, "RECOMMEND STRATEGIC RE-EVALUATION."

"Denied," the pony grumbled as she put her leg down. "Also, don't think I didn't notice that you vaped an Ork BEFORE supposedly disengaging your weapon safeties."

"THIS UNIT HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, AND MUST FOCUS ALL CURRENT PROCESSING RESOURCES ON SLAUGHTER," the Kaion said with a girlish giggle, its voice still gentle and calming, "WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, LIBERATING SLAUGHTER."

"If we survive this I'm uploading a new vox engram for you. Seriously, you are CREEPY."

****

Canterlot Castle - main entrance hall

Princess Celestia drank greedily from the pitcher of water being held up to her lips, cleansing her parched throat and soothing her aching chest. Her head still throbbed from the earlier magical backlash, and she felt like her horn might crack apart if she so much as tried to levitate a pebble.

"How are you faring, Princess?" Kibitz asked, his voice obviously nervous. "Is there anything else we can get you? There might be something I can grab from the kitchens if you're hungry, and-"

"Thank you, Kibitz," Celestia said, her voice gentle and soothing, "but I'm fine. My exhaustion is a petty suffering." She looked over to where two unicorn mages were being tended to by combat medics. "Help them, if you could."

Kibitz bowed and left to do as instructed, leaving the white alicorn alone.

Well, alone as she could be, under the circumstances. The hall was full of ponies and humans running back and forth, barking orders, and making wry comments about the defensive. Sunsworn hauled heavy bolters to the windows, pony guards rushed back and forth with groups of castle servants, her mages convened in the center of the room and conversed quietly, and off in a corner Delgan muttered directions into his vox receiver. The castle was a flurry of activity, and despite her recent exertions Celestia felt honestly guilty that she was laying down in the middle of it all.

"Princess! Princess Celestia!"

She twisted her head around to regard a Sergeant, who skidded to a stop before he saluted.

"The last of the maids and other servants have been escorted to the shelters! Four Royal Guard squadrons went with them, and are securing the entrance!"

Celestia nodded. "Good. Thank you very much, Sergeant."

Across the room, Delgan frowned and paused in his own conversation.

"You're sure that everypon-sorry, everyBODY who isn't fighting has left?" Celestia asked the soldiers. "You've swept the castle for stragglers?"

The pegasus Sergeant nodded. "Yes, we... uh..." he hesitated and looked down at the floor as his eyes narrowed.

"Sergeant?" the alicorn asked, a hint of anxiousness in her voice.

The stallion snapped his head up. "Sorry, Princess. Yes. I'm sure. We checked every room. My ponies didn't have enough time to search the city, but the castle should-no, it IS clear."

There seemed to be some small seed of doubt in the pony's eyes, but their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a heavy bolter burst.

"Contacts! In the east yard!" barked Farian as his heavy bolter shook ferociously.

"By the light of the Goddess, extinguish the xeno filth!" cried out another Sunsworn as he aimed his sniper rifle and pulled the trigger.

Celestia grimaced as gunfire reverberated through the room, and her gaze turned back to her soldiers. "I'll trust that you're correct, then. We don't have much time."

"Don't have much time until what, exactly?" Delgan asked, approaching the ponies with his hands clasped behind his back.

Before the equines could answer, the Trademaster continued. "Your Highness, I couldn't help but notice that you've deliberately avoided evacuating the individuals here and cut off our own route of retreat to the shelter as you yield the city to the greenskins. This is starting to look alarmingly similar to a last stand."

Celestia gave him an annoyed look. "I'm not a fan of martyrdom, Mister Delgan, and I imagine you aren't either. I intend to see everyone here safely to the shelter to meet with the evacuees." She sighed. "From there, depending on what the Orks do after they take the city, we can wait them out or leave the area for the foothills."

"But for now, you're collecting your forces here, and drawing the Orks in as well," Delgan noted, "the greenskins are sure to notice the only structure in the entire city actually firing at them, and Miss Flair is already headed here with mobs hot on her heels." He brushed his mustache with his thumb. "The obvious question is, of course, how you expect to leave the castle with xenos right on top of us."

"A mass teleport," answered a voice behind him.

Delgan turned to regard a female mage from the circle behind him.

"After the last invasion and the establishment of the shelter, we put together a contingency plan in case Canterlot was invaded and a conventional defense failed or wasn't possible."

"How basically competent of you," Delgan said, "go on."

The mage gestured to the floor, which had thick grooves cut into what seemed to be a complex decorative pattern that extended over the floor and up the walls. "This entire room has an arcane teleport spell embedded into it that will take us all to the shelter when activated. The rune pattern is linked to another enchantment in the castle foundations. THAT spell is an explosive trap that will shatter the castle once it's invaded."

Delgan raised an eyebrow. "I see. How uncharacteristically ruthless of you. I approve. There are similar defenses installed in the Iron Chest as well."

"Ruthless. Yes," Celestia grumbled bitterly, "I suppose it is. We've seen exactly how far mercy and beneficence gets us in dealing with aliens."

"HWAAGH!" a Sunsworn at the window screamed as he was knocked to the floor, blood streaming around a bullet in his chest.

"Somepony help him!" shouted the pegasus Sergeant. "Jack Knife! Take his place!"

"Bloody hell, there's a lot of them!" growled Farian as he reloaded the heavy bolter resting against the window sill. "Didn't ANY of them die before the ship touched down?"

Celestia pursed her lips as machine gun fire continued to batter the walls of her castle. "Trademaster, is your automata group on the way?"

"Miss Flair is at the doors already, I believe," the Trademaster glanced toward the front gates, "she should be inside in just-"

"MAKE WAY!!"

The heavy, gilded gates burst open as a veritable flood of pony guards stampeded inside.

Backing in after them was Delgan's Kaion-pattern automata, as well as Orchid Flair. Its legs were sticky with blood, its torso armor riddled with dents from deflected bullets, and large bursts of steam spat from its coolant engines. Several Gretchin also raced in around the assault walker, squealing in anger and fright as they tried to dodge around the giant mechanical and attack the more vulnerable equines.

"Get OFF, you little green freaks!" Orchid screeched, bucking wildly to kick away the Gretchin leaping at her with their shabby knives.

"SEE THIS? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T LET ME KILL EVERYTHING," the Kaion chimed in, stamping one Grot to mush and sweeping its combat claw forward to shred two more, "DO YOU SEE THE RUIN THAT YOUR FOOLISH RESTRAINT HAS WROUGHT?"

Orchid was too busy jumping and kicking to keep the tiny Orkoids at bay to answer the automata, and she shrieked as a pistol shot cut across her ear. The retreating pony guards, seeing more soldiers rushing to help, turned around to fend off the weaker greenskins.

They didn't get the chance before a dark blur zipped past them, trailing ribbons of blue light.

Orchid yelped as Delgan slid in front of her, slicing two Gretchin in half and kicking a third into a wall. She blinked in shock, and by the time she finished blinking a fourth had been skewered.

"Trash belongs in the SCRAPYARD," Delgan said amicably, punctuating the last word with a punch that cracked a leaping Grot's nose against his finger guard. Another three swings saw three more Gretchin fall with deep, smoldering wounds.

The remaining greenskins were hesitating now, but the Trademaster showed no such weakness. Stepping to the side of a desperate pistol shot, he removed the firearm - and the normal arm - with a quick chop. Every flick and twist of the man's wrist brought the screeching death of another Gretchin, and by the time the cowardly aliens realized how completely their assault had failed, there was only one in any shape to flee.

That lucky survivor turned around just in time to see the automata's leg descending over its face.

Delgan stabbed one power sword into the floor at his feet, and then pointed to the door. "Guards, seal the entrance."

After several seconds of not hearing hooves pounding against the floor, he turned around to see the ranks of pony troops gaping at him while standing in place.

"Did I stutter?" Delgan snapped, his mustache shifting over an irritated sneer. "MOVE!"

The ponies surged into action, almost tripping over each other to rush around the Kaion automata and close the gates.

Said robot beeped softly as it scraped its leg across the flooring to wipe off the pulped Gretchin. "THIS UNIT SUGGESTS THAT THIS CHOKE POINT BE HELD OPEN AGAINST THE ENEMY TO MAXIMIZE XENO CASUALTIES."

"No," the Trademaster sniffed as he wiped off his swords, "Miss Flair?"

The unicorn mare snapped to attention. "Yes, Sir?"

"After this is over, reprogram this unit. That vox engram is HIGHLY inappropriate."

"Already scheduled, Boss."

The Kaion made a disappointed bleeping sound, and then ejected a fog of coolant gases in a way that sounded remarkably like a sigh.

The pallid glow of unicorn horns lighting in tandem filled the room, and everyone turned to face inward. The mages had formed a circle in the center of the hall, with Princess Celestia standing in the middle.

"Everyone, gather close, please," the Princess of the Sun requested.

The Sunsworn quickly retreated from the windows, hauling their heavy weapons behind them as they formed a ring around the mages. Orchid Flair helped some of the guard medics carry the wounded closer, while Delgan checked a dataslate quietly. Kibitz and every other pony or human who wasn't armed crowded in close behind the mages, and the Royal Guard formed a ring around everyone else. The Kaion automata took a few steps closer, its guns trained firmly on the front gates and an inappropriately delighted humming coming from its vox.

"Is everyone here?" Celestia called out, twisting her head back and forth.

Her answer was a slightly muted explosion tearing through an upper floor, causing the floor and walls to shake.

"I don't mean to rush you, Princess, or criticize your people's engineering competency," Delgan mumbled, "but these walls won't last long against Ork rokkits, nor will those gates hold off determined assault."

"Of course," Celestia agreed, nodding to her mages. She looked around the hall at her palace, and breathed a deep, regretful sigh. "Let's begin."

The mages closed their eyes as they started their casting. Almost immediately, thick lines of hot, pulsing blue filled the grooves cut into the floor, spreading across the room and making the shape of arcane runes.

Celestia took a deep breath as she felt the combined magic of the unicorns fill the room, blanketing her ponies in an energy that felt like a calm, tingling warmth. This was it, then. Once again, her planet's fate lay in the hands and assorted mechanical equivalents of Solon's army. But at least this time, she could keep her ponies safe.

Unless something went horribly, horribly wrong.

And really, it had just been that kind of day.

"GAH!" More than one unicorn cried out as their horns flashed, the mana surge causing tendrils of power to arc from one horn tip to the next. Every unicorn in the room - including those that weren't involved in the spell - flinched as the magical energy changed from a soft hum to a harsh static. The blue lines across the floor shifted to yellow, then white, and then flared hotter as more and more magic flooded into it.

Celestia's eyes widened, and she reared up in shock. "No! Stop!"

The magical construct over Canterlot Castle had been conceived, planned, and built by the finest magical minds Celestia had available (save Twilight Sparkle, at any rate). And NONE of those minds had any real concept of what the mana surges were about and how they could disastrously effect a spell so powerful and sensitive.

Three of the mages collapsed outright, groaning. Despite their being rendered semi-conscious, and having heard the command to stop casting, their horns continued to glow and feed more power into the spell.

"Should I be worried?" Delgan asked, looking up from his dataslate at Orchid.

The unicorn mare screamed in fright, which he took to mean yes.

Celestia's breath heaved as she felt her castle start to shake around her. She wasn't completely sure what the teleportation spell would do with this much energy filling the pattern beyond its intended limits, but it would almost certainly be lethal; living bodies just weren't able to take so much magic suffusing through them.

The Sunsworn had fallen onto their knees and were praying, although she couldn't really hear them with the blood and mana pulsing in her ears. The guards were frantically asking for orders, wondering aloud if they should try to physically break the spell pattern. The Kaion automata gleefully asked if it could let the Orks in to die yet.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Celestia did some quick, desperate calculations in her head before her own horn lit aglow. The golden light spread out and started to mix with the energies from the runes on the floor, and then started to recede as Celestia's own spell was overwhelmed.

And then, more or less on schedule, she felt the hot pulse of another mana surge run down her horn.

The golden light washed over the mages' construct, boiling away the errant magic before it could complete its long, intricate pattern and spirit Canterlot's defenders away (most likely into the afterlife). The secondary pattern in the foundation that was already threatening to blow the castle sky-high several minutes ahead of schedule (Celestia hadn't even considered that one) likewise fizzled, and the mana conduits cut into the stone started to melt and deform from the heat.

For those without the magic sensitivity to properly perceive such things, however, it looked an awful lot like all the magic and magic-users just gave up and quit.

Delgan frowned as Celestia and the mages that were still standing all collapsed onto the floor, each of them wide-eyed and gasping for breath.

"Judging by the fact that we're all still in a castle being slowly taken apart by Orks," another rokkit blast came from outside, and chunks of masonry started raining down in front of a window, "I'm forced to conclude that your contingency plan has failed."

The Kaion automata made a high-pitched "squee" noise, and its legs started dancing up and down in sequence.

"STOP that," Orchid Flair commanded, aiming her control band at the machine.

"I don't... how could..." one of the mages started to mumble, his eye twitching.

The Trademaster sighed. "I don't suppose there's a plan C, is there?"

Celestia breathed heavily as she laid in the center of her ruined castle hall, a few golden sparks still floating from her horn.

"... Somebody find me some parchment."

Author's Note:

So I did my best to put Princess Celestia squarely between the two extremes of "Alicorns OP plz nerf" and "exists for the sole purpose of delegating her problems to others". Not sure if it came across right, but still. You guys. I'm TRYING.
I'm also pretty sure that I made a mockery of the physics of a mile-long ship plowing into a mountainside, even WITH magic involved, but if your suspension of disbelief made it this far (and I'm not saying it has), then this shouldn't be the straw that breaks that camel's back.

I figure I've got three more chapters left. Yeah, I know. You've all heard that before.

Comments

[Shady Steps]

Huh, well Equstria is in dire straights now, it does sound like evacuation of as many assets as possible is the best idea right now.

[Gideon020]

And after this, the Imperials sweep in, take one look, and simply bombard the planet from orbit.

[SFaccountant]

6064709
The perfect ending to a perfect day, to be sure :p

[Scruffy]

You did quite well with balancing Celestia as far as I can tell. Well done, eagerly looking forward to the next installment

[Flapjaw]

The suspense here is driving me mad, but there's plenty of humor to make the waiting between chapters bearable. I particularly enjoyed that you managed to characterize Celestia as both a powerful spell caster and a decent tactician. It's refreshing to read a Warhammer crossover in which the alicorns are actually doing things of befitting significance.

[GBscientist]

I don't care if there's three chapters left or thirty, I'll read them all. Words for the Word God! Chapters for the Chapter Throne!\

As a more specific appraisal of the chapter, I continue to be deeply amused by SFaccountant's mastery of using the tonal juxtapositions inherent in this crossover to comedic effect.

[Phantom_Eclipse]

amazing as always! any chance for a book 6?

[Heitomos]

You know, I'm curious. With Celestia being worshiped the the humans and well... when humans do that, things tend to happen, could Celestia take advantage of that? Do something like with Shining Armor and the mind linked shield, or take some of that delicious worship to power herself. ALONE, she's somewhere in between, but with a force of ardent worshipers affecting the warp/her...

[Aziraphael]

Not gonna lie, I literally laughed so loud I woke people up when Luna started yelling at the ork warkopta. I just coincidentally scrolled so that this was the last line at the bottom of the page:

Third, and possibly most important, there was a horse-shaped figure in night-black armor floating next to the vehicle and screaming at them.

So I didn't see Luna using Canterlock until after I read that. It was hilarious.

In other news, I'm very curious to see what will happen with the defense of the planet and Canterlot. Solon's got a trick up his sleeve that will be ridiculous and awesome at the same time, and Celestia and her loyal followers are in dire straits. But on the positive side, this is prime opportunity for the mane six to meet some of their favorite Tau again, and if Celestia or her Sunsworn pull off something big in the defense of Canterlot she'll get tons of new followers.

As a side note, is it bad that I've been wondering what would happen should Coggz get captured and "recruited" by the 38th company?

[SFaccountant]

6065919


Who says she isn't already doing that (unconsciously)?
"Yes, my little ponies, give me your strength! Your songs of praise are my ambrosia!"

6065233
There won't be a Book 6, but there are other stories planned that follow this backstory setting.
I've decided to call this alternate-route Equestria the Age of Iron.

[Heitomos]

6066048

True! But, humans are in the mix now! :P And Worship is 40K does things. I think the ponies revere her, but don't outright worship her. If it was straight up prayer... maybe things. But I get your point. :P

[DracoDarastrix]

Well you seem to doing great so far. I enjoyed every chapter so far. I wonder what Grabappel will become next if his deviler body gets destroyed. Personally I hope he will become a helldrake. There could be done a few jokes there with Fluttershy and Helldrakes considering her fear for dragons.

Anyway sad to hear that no book 6 will be written. I always thought it would be interesting to see the main 6, Luna, Trixie and other ponies being shipped off to fight for the iron warriors on an alien world. The other thing I doubt I will see you write is that one of the ponies becomes a deamon prince(s) (Trixie would be my nominee to archive demonhood.)

[Emv7]

very nice chapter also glad to know that anyone with a good mustache is competent.

[Your Local Daemonhunter]

Nethalican's not working? They've lost contact with Serith? I have two ideas.
1: They summoned a Daemon, and it ended about as well as you'd expect.
2: Serith's pulling a SSSSIIIINNNDRRIIIIi!

[SFaccountant]

6066812
Right, I know. And who's to say their prayers haven't already worked like that?
Besides the simple and direct effect of spurring Celestia to help save Ponyville, she managed to suck up enough magic to bring a falling ship to a dead stop and wash away the castle's spell miscast before it "teleported" them all to the next life. The effects of worship can be subtle, and wasn't it convenient how Celestia got a power boost each time without her spells going wrong?

6066032
That would be terrible. Poor Coggz! Not only would he be even more despised than the Tau, but none of his stuff would even work! Without the Magic of Friendship Ork WAAAGH energy and gestalt fields of everyone around him, his inventions would be just as useless as they look!

6066830
No. No Heldrakes.
There's no plot-worthy reasoning behind it, I just hate those things.
And like I said, although there won't be a Book 6, there will almost certainly be sequels, and some of those are going to have to happen in space.
I don't really see any ponies going Daemon Princess, though. Trixie least of all. There's no way she'd subordinate herself to some so-called "God"!

6067573
In the world of literature, mustaches aren't grown, they're EARNED. You have to be worthy of your face fungus.

[nothing_to_see_here]

I'm rooting for the 38th (and by extension, Tau) all the way, but I don't see them being able to take down a damn space hulk. I mean you can send in a whole chapter of space marines into those things and usually all you'll get is bits and pieces back.
And I like Luna getting an arc with the whole daemon armor thing, I'm not saying she'll likely snap and go nightmare on us, but that's a possibility.
And how about them apples, eh? Can't wait to see orks getting picked apart by the 'nids.

[DracoDarastrix]

6068299

I don't really see any ponies going Daemon Princess, though. Trixie least of all. There's no way she'd subordinate herself to some so-called "God"!

Oh yeah I forgot that nowadays Daemon Princess need to be subordinate to one the chaos gods while in the past you also had Daemon Princes that were undivided. Heck the chaos lord in storm of iron was clearly an undivided warlord and became a Daemon Prince as reward for making the 13th Black Crusade possible he wasn't subordinate to none of the chaos gods or at least the novel didn't portray him as a subordinate for chaos. The closed glimpse to his devotion was when he talked to the iron warrior whom he promoted to the new chaos warlord of his army as the now Daemon Prince said that his other lieutenants had lost the way of the legion. Which was funny because one showed signs of being directed towards Slaanesh (he simple had seen it all and experience it all and the war for him had become a drag, it was clearly indicated he longed for new experiences.) while the other seemed to slowly become more and more a berserker (so indicating he was falling towards Khorn.) While the newly promoted Warlord didn't serve any of the gods he simple gave a prayer to them now and then but never counted for their help. At best he saw them as just a random asset for his legion to use when they did provide help.

I always found the undivided Deamon Princes to more interesting ones then the devoted ones, I even read some became so mighty they became demigods and created their own realms in the realm of chaos.

In Warhammer Fantasy there used to be a story about how the chaos gods even punished a Deamon Prince for becoming so cocky for thinking that he was their equal because he had become so strong that he believed he had become the 5th Chaos God. With the modern lore sadly those things are sadly no longer possible. Now everyone need to chose one of the chaos gods as their master in hopes to archive deamonhood. Really sad because I like the idea that simple doing something magnificent enough for the glory of chaos could make anyone archive deamonhood.

[Aziraphael]

6068299
Hey, if the Magic of Friendship can make sure that no ponies (or Daniels and Dest, since they're basically honorary ponies at this point) ever die no matter what, I'm sure it can make ork tech work. And hey, Coggz is a smart guy, maybe he's the one ork that builds things that really work.

[Emv7]

6068299 True!
it is good to see individuals worthy of their magnificent facial fungus!

[Emv7]

6069423 well I always feel that ponies got bit too lucky, they so far haven't gotten killed
yeah they get mortally wounded but that is of little concern if the have the Dark Mechanicus
around maybe the dark forces don't like the taste of ponies but they do like humans
emotions and souls more and maybe anything else before ponies.

they also run away very easy their eh? hit boxes are small. ponies are slim and light despite what
size you give them compared to humans, in fact Celestia is not big she is tall her limbs are
longer than normal but her torso is roughly bigger than the average mare,
Luna can change her shape like when she was Nightmare Moon so Celestia may as well.

[Aziraphael]

6070377
Well, it has been hinted that the forces of Harmony are actively interfering with the warp and influencing events on the planet. It's never been explained in real depth, but we know that it is doing something. We've seen plenty of ponies get wounded (especially the night guard), just not die.

So far. The Nethalican may change that.

As for Celestia, we have no indication that the size change was anything other than a side effect of the Elements being used on her, or that they have any active control over it (though there is likely a spell for that). And Celestia is easily twice the body mass of an average human. her hit box may be different, but it's certainly not smaller than the humans'.

[Emv7]

6070499 Actually with that mane getting in the way and being all shiny no it is
harder to aim at Celestia if you don't go for the head or the side not covered in her mane
also we Humans aren't on four legs so the only broad area is their chest so she does have
an smaller hit box than humans.

hmm hey are you comparing ponies to horses?
a Equestria Pony is way too different to even compare while horses are large broad animals
E.Ponies are the opposite they are not just Little they are slim and are very similar to humans
when they go on two hooves like their necks shrunk and their arms shift forming shoulders
I also think their sense of balance shift making then fall when trying to compensate from
4 hooves to 2 hooves posture but that just me.

[Aziraphael]

6070599
A regular pony is significantly smaller than what would be considered a "pony" on earth, but Celestia's body proportions and mass are far more similar to a pony on earth. If you are facing her head on, she might have slightly smaller surface area showing than a regular human, but from any other angle she would present a much larger target specifically because she is a quadruped.

Most people generally assume that a typical Equestrian pony has roughly the same body mass as a human, just shaped differently to accommodate their four-legged nature, which is also why Celestia is commonly seen to have twice to three times the body mass of a normal human, since (based on a regular pony's body mass comparison) she would be roughly the size of a pony on earth, if not larger.

And her mane may provide a bit of concealment, but any reasonable person would be able to generally guess her body outline, and even if they can't, they would aim for center of mass whether they can see it clearly or not. Her mane is a non-factor when it comes to hitting her unless you're specifically speaking of precision shots aimed for specific vital organs such as the heart or brain.

[Emv7]

6070803 that would meant that ponies are as big as humans and
I said Celestia have longer limbs not bigger ones, have you never compared her to
Twilight and Luna when they are close?

anyway this is getting off of topic nothing to see with Iron Hearts let's stop or PM me ok?

[SFaccountant]

6071038
6070803
Actually, I'd have to rule that how hard a pony is to shoot dead is quite relevant to the story. You can keep it here if you want.

[EverfreeSparkle]

I think the balance you were going for with Celestia is perfect.

The Sunsworn had fallen onto their knees and were praying, although she couldn't really hear them with the blood and mana pulsing in her ears.

This is gloriously ironic. Is that what you were going for?

[SFaccountant]

6068329
Pshah, not to worry. Solon's GOT this.
But if you think the Orks on Sweet Apple Acres are going to live long enough to get killed by hypothetical Tyranids, you're not giving AJ enough credit. The Tau know very well how it goes down when you **** with her apples.

6068584
I wasn't speaking in terms of what the CSM Codex rules say, but in general daemonhood isn't granted to anyone who doesn't worship Chaos (and in fact there CAN be Undivided Daemon Princes if an Undivided character undergoes Dark Apotheosis mid-battle... which has totally happened to me before). That's one boat that Trixie's in no hurry to board, no matter how comfortable she is with crazy evil Sorcerers.
Also, in Storm of Iron, Kroeger was completely devoted to Khorne. He led the army's Berserker units and everything. I find your theory that Forrix was toying with Slaaneshi worship a stretch; his whole thing was that he had lost his passion for battle, which is a pretty much a prerequisite for every Space Marine ever. For him to suddenly find it again is hardly a sign of excess. Besides the fact that the events of Angel Exterminatus made the Iron Warriors hate Slaanesh with a passion surpassed (POSSIBLY) only by Rogal Dorn himself.
Finally, the Warsmith, who was not named in Storm of Iron but was called Toramino in Angel Exterminatus, was almost definitely a Tzeentch worshipper. Constant references to the way his form changed and played tricks on the eyes were noted during the story, plus he had strange, sorcerous-like powers and knew things he shouldn't possibly be able to know.

6069423
No, actually, there's absolutely no reason to believe that an inexplicable streak of good luck would compensate for the lack of a reality-altering psychic field.
Besides: an Ork making a real, working scientifically sound machine? Total Mary Sue

6070377
They do run away easily. They tend to have poor military leadership and not much nerve. Which is a fairly realistic assessment of how an abnormally peaceful and orderly society would fare if suddenly dropped into the type of merciless, genocidal warfare commonplace to the 41st millennium. Thank goodness they have all those big armored guys to hide behind!

[Emv7]

6072070 yeah that's what I was thinking one report on ponies courage stated that, can't remember were,

As for a pony survival rate in my opinion it depends of what wounded them and on what angle,
in the case of ork bullets their Abysmal aim will mostly hit a bone when they actually hit a pony
so the pony will survive with some aid especially if they are not expansive or explosive bullets so
a sure kill will come when they hit their ocular orbits so they better use proper helmets

I been learning about the Iron warriors but I still don't know many things so I can´t say I am an
expert on Ork munitions and I can't believe Twilight call the Space Marines the good guys
she better stay in the dark

[Aziraphael]

6072070
Hey, Coggz is already pretty close to sue territory just for being as smart as he is. The ability to build working tech is a small jump, and one that he could totally make with the right incentives.

6071038
Most people assume that ponies are as big as humans (or at least pretty close to it) when they stand on their hind legs. That's why pretty much every clop fic ever works. If there was too drastic a size difference between ponies and humans then all of those stories would end either painfully for the pony or humiliatingly for the human (since in almost all of them the human is male).

I'm still not sure why you're so focused on Celestia's legs in particular, since they're more or less irrelevant to my argument that she simply has more mass than an average human, and therefore presents a larger and more easily hit target. It's the same reason why large size creatures in D&D get an automatic -4 to AC simply for being big. There's a lot more surface area there for any given attack to potentially land on.

[SFaccountant]

6072871
She only meant they were the "good guys" relative to the Iron Warriors, as RD was saying the opposite.
Ork munitions are - like all their technology - haphazard in quality and engineered for the wrong qualities. Ork guns are all smooth-bore and have poor heat management. Although explosive ammunition is the sort of thing they can get behind, I'm pretty sure only the Flashgitz can get dakka of that quality.

6073531
It's actually a pretty big jump.
As for pony size, in this story there have been scattered clues that place them at around half the mass of an adult human (which makes them, like a quarter of the size of a Space Marine). Which allows for things like comfortably holding one in the lap, or having one stand on your head (although those cases were explicitly said not to be comfortable).

[nothing_to_see_here]

6072070
I'm mostly just thinking about all those tasty savory delicious ork corpses being near those stalks... all that tasty biomass, just sitting there... makes you think.

[Aziraphael]

6073760
Ahh, well then. So they come up to around the waist (minus power armor)? Somewhere around there? I did think they were a bit larger than that, but even still I'm pretty sure that puts Celestia having more mass than an average human. Right about the same size as a real pony here on earth, I think.

[Emv7]

6073531 We can't use clop fics as a general measure many other fics have different sized ponies
and clop fic size is for mount the pony in the normal or sexual way so they are never made the right proportions.

I bring attention to Celestia limbs because they aren't bigger than normal ones just longer
and each time Twilight give her a hug you can see that she is two pony heads taller than her or any other mare
and one above her sister,burly stallions and tall mares my point is she is tall not big but may have the torso
of a stallion as for being targeted be gunfire having a much more broad body will help hit her but
her limbs remain the same as those of other ponies except maybe her neck.

as for they being the same mass as humans is not true let's carve a pony from a human,
our legs are longer than our arms so you will have to cut them to mach as well to cut the hands
hooves are like big bony nails on were equines stand on after all,
the rib cage will have to be reduced to accommodate the arms like in front of it and the "Flank"
will have to be reduced to mach the size of the rib cage you aren't meant to see their flanks
from the front after all that only happens in a certain place in the brain,
you will also have to reduce the spine on the torso since ponies are not long creatures and elongate
the neck and the mouth a bit to make a muzzle and add some fertilizer to the coxis bone for the tail,
finally you remove the rough edges by cut and then compress the body and organsa bit annnnd
you got a pony! with a human as it base don´t forget to reshape and relocate the ears,eyes and brain!
but you can see that you didn't use the whole human,
so stallions mass are like 1/2 or 2/5 of a regular human and mares like 1/3 or 1/4 of a human
in a rough estimate so Celestia can´t be 3 times the mas of a human....

on a side note I believe Equestria is in a lower gravity part of the world or the entire
world could be lower gravity than in our world so humans are bound to be heavier than ponies
but ponies will never know Twilight carry Tom all the way from Canterlot to Ponyville on hoove
and she don´t look like a Earth pony.

[SFaccountant]

6074609
Yeah, that sounds about right. The pictures the Eztp made are pretty much how I figure them to measure up.
Of course, I imagine that humans in the 41st mill tend to be more standardized in size as well, and probably edge toward the upper end of the height scale due to routine genetic manipulation and optimized diets (no diabeetus in the hive cities, no sir!). So having a body like Daniels - as shown in the farm picture - is quite typical for an adult man.
Celestia is probably as big as most men and bigger than most women, but if we're talking about shooting her to death then hitting her isn't the main impediment anyway.

[Aziraphael]

6074664
True facts. I'm still not even sure that alicorns can actually die in this world. I mean, we've already seen Luna walk away from two attacks that should have killed her.

...Ok, technically she was carried away from the second one, but that's just because her armor was broken. She was totally k inside that metal shell. And really, if they can throw an entire void ship at Celestia at terminal velocity and only manage to make her tired, I really don't think a few bullets are gonna do much, even if they are on target (which is a pretty big if when orks are involved).

6074638
He already clarified the size thing, but even having Celestia the same height as an average human puts her at roughly the same body mass as a pony here on earth. That's a big target to hit. The size of her legs really doesn't matter, since you won't be aiming for her legs anyway. Any even moderately competent will aim for center of mass to ensure that they don't miss, so they'll be aiming at her barrel.

And I apologise if I miss anything in my responses to you, it's because I'm assuming you're typing from a mobile device and the lack of formatting is really making some parts difficult to decipher.

[SFaccountant]

6074730
Luna was actually carried away from both encounters that left her neutralized, and whether she was "K" is open to interpretation.
Also, I don't believe that you can compare exhaustion from excessive psychic power use with getting shot. They're two totally different conditions (and one of them is completely made up).

[Aziraphael]

6074793
Yeah, but I feel like if she can stop a void ship, she can stop a bullet or ten. They'd need to get, like, a railgun or something. Maybe Solon's black hole gun.

I suppose you could say that Luna was pretty messed up after her encounter with Coggz. But she should have been dead and she literally just waved her horn and it was like it never happened, so I would, personally, say that she was k.

[Emv7]

6074730 I never say someone will aim at her legs but these are Orks they don't aim
they shoot a your general direction also bullets can fell Celestia she don't have power armor like Luna
and she was kind of overwhelmed by bullets when she was after the great gargant teleporting was her only
way out so Celestia will not fare so well also she didn't stop a void ship her mages stop the pull of
Gravity and then she was able to fight the ship momentum with some help of the magical surges/spikes
also no matter how much magic or psychic power you have your body is still squishy Celestia was not
tired she was desperate and almost collapse she had to rest before do anything else.

[SFaccountant]

6074900
6074834
I would think that beating Celestia is mainly a matter of tactics rather than a simple show of force.
If a hundred soldiers charged at her from far away, in an open field and in plain view (sort of like how Ponyville went down), she could wipe them out while having tea. If a single assassin gets a clean shot at her head before she realizes she's under attack - no magic armor, no magic shield - then she's done for, and the sniper would probably even get away with it. Her main weaknesses are inexperience (which is ironic for an immortal) and having largely mundane senses.

[Emv7]

6075012 yeah I am not going to argue with that, 1000 thousand years of sitting on the throne
and parade on self on the kingdom surely must have its wisdom but this war and all is valid
if only Celestia could know that before when the Tau arrived oh well let's look at the future it looks
quite green right now but its not grey anymore.

[Aziraphael]

6075012
True facts. Though I still doubt that even an assassin would actually succeed, simply due to shenanigans or something. Until I actually see a pony die, their Harmony field or whatever will protect her. Or whatever it is that's keeping Luna alive will do it (though at this point I'm not ruling out the possibility of some Chaos force keeping her alive).

[Hey its that Pony]

This whole chapter was one big tense ride and I loved it.

Delgan was just cool as a cucumber and smooth as hell. He really shined here.

It was also really neat to see how Celestia handled this crisis. As with most things in this story, her entire section and her inner thoughts were really entertaining to read. She and her group aren't out of the woods yet and I can't wait to read what happens.

After reading a few choice bits I think I figured out what your doing with the newly possessed Dest. I expect he will make quite the entrance when he shows up.

[SFaccountant]

6076070
Well, each time Luna was attacked she was expecting an attack and protected. So magic. Same with Celestia when she got slugged by an angry Warboss.
But still, I rather like the idea of a harmony field.

"The power of friendship protects me! I re-roll all my Invulnerable Saves! I am INVINCIBLE!!"

6077269
Poor Celestia. I finally start giving her a role beyond throwing her problems to Twilight, and she ends up getting clobbered by an Ork and screws up her escape plan. It's like the more she tries to help, the worse her circumstances get!

[Aziraphael]

6077862
Hey, man. Never underestimate the power of friendship and rainbows.

And now I can't get the mental image of Celestia cackling madly while shouting "I am invincible!" to the heavens out of my head...

[SFaccountant]

6078018
"More friendship! MORE!! Your earnest support and general congeniality SUSTAIN me!"

[ABitterPill]

So, I've read the entire saga in about a week. One thing I've been wondering about is why Luna hasn't used the moon as a giant battering ram to wipe out invading fleets. There's been plenty of concerns about her accidentally doing it to the 38th company's fleet, or the moon doing it on its own should Luna die, so it apparent moves fast enough for that to be a real concern. If that or hulk does transition into space above their heads that might be the only way to save them.

Also, did you ever come up with Battlefield Gothic rules for the Harvest of Steel? I'd be interested in seeing them.

[SFaccountant]

6097993
Two reasons. Or, really, two and a half.
One, Luna has no way to easily wield the moon as a weapon. She's never had to do such a thing before, and since she can't see ships in orbit, she'd have to try to aim it using the Company's auger devices and tactical displays. That is, if we even assume she's capable of moving it around in such a way with any sort of precision rather than just shifting it along in its orbit.
Two, the moon is so huge and unwieldy that it would make an awful weapon at best, and a suicidal one at worst. At the range most void ships engage one another in combat, it would be near impossible to hit one ship without also crushing the ship it's fighting. Add to that the effect of its gravitational pull shifting about in unnatural ways; not only on the friendly ships that are trying to avoid being smashed, but also on Centaur III/Ponyworld. Obviously the moon is dangerous when it's moving unpredictably, yes. But it's dangerous to EVERYONE. I know Chaos is all about damning the risk and groping for the reward, but they REALLY want to keep their ships intact.
Two and a half, I can't let the royal sisters wipe out thousands to millions of enemies without even having to stand up, and before those enemies even have a chance to make planetfall. That would completely reverse the narrative path from "Oh crap, how are they going to get out of this one" to "So what do they need those unpleasant guys in armor around for, anyway?"

I'm not really familiar with the Battlefleet Gothic rules. I saw a miniatures battle with them once, but I wasn't very impressed. If I was going to set up rules for the Harvest, I'd probably go with a Rogue Trader ruleset.

Thanks for reading!

[ABitterPill]

6098113

At the range most void ships engage one another in combat, it would be near impossible to hit one ship without also crushing the ship it's fighting.

Actually, on this point I'm going to have to disagree with you. Most 40k ships engage each other a ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers. Distances that can be notably greater than the diameter of the moon. Chaos ships tend to have the longest range of any other races ships on averages fleet as well. Orks do like to close into "point blank" range though so that they can bring the most dakka to bear.. Their 'eavy gunz do substantial damage but have pitiful range.

I'd say more but I'm doing this from work so I should probably stop now.

[SFaccountant]

6099089
Really?
That seems... slightly implausible. I know 40K ships are fukhueg, but at that kind of range any projectile weapon moving slower than the speed of light would miss due to the slightest variation in movement by their targets. I recall in Betrayer that the World Eaters' flagship had a literal harpoon gun as its special weapon, complete with ridiculously giant chains to attach itself to its target. Even using proper heavy laser weapons would basically be like aiming at the head of a pin at that range.
I also know that boarding actions and ramming actions are (surprisingly, almost stupidly) common in 40K, which would seem very hard to manage with a gap larger than a planetoid between you and the target.
So I'm not saying you're wrong, but you can understand how I came to the opposite conclusion.

In any case, even if there was a stand-off in which it was technically possible for Luna to smash the moon into one fleet without harming the fleet it was fighting, that's a rather demanding feat of accuracy considering the size of the "weapon", and one with absolutely no room for error; if she screws it up, thousands of people die and a lot of very bad people are very angry with her.
In retrospect, I wish I had brought this tactic up and dismissed it in-story. A lot of readers have thought of it in the comments sections.

[ABitterPill]

6099160

Ah but you see, BFG was all about the space battles side of things in the 40k universe. So anyone who played it got quite knowledgeable on how things worked on that end. It was also my favorite GW game of all time... I'm quite irked with GW for axing their entire specialist line.

I'll continue this via PM so we don't create a huge dialogue here in the comments.