• Published 30th Mar 2013
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I Blame You, Too - Whitestrake



The 41st Millenium is about to open a serious can of whoop-ass on Equestria.

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When water of any kind falls in this fic, someone is dead or dying

For the first time in years, Princess Celestia feared for her kingdom. Unlike the coordinated attack against Canterlot that nearly ended the war five years ago, this threat was much harder to pinpoint. As Amos, the human who ferried Dahl onto Equus, carried the remaining crew back to their ship, she couldn't help but realize how outgunned the entire world was. Their most powerful weapon was a rail cannon built on the side of a mountain, and when she told Shipmaster Delray it was capable of slinging an eighty-kilogram slug at two percent of the speed of light, he told her of the Imperium's cyclonic torpedoes.

“I always wondered why you built it facing the sky,” she confessed to Taylor, who stood next to her on the balcony as he watched the strider fade into the clouds overhead. Like most of the time, he was unarmored, and the princess was thankful for that; the ivory mask he wore was too impersonal for such matters. “It's not like it ever comes back down.”

“Well, I was preparing for the event a spaceship filtered through the multiverse.” He leaned a against a wall, crossing his arms as he spoke. As an afterthought, he added, “all we lacked were the orbital sensors needed to detect it entering the system.”

“And how in Equestria did you intend to get those?” she asked, looking at the man she was certain was still very much insane. He always seemed to have every little detail planned out, and hated being questioned in that regard. “We have faster-than-light travel capabilities but no rockets capable of breaching the atmosphere.”

“Simple: we just needed to survive the first contact,” he answered, motioning to a black bag he had brought with him from aboard the Skyward Valkyrie. Celestia could only assume it was filled with some Imperial technology, but knowing Taylor, it could have very well been something he whipped up from scavenged parts while he had been there. Much to her surprise, it contained nothing but scrap; a few panels of something odd, but nothing unusual. “Not rockets, but we can make anti-grav tanks now.”

“Are you ever going to stop acting like this?”

“Only when I die.”

@#@#@# Amos's POV @#@#@#

We pulled into the hangar smoothly, aided in no small part by the strider's machine spirit. Something about leaving Equus had it soaring, though that could have just been my imagination playing with my apprehension about returning to the Inquisition's offices in our sector of operations. We figured we would leave Taylor and the others behind to better pass the colorful world off as a hallucination of Dahl's creation.

As we waited for the hangar to seal and pressurize, I couldn't help but make sure my knife was still in my boot. It was the only weapon I had and I felt a little naked without my las carbine, but all its power cells were charging.

“Their containment cells are ready,” Martellus said over the vox, using his personal caster to speak directly to me. Dahl and Ophidia were under armed guard, blindfolded and gagged to prevent them from knowing what was going on. I could see the magos step into the pressurizing hangar and wave a mechadendrite for us to step out. One of the strider's sensors had been shot during the purge, so I needed to use him as an indicator of when the atmosphere was thick enough to breathe. Nodding, I tapped twice on the wall next to me, signaling the crewmen to move the heretics.

Two men pulled them to their feet, while the others kept their guns trained on them. It would be tough keeping a psyker contained while we traveled through the warp, but the Navigator would keep us on a straight course for the sector's capital world. If Warp-currents kept like they had when we first arrived to Equus, we would be there in a month. What mattered more was how long it appeared we had been gone; time was a plaything for the Immaterium, and it was not out of the question for us to arrive before we left, as it were.

I followed closely behind them, not wanting the bastards out of my sight before I knew they were locked away until they met the Lord Inquisitor. They were a danger to us all, and the galaxy would be better for their demise. Delray's voice rang from vox units in the walls.

All hands be aware: the Gellar field will activate in thirty seconds.

@#@#@#Taylor's POV@#@#@#

Canterlot's weather team had taken the liberty of creating a foreboding overcast as twenty caskets were carried through a large cemetery at the mountain's base. The handful of inquisitors who survived walked alongside the pallbearers, nodding to family members and occasionally stopping to give their condolences. As I walked behind the procession, I couldn't help but feel my heart ache at the site. As happy as I had seemed while talking to Celestia earlier, I was really quite depressed.

It started raining then; the drops were quick and unceasing, but small, and did little more than blanket the ground in a fine layer of mist. I looked out under the brim of my cap at the colorful mourners, and saw more than a few enraged friends and family members. I was not exactly liked, nor was the Inquisition as a whole; political cartoons often depicted us as carrion birds or shadows dancing behind the princesses. No one had the nerve to act on their thoughts beyond a few protests, a handful of books, and roughly a dozen or so radio serials detailing various conspiracy theories regard the Inquisition, its formative members, and how they related to me.

I straightened the brim of my hat as we came to a halt. The caskets turned to the side, their ebony wood glistening in the gloomy light. They would be lowered into the ground soon, and without any sort of last rites, farewells, eulogies, or organized grieving; such burdens were on the families. At least, that was the official order of things. The other inquisitors and I would remain and speak with whomever desired an audience; there would be no need to follow any sort of stiff-collared protocol under such circumstances.

Forbidden Query's family the closest to me, in regards to proximity. His death weighed rather heavily on me. He'd been about ten at the time of the changeling invasion, and had seen Jay and I as role models of a sort, despite us only being a few years older than him. We were tough on him, to be sure, but he attacked every challenge with an enthusiasm that was rare in those days. He learned and excelled at black magic, all at my request. The success of the mission aboard the Valkyrie was largely due to his use of the forbidden arts; had he not fought the Broodlord, Amos would have been able to crush its skull.

I sincerely doubted his mother cared much for that, though.

@#@#@#@#@#@#
Mission Report – Reclamation of the Skyward Valkyrie.
Time from exoatmospheric vessel launch to completion: three-point-five (3.5) hours.
Allied death total: fifty-eight (58) personnel

Twenty-three (23) Inquisitors

Thirty-five (35) changeling drones
Damages to Equestrian property: twelve-thousand (12,000) bits. Covered by the Crown.
Mission necessity: Crucial

Side Notes: What in Celestia's name happened up there?

Filed by Glimmering Refrain, Canterlot Temple Archivist Adept.

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