I Love the Smell of Friendship in the Morning

by Moosetasm

Going In Dry-Roasted

Digits howled in fury at the data lectern. His fingers danced across his customized keyboard, typing five times faster than any two pathetic pony hooves could ever hope to.

Those two Marecanicus stooges had somehow blocked his access to the refinery’s main system. How they had bypassed his lockout and then restricted his access was a complete mystery to him. He wasn’t even getting a response through the backup lines he had run when they had claimed the facility.

If that wasn’t bad enough, now all the servitors had been reactivated and were attacking their forces. While not exactly armed for combat, a load-lift servitor could easily pick up a piece of scrap or machinery in their mouth and become extremely dangerous. Even unarmed, they could buck with several maretric tonnes of force and easily shatter bone and bionics alike.

He briefly worried about what Lord Upright would do to him when she found him. She had placed Digits in charge of keeping the facility’s network on lockdown, and her punishment for failure usually involved slow and painful decapitation. His only chance for survival lay in being instrumental in the Guardsponies’ destruction.

Digits coughed as he toggled his lectern’s connection to the wireless cameras he had placed around the compound. He flipped through several devices, which gave him a pretty good picture of the state of the refinery.

There were corpses visible on almost every video feed except, unsurprisingly, the one from the Marecanicus shrine. All he could get from that camera was static. He assumed that the two tech-ponies had found and disabled the device and were still in there impeding his access to the system.

He coughed again and cursed his obsolete, organic lungs. He would have to have Transplant upgrade him again; he never saw any of the fully upgraded members choking on refinery fumes.

Digits stopped flipping through channels when he came to one that showed four of the Guardsponies and one servitor making their way through a service tunnel from the Marecanicus shrine towards the primary processing room. He switched views again and rubbed his palms together as his features twisted into a smile. He had placed explosive charges around the facility as well, and one just so happened to be right outside the hatch that connected the tunnel and the storage area adjacent to the primary processing room.

If he was lucky, he could get all four in the blast, but he would most likely have to settle for one or two if they were being careful and decided to take the door one at a time. He laughed at the thought of killing or even seriously maiming the Guardsponies. The laugh devolved into a hacking cough.

He used his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow and looked around the room. He was met with blurred vision. He rubbed at his eyes, of course he needed to have those replaced as well. Bionic replacements wouldn’t water, get irritated from sweat, or tire from watching a lectern screen for hours on end…

He realized the rubbing wasn’t fixing his vision.

He stood up and started to cough more. Why couldn’t he see? And why was he having trouble breathing? And why was it so hot… His fingers danced across the keyboard again and he switched to a camera mounted on the outside of the refinery and swiveled the view towards the outbuilding he had appropriated...

He fell back into his chair when he saw the smoldering remains of the towers that had run the network lines from the refinery to his outbuilding… which was also ablaze.

He continued to cough as more smoke poured into the room. The cameras on the building itself showed that all of the exits were blocked by burning pools of ponapalm.

He looked around the room in desperation to find something to block the vents. He found a tarp on top of a crate of machine parts and stepped up onto the crate so that he could stuff it into the vent. A deep booming laugh caused him to shriek and fall backwards, trailing droplets of spittle and terror sweat through the air.

Digits crawled frantically across the now-slippery floor away from the vent, which had now started to spew flames into the room. He just wanted to get away now, to Tartarus with Upright and all the other Lyranites. He didn’t even care if he couldn't hack networks anymore, nor if he never got all the pony plot he’d been promised, he just wanted to save his own skin. He wormed towards the door, but recoiled when a small gout of flames flickered at him from underneath it.

He backed up on all fours, like a stupid, common, hoofed pony. Tears streamed down his muzzle, both from fear and from the smoke. His rear collided with the data lectern and his keyboard fell onto the floor beside him. He couldn’t even see the monitor to tell where the Guardsponies were, but he could blow the explosive anyway and hope that he took one of those lapdogs with him—

The door suddenly exploded into fragments as a very large somepony bucked it into the room. Digits expected it to be Upright, the only pony he knew who could walk into a burning building unharmed, and prepared to beg for mercy. Instead, he wet himself in terror when the giant skull-faced, black-armored figure slowly walked into the room and turned a ponapalm cannon in his direction.

Digits held his hands up in a warding motion and the figure spoke to him, rumbling his bones with their voice.

“Do not worry, little pony. I will cleanse you so that you will be free to enter Celestia’s warm embrace.”

Digits opened his mouth to scream the word “no” but instead caught a mouth full of burning ponapalm. The wave of fire engulfed him and ignited his coat and mane. The delicate metal in his hands melted together into singular blobs at the end of his forearms.

As Digits screamed his last scream, he mashed one of his melted fists down on the keyboard. The last cognizant thought that passed through his pain-wracked mind before his body curled up and died was that it looked exactly like a hoof.

---

• § • § • § •

---

The explosion consumed Nutmeg’s senses as he exited the tunnel. He didn’t feel much of anything except an intense pressure and a feeling of weightlessness.

“Sir!? Sir?!”

The voice was wrong, somehow. It sounded like a pony yelling at him, but through a long tunnel.

“He’s alive!”

He became aware of a high pitched whine that had been drowning out the other voices.

“Get him up! We have to move!”

Nutmeg felt himself being hefted and carried like a sack of oats across somepony’s back. That’s the second time this mission. This is getting embarrassing. His ears still rang with post explosion tinnitus.

Nutmeg slowly opened his eyes to the sight of a well-toned lime-green flank. “Fray, unhoof me this instant! It’s going to take more than a motion-activated-reactive-explosive to keep me from getting my recaf!”

Fray bucked her hindquarters, sending Nutmeg flying head-over-hooves onto a massive stack of what appeared to be cloth.

Nutmeg used the momentum to roll off of the stack and into a low combat crouch. He craned his neck around to reach for his laspistol, but found the holster empty. He quickly looked around to see if the pistol lay somewhere nearby.

He saw that Fray and Whisper were taking cover next to a plasteel security door. The room was otherwise filled with crates that were stacked on top of pallets. Each box was labeled as either machine parts or filter cloth, much like the stack he had just been thrown onto.

Several of the crates on the side of the room with the tunnel entrance looked like they had been violently torn apart and scorched, and pieces of metal were scattered everywhere or embedded in the wall. He also saw the mangled remains of a load-lift servitor. He looked down and saw that the left side of his greatcoat sported a surprisingly small amount of shrapnel. The servitor must have taken the brunt of the blast.

“Sorry, sir.” Point looked at him with a dull watery gaze that spoke of excessive blood loss and barely contained pain. “Your pistol went flying when that bomb when off. I looked, but there’s too much debris, and I couldn’t find it.”

Nutmeg reached to his other holster and drew his chainsword. “It’s fine; just means things are gonna get messy.” He would have to mourn the loss of his laspistol after the mission was completed.

He took a moment to clear his head and take stock of the current situation. He was leading Point, Whisper, and Fray into the main refinery building while the twins remained in the Marecanicus shrine to control the facility’s servitors. The twins had located the trio in the maintenance tunnels below the refinery after some comm channel surfing and had guided them to the Marecanicus shrine.

Fray and Whisper had arrived dragging Point’s unconscious body. The twins had unceremoniously welded Point’s barrel wound shut with a plasma torch and then pumped him full of stimulants. From what Nutmeg could see of Point’s expression now, the drugs were either quickly wearing off, or Point’s body had just reached its limit. Or both. It would be a miracle if he didn’t just drop dead from exertion.

Whisper had him more worried. She was at least able to walk normally now that the twins had splinted her foreleg, but her hard and semi-charred expression wasn’t able to disguise the tear stains on her muzzle. Nutmeg didn’t think Whisper was capable of crying, but the rumors of her and Trauma must have held more water than he’d originally thought. She probably wouldn’t have any problems taking the enemy down, though Nutmeg had serious concerns that she might do it without regard for her own—or, more importantly, his own—safety.

Fray was the only pony amongst the three that had arrived at the shrine that looked like they were at anything approaching full combat effectiveness. She kept shooting worried glances at Point, though. Nutmeg found himself regretting his habit of ignoring the interpony relationships of his troops. With his luck, everypony he’d recruited was somehow romantically involved with one another… well… except Inferno, of course.

Speaking of that giant fire freak… “Inferno, Inferno, come in…” Nutmeg saw that the others were looking at him funny. “What? I haven’t been able to reach him since the twins got the servitors back online, and we could use some covering fire… pun intended.”

“We haven’t been able to reach Blitz and Owly, either,” Point said.

“I’m sure they’re fine.” Nutmeg said as he looked back at the smoking remains of the servitor they had acquired in the Marecanicus shrine. With my luck, all three are dead.

Nutmeg wished the amalgamation of lobotomized pony and Marecanicus engineering was still functional, they could really use its strength and durability. If it weren’t for the twins reactivating the majority of the servitors across the facility, the squad would have probably been wiped out, and Nutmeg wouldn’t have decided to risk storming the main refinery building. But now, after being blown up and losing his favorite laspistol, Nutmeg wanted nothing more than to wrap the mission up so he could drink his Celestia damned recaf.

“Let’s finish this,” Nutmeg mouthed around his chainblade, “I’m thirsty.”

The quartet advanced into the main facility through the security door, which hadn’t actually been locked. The heretics seemed to be rubbish when it came to proper security; first they had left the Marecanicus shrine unponied, and now this. The door itself was fairly thick, and a multitude of sounds, mostly lasfire and partially muffled explosions from outside, became audible as they exited the remarkably soundproof storage room.

They entered the primary processing chamber of the refinery and Nutmeg saw that the expanse was filled with bulky vats, pipes, catwalks, and conveyor belts. Nutmeg motioned everypony to a halt when he heard a clanging sound from up ahead. He and the remains of his squad moved forwards and took cover behind the closest series of conveyors.

“Carefully, you FOOLS,” boomed an augmented voice from up ahead. “If you so much as scratch it, I’ll remove your implants… with my bare hands.”

Nutmeg swallowed the lump that had spontaneously formed in his throat. A quick peek over the conveyor confirmed his suspicion: the voice belonged to a Space Mareine. The hulking mockery of equine physiology stood upright, making it almost twice as tall as most Space Mareines, which were already head and shoulders above most normal ponies. It stood on its hind legs and gestured violently at seven of the Lyranite cultists who were hauling some piece of arcane machinery out of a recess in the refinery floor.

The Space Mareine’s vertical posture, and the white and aquamarine coloration on their ancient, blasphemous, rune-covered power armor, left little doubt: they belonged to the heretical Anthropologists chapter. Lyranite cultists were bad enough, but the mere presence of a traitor Mareine changed the stakes; not just for this mission, but for the entire war. Just one Anthropologist would be cause to call in the Alicorn Inquisition, and whatever artifact had caused them to bring war to this sector could very well justify Extermarenatus for the planet or even the entire system.

“Lord Upright!” shouted one of the Lyranites who had moved away from the others.

“What?”

“The device has its own power source and is wired directly into the refinery’s main power lines. We can’t cut the lines without risking—”

“After all we have been through, tracking this most GLORIOUS of prizes through legend, and whispers, and dusty data-vaults—over the corpses of countless lapdogs to the false princesses—only to find that their FOALISH, IGNORANT Imperium would build a BUCKING RECAF FACTORY using OUR PRIZE as a BUCKING GENERATOR… you would DARE to complain about the risk to your personal safety from cutting a few live power cables when the prize is within my grasp?!”

The pony quickly backed away, but not quickly enough. “No M’Lord! I just—“

Lord Upright silenced the Lyranite’s groveling by crushing their head in a giant ceramite fist. They didn’t bother to turn before addressing the others. “Unless any of you wish to join this pathetic waste, then by all means, CONTINUE.”

Nutmeg ducked back behind the conveyor. “Whelp… that’s a Traitor Space Mareine… Grenades, anypony?”

Fray offered him two frag grenades. Point and Whisper could only shake their heads negative.

Nutmeg wasn’t sure if he’d blanched or not. He was hoping for at least two more frag grenades, and preferably a krak grenade. But instead, he’d just have to make do with his single remaining plasma grenade and what Fray had given him.

“Whisper.” She turned her gaze towards Nutmeg as he spoke. “I need you to take this plasma grenade and get up into the catwalks.” He gestured at the ceiling. “When we detonate these frag grenades and wipe out the cultists, I need you to drop your grenade on the Traitor Mareine.”

He paused for a moment and then placed his hoof on her shoulder. “I know you want to go out in a blaze of glory on this one. You’ve lost a lot… I won’t pretend to know how much. Just… don’t let them take more from you.” He got closer to her. “Make them pay. If you die here, you can’t keep making them pay.”

Nutmeg hoofed the frag grenades to Point. “You think you can toss those into the cultists so Fray and I can engage the Mareine in close combat?”

Point looked at him with dull eyes. “It’s suicide, sir.”

Nutmeg wasn’t entirely sure if Point was talking about throwing the grenades or fighting the Mareine, but either way, he didn’t listen. “Once you blow the hell out of the cultists, just cover us as best as you can with your rifle. We just need to keep the Mareine busy until Whisper can get the drop on them.” Fat chance…

Nutmeg saw that Whisper had already started climbing up a ladder on the side of what appeared to be some sort of humongous grinding machine. He cursed, then started working his own way around to the right of the heretics, passing between another conveyor and, judging by the intense heat it was giving off, a large industrial oven. The smell of processed recaf filled his nostrils, and it smelled like victory.

He caught a glance of Fray working her way around from the other side of the oven. She stopped behind the cover of a large vertical pipe, and Nutmeg looked back toward where they’d left Point. Good… well, as good of a pincer attack as we could hope for against an invincible opponent.

“PULL! Pull like your lives depend on it! They do!”

Nutmeg heard a tink-tink-tink sound as something skittered across the floor. He watched the Anthropologist Mareine swing around and track the offending object with their bolter until it came to rest at the feet of one of the heretics.

“Lord Upright?” The Lyranite bent over to pick it up. “What’s th—“

“IDIOT!” Upright had barely finished speaking the insult before the grenade detonated, shredding three of the heretic bipeds who had been attending the arcane device.

A second grenade landed amongst the remaining heretics and detonated, killing two more and scorching both the floor and the large metal cylinder that seemed to be Upright’s “prize.”

Nutmeg cursed to himself as the Anthropologist Mareine turned to Point’s location. He figured they must have traced the grenade trajectories backwards, because they swiveled the massive weapon and unleashed a hail of bolter fire into the conveyor belt that Point was using for cover.

Nutmeg didn’t wait to see if Point had survived the bolts or the collapsing conveyor; instead, he charged the mountainous Anthropologist with his chainsword held high, and he pushed the tongue-throttle to rev the motor to a roar that was almost as loud as the one coming from his own throat.

But Upright’s reflexes were too fast. The bolter was pointed at Nutmeg before he had even closed half the distance. On instinct, Nutmeg stopped in his tracks, as if he might somehow be able to dodge an incoming fusillade of seventy-five caliber rounds. He was surprised that he was still alive long enough to be surprised about not being immediately torn to pieces by the aforementioned bolts. Having the crimson eyes in the helmet of the blasphemous power armor staring at him was somehow much worse than being blown asunder.

Nutmeg caught a glimpse of Fray inching her way towards Upright’s backside. She would be spotted unless— Oh Tartarus, you’ve got to die of something. “Well? Are you going to kill me or what?”

“You’ve damaged my prize, lapdog. I will not grant you a quick, merciful death.” Upright swung the bolter to the side and shot the last remaining Lyranite cultist in the chest. “He failed to shield my prize with his own body. But now, as for you… I do hope you enjoy slow dismemberment. I think I’ll show you a few pieces of yourself before you ex—“

Fray’s chainblade struck the side of Upright’s bolter, sending a shower of sparks across both the weapon and the Mareine. Then she dodged frantically as Upright screamed their displeasure and swung the bolter like a giant club, and only barely managed to roll away from an impact that shattered the concrete floor.

Upright leveled the bolter at Fray and fired. The first shot impacted Fray’s chainblade and tore it in half, sending metal links and teeth flying across the room. But when they pulled the trigger the second time—

Click.

The action was stuck.

With a roar of praise to any Princess that would hear him, Nutmeg continued his charge, and leapt up at the Anthropologist, swinging the blade into Upright’s faceplate. A shower of sparks and a backhand to the midsection was what he got for his troubles. He rolled as best he could with the blow, and although his barrel plate took the brunt of the impact, he was pretty sure he heard the plate itself crack. The sharp pain when he breathed confirmed that he had also bruised or broken a rib.

Upright turned to look at him. The traitor’s visage was menacing, with sparks pouring from the faceplate, and its once-glowing red eyes now shorted out. Upright reached up with one hand and twisted the helmet to the side. There was a hiss of escaping air as the pressure seal was broken and Upright lifted, exposing their aquamarine coat and lighter mane. Her golden eyes shone with ancient malevolence as she dropped the helmet to the floor.

”I was fond of that helmet, worm. I’m going to slit your throat, fill my helm with your life blood like a goblet and let your last sight be me drinking to your demise.”

Nutmeg spied Whisper shimmying along the catwalk above the Anthropologist. She was almost in a good position to drop the grenade. “Ugh, you looked better with the helmet on.” Nutmeg always liked to think he had a natural talent for goading, but the Mareine’s experience and bioengineered intelligence won out. Nutmeg charged again when Upright began to quickly scan the room with her piercing eyes.

Nutmeg tried a furious series of slashes, but the pain from his chest slowed him greatly. Upright easily grabbed his blade with one gauntlet and hurled him across the room. He rolled with the impact of landing, but his chainblade went skittering across the floor.

Nutmeg grunted with pain as he slowly regained his hooves. His neck now had a crick in it from being wrenched so violently. That roll hadn’t done any favors for his ribs either. He wiped a hoof across his mouth and was surprised to find there wasn’t any blood in the spittle he found there. Ribs are bruised then, not broken, wonders will never cease.

He saw Fray roll away from a ceramite foot that shattered more of the concrete floor. Fray whipped around, and the Anthropologist recoiled from an impact. Upright reached up to her neck and pulled out the combat knife that Fray had buried there.

By appearances, Upright wasn’t even fazed by the wound. But then she grinned maliciously, drew back her arm, and threw the knife upwards with all the speed and power that bio-engineering, blasphemous augmentics, and ten thousand years of hate for the Imperium could lend her.

There was a loud crash as an entire section of catwalk fell to the floor. Whisper rolled out of the tangled mess of metal, sprang to her hooves, and hurled two objects at the Mareine’s face. Upright caught both: a knife in her left hand, and something in her right hand that immediately disappeared in the actinic flash of a plasma detonation.

When Nutmeg’s vision cleared, he could see that the half of Upright’s face that still had fur was staring at the smoking ruin that was their right arm. The look was not one of shock or pain, but of unrepentant rage.

“Very resourceful, and very irritating. But unless you have any other surprises, Commissar, I think I’ll kill you all horribly now.”

Just then, a large section of the outer wall exploded inwards, showering Guardspony and Space Mareine alike with chunks of plascrete masonry. Blitz stepped through the newly blasted opening, shouting over the smoky din: “Hay, The twins said you needed assista—Celestia in Canterlot, is that a Space Mare—“

Blitz’s query was cut short when he received a thrown bolter to the face that knocked him end over end back out of the hole he’d just made.

“How many of you insects are there?!?”

The response was a hail of lasfire that poured from the breach followed by a screaming Owly. Upright raised her damaged arm to absorb the incoming shots. She then punted one of the pieces of rubble into Owly’s legs hard enough to knock them out from under him, causing him to face-plant into unconsciousness.

“Pathetic. Even with only one arm, you quadrupeds cannot hope to defeat me. Upright backhanded a charging Fray across the room into Whisper, sending them both crashing into the side of a large press machine. She turned again to Nutmeg and stomped toward him. Your turn, little pony. After I tear your head off, I think I’ll feast on your troops. I’ll treat myself to the grey one’s foreleg, while they’re still alive, of course. She’ll wish for death when I start on her face—“

Whip-crack!

Upright’s face exploded.

Nutmeg jumped back, barely avoiding the projectile gore and the toppling giant. That was a long-las shot. He stared at Upright’s corpse for a moment before tapping his comm. “Which one of you just shot the Space Mareine?”

A familiar, yet unexpected, voice came over the comm line. “That would be me, Sir.”

“Trauma?!” Nutmeg looked over to where Whisper lay, unconscious. “I heard you’d been blown up.”

“You… you probably won’t believe me, sir…”

“Try me.” Nutmeg looked between the different apparati in the room until he spotted what he was looking for: a conveyor, leading out from the grinding machine Whisper had climbed earlier.

“It was… an Alicorn, sir… it saved me...”

Nutmeg trotted over to the conveyor and hoofed a generous amount of the ground material he found there into a cup he produced from his greatcoat. “An Alicorn eh? I guess a concussion could make you see that. Well, get down here to treat the wounded. You’ll have to tell me all about this religious experience once I get some hot water in my cup here.” He turned to the injured, unconscious forms of the rest of his squad. “Hey, everypony, it’s recaf o’clock, and I’m buyin’!”

One loose end remained, though. Nutmeg approached the massive artifact that the Lyranites had only been able to pull halfway out of the floor, and studied it. Judging by the abundance of humming coils and the metal cylinder with a viewing port at the center of everything, it appeared to be some sort of self-powered stasis unit.

Nutmeg wanted to know what could have possibly been worth cutting off his caffeine supply. He knew better than to go looking at whatever abomination lay within the stasis tube, though; memories of fellow soldiers losing their minds after looking at alien abominations steeled his resolve. He instead contented his curiosity by reading the ancient ponese engraving directly below the viewport. He harrumphed.

Fray limped over to him, somehow conscious. She looked at the engraving, then at him. “Well, what in Tartarus is in there?”

He glanced sidelong at her. “Right, they don’t exactly teach High Equestrian or Ancient Ponese to non-commissioned officers, do they?”

Fray stared at him. “Well, what does it say?”

“Look, knowing too much of the wrong thing can get a pony killed, ignorance is usually the safest option.” Nutmeg frowned down at his cup, still waterless. Buck, it wouldn’t be the first time. He poured some of the unhydrated recaf directly into his mouth and started chewing. Despite its unfiltered bitterness and gritty texture, the recaf made his nerves come alive again, and his body felt almost immediately renewed.

Fray was still staring at him.

Nutmeg sighed and shrugged. “There’s not a lot to go on,” he said between mastications. “Ancient ponese tends to use a lot of abbreviations. Best I can tell, the label’s meant to say: ‘hued monster.’ But that’s it.”

“What?”

He shrugged again. “That’s all there is, just two syllables: ‘Hu Mon.’”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Of course. What else would that particular Traitor Legion be after? (And if it was a native from the other side of the mirror, it certainly is hued.)

In any case, addiction or no, Nutmeg actually is a pretty good commissar. Definitely looking forward to the denoument and more details on what happened to Trauma.

[Moosetasm]

8983137
As an answer to the question: “Fingers, toes and tiny noses, brownish hair and tannish skin.”

Other side of the mirror?
derpicdn.net/img/2015/11/2/1014652/thumb.png

Denoument and Denouement have now been added to and separated in my vocabulary.

Trauma’s alive? DIVE!

[MisterNick]

Not bad for a pone- ee. Still a ton of fun and better than a mouth full of caffeine sir.

Just a couple things I saw...

With my luck, all three are dead needs a period.
Upright began to quickly quickly scan the room with her piercing eyes.

[Moosetasm]

8988340
Fixed, thank you, sir. And for the comment.

[CoffeeMinion]

I love how this turned out. Inevitably, though, I spotted a few lingering bugs.

How had they bypassed
^How they had bypassed

Several of crates
^Several of the crates

full my helm
^fill my helm

around, and The
^around, and the

din:
“Hay
^din: “Hay

[Moosetasm]

9033093
Tyvm, fixed.