//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14 
// Story: Hegira: Rising Omega 
// by Guardian_Gryphon 
//------------------------------//

Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 9th, Gregorian Calendar

Skye

"Whoa whoa whoa...  Where the buck did you come from?!"

I couldn't help myself, and I'd murmured my shock and frustration aloud before I realized it.  Before anyone on the bridge could ask why, I decided to just blurt it out before I was completely sure.  It seemed like the sort of thing  Hutch might understand better than me anyways.

Science jargon I could do all day, every day.  Military jargon I was learning, but still sometimes fuzzy on.

"Hutch, there's a lot of scary stuff going back and forth across my SatVision link.  EarthGov Airforce stuff, not JRSF.  Last time I saw 'PAL' in a flash message, the HLF tried to drop a world-ender on Vancouver.  Tell me this isn't that."

Looking up from my console, I could see Hutch's face as it did that thing Humans do when they're surprised by something that also really upsets them.  That thing where it scrunches into something halfway between a grimace, a glare, and an 'oh BUCK' face.

"Shit."

Human military officers really seemed to like that one when things were headed the wrong direction.  Short, cornice, sharp.  My stomach dropped as he worked his console, and kept the rest of us on the bridge up to date with his discoveries.

"Someone at GMCC noticed the PER's terrifying UFO out there, and declared it an X-scenario.  They issued a Nuclear strike order.  Bastards!"

Oh boy.  That one seemed to be reserved for really objectionable people, doing really objectionable things.  As a connoisseur of the physics and history of two worlds, I knew exactly what the word 'Nuclear' meant in that context, and I knew that Hutch's descriptor for whoever was contemplating 'Nuking' us was accurate.

They'd kill everyone in the facility.  Probably everyone on the Shenzhou.  Definitely cripple the Genesis project irreparably.

Maybe 'shit' was about the right fit for our situation too, come to think of it.  Or perhaps 'deep shit.'

Hutch turned to face me, and the level of concern in the wrinkles around his eyes scared me.  I knew he didn't scare easily.  His tone wasn't any more comforting than his expression.

"Poke me a hole through to GMCC.  I need to talk to someone in the command chain.  If they fire nukes at us, even tactical warheads, they will wipe this facility, and us, off the face of the Earth.  The end of Genesis, at the very least.  Might just touch off whatever bomb our friends are trying to wire together in Main Engineering to top it all off at worst.  Arnshekh is gonna kill me..."

My hooves and horn both started to move at that adrenaline soaked speed where even the best typists sometimes get a little ahead of themselves.  Luckily I was the best of the best.  We Unicorns have always had a bit of an advantage when it comes to typing tasks, because we can use both hooves, and force projections from our horns, when a system has affordances for hoof-typing.

Like having three hands, one of which didn't have any limb-related physical limitations.  The horn more than made up for the lack of fingers.

I stopped clocking my personal WPM when I hit four hundred average.  I think the bragging was putting people off.

It didn't take long to open a new encrypted tunnel through the AfCom relay, and bounce it from there directly to GMCC through their high priority trunkline.  I didn't have the time to compromise their systems and force them to pick up, so I did the next best thing.  I spoofed the transmission header to make it look like one of their own radar planes was calling with an urgent message.

I gestured with a hoof to Hutch.

"You're on.  Though they won't be too happy to hear you aren't 'AWAC three seven.' "

Hutch's eyes narrowed in a way that made me want, very badly, to be present for the inevitable flank thrashing he was going to give the person on the other end in person.  If we survived.  His voice didn't leave a lot of room for interruption, or interpretation.  That seemed to be a skill all flag officers had nailed down, each in their own personal way.

"GMCC, this is JRSF hotel echo seven four five eight.  Cease all combat operations in my mission zone immediately.  Rescind your nuclear order and pull back."

Silence hung on the bridge long enough that most of us started to wonder if the channel had been cut already.  I exchanged a nervous look with the Unicorn manning tactical, and the Gryphon on helm, the only other members of our skeleton crew, before a voice finally came back over the speakers.

"Negative JRSF four five eight.  The Global Security Council has granted post-issuance certification to this order.  Evacuate anyone you can, and brace for shock and flare on site."

I watched Hutch's face carefully.  Humans were like open books most of the time to Equestrians, of any species.  They did almost all their emoting on very specific parts of their faces, and they were not nearly as good at controlling them as they thought they were.

Not that I thought Hutch was trying.  He looked like someone had cast his whole head in granite.  That special kind of angry that goes way past red-faced shouting, and into quiet, calm words that put ice in your bones.

"GMCC Central, JRSF four five eight.  If you do not cancel your fire order, and withdraw your bombers from their launch point, I will strike your planes with over-the-horizon railgun fire.  Acknowledge."

Every eye on the bridge went to the General's face.  Even the Gryphon on helm seemed like she knew the exact implications of what Hutch had said.  Her expression had more horror than I was used to seeing on their beaks, and she wasn't trying to mask it.  I think she must've been a convert.  It explained several of her Human-carryover physical mannerisms.

Officially sanctioned military ships firing on officially sanctioned military planes.  

If we lived to talk about it, we were all gonna be on the news the same way Fyrenn had been.  And then some.  If we weren't already eyeball deep in a civil war by then.

After another long pause, the response came back again.  Just about as chilling as Hutch's own words.

"Launch commenced twenty seconds ago.  Stand down and seek on-site shelter.  Aggressive actions will be met with retaliatory force in-kind."

Hutch made a backwards revolving gesture with one hand, two fingers extended.  I'd spent enough time around JRSF jarheads to know that it meant 'open the other commline without closing this one.'  The one that went directly to Brendt on the South Dakota.

GMCC may not have known Hutch wasn't 'frakkin around.'  But I sure knew it, and they were sure about to 'find out.'

I did what he asked with the tap of two touchscreen icons, and then nodded.  His transmission did nothing to help the knot in my stomach.  Nothing at all.  I did my best to put a brave neutral expression to my muzzle.  I'd been in worse.  Objectively speaking.  Just not by much.

"South Dakota, this is Huchinson.  We have enemy aircraft in our AO, and inbound nuclear ordinance.  Divert interceptor from the forward fighter wing to shoot down warheads.  Lock your main railgun battery on the DSOB wing at Echo two sierra eight five.  Fire when ready."

I sighed, and massaged the bridge of my muzzle with one hoof.  I figured the situation was worth a Human invective.  Science says it helps with stress relief.

"Shit."

It did help.  But not much.





Brendt's eyes narrowed, and his ears flattened to hug the top of his skull as the General's words came across the CIC's speakers.

"South Dakota, this is Huchinson.  We have enemy aircraft in our AO, and inbound nuclear ordinance.  Divert interceptor from the forward fighter wing to shoot down warheads.  Lock your main railgun battery on the DSOB wing at Echo two sierra eight five.  Fire when ready."

To the Humans in the space, only two seconds passed.  To Brendt, and any Gryphons or Pegasi following his same approximate train of thought, the moment took considerably longer.

He mulled over the ramifications.  The emotional impacts.  The political blowback.  The risks.  It didn't take long to reach the only moral conclusion.  It took much longer to mentally prepare for the consequences.

Brendt reasoned that almost any cost was worth it to save the Genesist facility.  It represented something too valuable to let die.  Even if the cost was a great many present, and future lives.  Many of whom would be soldiers who had fought side by side with the JRSF for years.

For the Captain, the moment passed just in time for him to take in the stricken expression of his CIC crew.  He nodded once sharply, and did his best to inject a firm note into his voice, allowing it to resonate as loudly as his beak and syrinx could project.

"Menace one-five, Actual.  Peel off and destroy missiles at your ten o'clock high.  StrikeCon AI, disable IFF interlocks and fire safeties.  I authenticate, JRSF Gamma whiskey two six zulu nine seven."

A harsh tri-tone from the central holotank told Brendt that all of the myriad subroutines intended to prevent JRSF weapons from firing on JRSF, or EarthGov targets, had been suspended.

He nodded towards his tactical actions officer, locking eyes with him to ensure the order sank in.

"TAO, Actual.  Kill track EarthGov Echo two sierra eight five with main guns."

The Unicorn nodded slowly, blinking somberly but otherwise maintaining a firm expression as he parroted the order, both for confirmation, and to cement it with his subordinates manning the actual fire control consoles.

"Kill track EarthGov Echo two sierra eight five, with main guns."





Fyrenn

The Shenzhou's Matter/Antimatter Reactor Core room was nothing like you'd expect if you had never been on a Navy ship, and had only grown up on a diet of Sci-Fi vids and novels.  Set designers and novelists like big cavernous spaces that have short length, but enormous vertical drops and few to no railings.  Good for dramatic tension, and awe inspiring mise en scène.

An absolute trash fire if you want to lay things out logically.  'Things' that are very complex and dangerous, and need to be worked on and maintained under combat conditions.

I'd been in the Core chamber before, I knew the layout of the room by heart.  Not-Astris was standing inside the antimatter bottle access closet.  The access hatch was closed, and bolted, but the dividing wall was mostly made up of thick transparisteel reinforced with the telltale subtle hexagon pattern of an energy diffusion matrix.

We'd needed the M/AM-R to run the armor and particle weapons.  So we'd fueled it accordingly.  Full flight charge.  Two hundred and fifty kilograms of 'don't frakking touch that' in the extreme.

The antimatter storage bottle glowed with a frighteningly sharp bright bluish white light as the titanic magnetic and thaumatic forces inside kept the fuel suspended away from all matter in a hard vacuum.  Beside it, a much smaller five kilogram container protruded from the top of the partially disassembled HASP as Not-Astris worked to circumvent carefully designed safety mechanisms on both devices.

He only needed to remove some of the Thaumatic safeguards on the fuel bottle, but the torpedo he needed to detonate outright.  Disabling the magnetic containment would be easy, but the fail-safe would push the antimatter out of our plane of existence instantly if that happened.  So that much more complex task, thanks be to God, had to be accomplished first.  I had no idea how close or far the Wisp was to that objective.

I hated close quarters combat indoors.  Somehow the idea of that much antimatter occupying the same structure, in the hooves of a Wisp, just made it that much worse.

The thought stuck in a tiny free part of my brain as I power-slid under my opponent's striking scorpion tail, an assist from my armor's impulse quads sending up sparks as the plates on my wings cut millimeter grooves into the deck.

Clear of my enemy for an ever-so-brief moment, I got another good look at the state of things in the main Core compartment.  At the far end was the reaction chamber that I'd previously brushed my claws against.  Its tiny size relative to the power inside still baffled the part of my brain that was used to the gigantic fusion Tokamaks of Navy ships.

The actual chamber itself, with its tiny thaumatically charged filaments was tucked away behind a seven foot thick transparisteel blast shield, with five diffraction layers sandwiched inside to keep the light of the reaction from obliterating the eyes of anyone working in the room, and plenty of radiation resistant layers to boot, all topped with energy diffusion matrices on both sides.

Precisely none of which would matter if the antimatter itself escaped.  Most of the defensive properties were about containing the normal operating conditions of the core, or the spillover of an accidental coolant loop leakage.

A single catwalk no more than a hind-leg's length above the room's true floor ran from the entry doors down to the reaction chamber, splitting into a cross at the center, to access the matter and antimatter storage closets on port and starboard sides.

Beneath and beside the catwalk ran a series of well organized wire bundles, pipes, and tubes that carried electrical power, coolant, matter, and antimatter.  Snaking out to a variety of different entry and exit points in the floors and walls, they all joined and terminated just beneath the reaction chamber.

Consoles lined the sides of the catwalk railings, and illumination panels were set into the ceiling.  Bright, clean, simple, uncluttered, and extremely well labeled, with nowhere dangerous to fall or trip during combat.  

Exactly what you wanted in an engine room, though the term was a bit of a misnomer, since the Shenzhou had three engine rooms, two for the impulse drives, one for the warp field generator, and the reactor itself was not an engine, but rather the main power source feeding the titanic machines in those three other rooms.

Aside from Not-Astris, working methodically on the HASP, and the antimatter bottle with the lurid red glow of his horn, the Core compartment held three other Wisps, and three Trolls.

Against just two Gryphons, bad odds.  Against two Gryphons, with no space to fly, very very bad odds.  I was personally surprised to still be alive after the fifteenth second of combat.

I'd never really enjoyed CQC or hand-to-hand as a Marine, though Lord knows I'd trained for it like my life depended on it.  Which it frequently did.  Not for the first time I said a silent prayer of thanks that much of those years of abuse and training translated into useful, and unpredictable talent at claw-to-claw combat as a Gryphon.

In a tight space durability and strength gain outsized influence.  Speed and agility don't matter any less than they do in any other situation, but they don't gain anything in fair trade for the additional advantages afforded to a stronger enemy.  And options are more limited for everyone involved.

Wisps had the gut twisting advantage of being as fast as a Gryphon, if not faster, much as it pained me to admit it to myself, on top of being much more durable by certain measures.  The crystalline black exosuits they were plated in was making killing them just that much more difficult besides.

My best advantages were better eyes, better armor, and better weapons.  And that ability to improvise and adapt that everyone kept telling me was so special.  I was slowly starting to believe them.

I'd always been small, wiry, and fast, even as a Human.  My basic instructors always assigned the beefiest candidates to practice the holds and chokes.  I was the class favorite for demonstrating how to get out of them, and everyone in the higher weight classes had hated me for it.  Being double jointed had its advantages.  Doubly so when you needed to avoid the hazing after showing up the most 'built' of the upperclassmen.

Gryphon agility was better than being double jointed, and even plated up in the Genesist armor, I still felt far more flexible than I did as a Human wearing a light Marine combat harness.  All the protection of a mech suit, with all the agility of a souvenir T-shirt, at least relative to anything Earthgov or the JRSF fielded in that weight class.

Improvise.  Adapt.  Use your strengths, but not the way your enemy expects.

Pressing one wing against the deck, I half vaulted, half rolled into an upright bipedal position, doing a one-eighty in the process, and firing the suit's thrusters again to reverse my direction.  Hard.

The small present I had left on the barrel of the Wisp's underside trilled obediently as its timer ran out, and detonated.  A concussion grenade, normally very effective at pulping the insides of an armored target at point-blank range, wasn't going to do anything lethal to the Wisp inside the armor, given that they had no organs to speak of.  Just ancient bones inhabited and held together by the evil magic of their very existence.

But it did give my enemy a strong push that threw it backwards at a pretty good rate.  Combined with the acceleration from my suit thrusters, the risky use of explosive force inside a room full of antimatter put my sword all the way through the Wisp's spinal armor, sinking deep into its vertebrae.

I knew the specs of the grenade, and of the tubes running below the catwalk at my paws.  The risk was low enough.  And the reward certainly was worth it.

My primary strategy in close combat had always been to improvise;  Find the environmental advantages you can, that your enemy won't expect, so you can get out of close quarters as quickly as possible, and then deploy overwhelming force into the vacated space.  

A twist tie up the left sleeve will work as a shim to get you out of simple ratcheting handcuffs.  A stolen playing card up the other sleeve will get you your first kill if you use it quickly enough, and it has the right rigidity.

That gets you a K-Bar from the kid you just left to bleed out on the floor, never knowing how he justified his turn against his government, who he left behind, or why he was so especially brutal when he tried to beat your mission orders out of you, cracking ribs in the process.

That K-Bar turns into three more silent kills from behind, slipping across your enemies' throats with no more resistance than a steak knife at the dinner table.  

One of them has a grenade.  A fragmentation grenade to be exact.  

And that little bundle of joy will excuse you very quickly from any further close combat, because shrapnel is a swift, disinterested, efficient, and very persuasive force.  Triply so inside the confines of a small room, like the thrown together command center of a terrorist cell operating out of the control deck of a disused container ship.

And that's how Earthgov special forces training taught me what I needed to know to start from nothing but four cracked ribs, a bruised lung, a twist tie, and a six of diamonds, and end with bagging a dozen kills without firing a single shot from a projectile weapon.

After I'd copied all their storage media, and taken DNA samples from the dead, I used three more scavenged frags;  Sank the whole ship for good measure, and swam to the extraction point, cracked ribs and all.  

You don't need much if you know how and where to use it;  Good rules for cooking, and for explosives both.  

And very relevant to the moment, I reflected, as I eyed what not-Astris was doing to the HASP behind the thick sheet of transparisteel separating the main antimatter bottle closet from the rest of the core chamber.

I twisted my sword aggressively, separating the Wisp's vertebrae and causing some to spill out from the rift the sword had put in its armor.  Rather than wasting time trying to slot the disjointed bones back through the small opening, the Wisp abandoned its platform, shrieking eerily as it passed out of the skull inside the helmet, and darted away towards the compartment roof, vanishing through one of the illumibars.

It reminded me of the horrified screams the moment before that grenade had gone off in that control room.

My reputation after that mission had opened a lot of career doors.  And closed a lot of interpersonal ones.  Not a lot of Human soldiers, even hardened ones, can stomach the degree of cold calculating 'fuck you' required to kill someone by slitting their throat with a playing card, paired with the frightening degree of efficiency and adaptability to even have the idea in the first place.  

And the ones who did were almost always too withdrawn to seek eachother out.

Gryphons were different.  Though killing wasn't any easier or harder at the philosophical level, it was far easier at the root primal level, and coping with it emotionally was far simpler, if what you'd done was done in good faith.  

Once coping got easier, being close to your comrades got easier.  Having friends and family got easier.

Friends and family were the best way not just to keep life worth living, but to stay alive in the clutch.  I pushed off from the deck and rolled, tucking my limbs in, and buying myself a moment to tap my comm control as fire from the Trolls' particle spikes pinwheeled past me.

"SKYE!  He's almost done down here!  Can they spare you?  We need you!"





"Hatchet, this is Citadel, with a Red-dash-Alpha message in two parts.  Break.  Break."

The pilot came bolt upright in his seat, nearly smashing his helmet against the cockpit's upper control panel.  The forward cockpit of an Airforce B-X9 Bomber was not spacious.  Neither was the remainder of the cabin.  Two bunks, a tiny galley, a claustrophobic toilet/shower enclosure, and an even more crammed server rack access closet were the entirety of the livable space.

Most of the gigantic aircraft was given over to enormous fuel cells, to maximize its weeks of continuous aloft time.  Everything else was either an engine, a weapon hardpoint, an ECM suite, or a communications antenna.

An atonal sharp AI voice issued forth from the cockpit speakers, and from the pilot and copilot's headsets.  The latter practically bounded up the accessway to the cockpit, sliding smoothly into place beside her superior and beginning to belt down her five point harness with practiced alacrity.

"Message reads: Romeo.  Niner.  Oscar.  Seven.  Six.  Alpha.  Blue.  Four.  Four.  Strike.  Authentication reads: Two.  Echo.  Echo.  Mike.  Niner.  Seven.  Golf.  Sierra.  Seven.  Acknowledge."

The pilot scribbled furiously on the dry-erase surface of his DaTab, then reached for the acrylic encapsulated plastic card on his neck lanyard.  Pilot and co-pilot broke their cards open virtually simultaneously swiftly comparing the alphanumeric strings to the message contents.

The pilot finished, and spoke first.

"I have a valid message.  Valid confirmation code."

The copilot nodded as she began to secure her helmet, including shock and flare visor, and oxygen mask.  Her voice returned through the Pilot's headset accompanied by the telltale squelch in quality that always went with hardline communications paired with algorithms designed to maximize clarity of voice in a high noise environment.

"I agree."

The pilot depressed the 'talk' button on his control stick without taking hold of the control surface in full.  The nav AI flew the plane, and its nearly identical drone cohorts ninety nine percent of the time.

"GMCC StrikeOps, Hatchet;  Order acknowledged."

As soon as the channel was closed, he began tapping his way through a checklist on his DaTab, speaking the steps aloud.

"Computer has copied the message, and received the target package.  Insert firing index keys and provide biometric authentication."

As the co-pilot spoke, both officers pulled small gray cylinders from their front right jumpsuit pockets, and inserted them into panels at opposite sides of the cockpit.

"I agree sir, inserting key and providing authentication."

With a nod, the pilot pinched his thumb and forefinger around the index's biometric readers.

"Rotate firing index to 'set.'  Three.  Two.  One.  Set."

Simultaneous clicks were immediately followed by a loud klaxon.  The cockpit lighting dimmed to a dull red combat alert state.  Telemetry began to flash across the central console display.

The co-pilot read the information aloud, as-per procedure, her voice accompanied by the changing whine of the jet's engines as the nav AI automatically aligned the aircraft to a good launch vector.

"Indexes set.  Warhead Control AI has received final warhead configuration options and targeting data from SatVision, and has programmed onboard warhead AIs.  Target selection complete.  Time on target sequence complete.  Yield and configuration selection complete.  Missiles one and two on Hatchet one, Hatchet two, and Hatchet three ready for launch sequence.  Missile launch covers retracted and safed."

The pilot nodded and placed one hand back on his firing index as he spoke.

"I concur.  Computer, begin launch sequence.  Prepare to turn indexes to 'Fire' position."

"Begin Countdown.  T-Minus ten.  Nine.  Eight.  Seven.  Six.  Five.  Four.  Three.  Two.  One.  Turn Indexes."

At the AI's insistence, both officers turned their keys.

A low rumble issued forth from the hardpoints on the jet's wings, and the forward canopy was briefly illuminated by the flare of rocket motors as six nuclear tipped missiles accelerated forward towards the horizon.

Silence fell for several seconds, before the pilot allowed himself a deep inhalation, and began to issue follow-up orders in his customary professional tone.

"One thru six away, good shoot.  Rotate firing indexes to 'reset' and standby to relay confirmation to---"

The words became his last in a hail of superheated tungsten and steel.  From out of the gray dawn sky nine heavy bombardment railgun rounds streaked to target, three per aircraft.  

Moving at hypersonic speeds, with no discernable LADAR signature, the rounds did precisely what they were designed to do, arriving so quickly and forcefully as to make evasion, and point defense, impossible.  

Striking with such fury as to make a second salvo unnecessary.

Hatchet three's nav AI had plenty of time, in relative terms, to watch and evaluate.  
A full thirtieth of a second analysis was recorded as the rounds tore through the bombers' relatively thin exterior armor, imparting so much kinetic force that the vehicles' skins rippled and tore away before the secondary kinetic forces, and fuel tank detonations, atomized everything to chunks no bigger than a Human fist.

As its own aircraft was reduced to cinders, the AI dutifully transmitted a distress call, and gun-camera images back to the nearest AWAC, and SatVision, caring nothing for the two dead officers, nor the billions in lost hardware, including all the crafts' remaining nuclear warheads.

In the skies over the Mediterranean, silence fell with the last of the debris, and the remainder of the railgun slugs.





"South Dakota, Menace-one-five, approaching warheads.  Beginning interception operations."

Colonel Thomas West was an oddity in the JRSF.  With two tours as Yorktown CAG before becoming South Dakota's wing commander post-Conversion, most would have seen his officially lateral career move as an unofficial demotion.  

He saw it more as a personal challenge.

There were fewer Diamond Dog Lupines in the service than there were any other official JRSF signatory species.  There was plenty of prejudice to go around, from Humans still simmering internally at the horrors of the botched Diamond Dog Conversion program, and from Equines fearful of his predatory nature;  Even less familiar to them than a Gryphon's and no less intimidating.

And, of course, there was the general prejudice at the idea that a non-flighted creature could keep up with undisputed winged masters of the sky from inside the cockpit.

West took the idea personally, similarly to the way he took it personally that so many of his still-Human comrades in arms whispered frequently behind his back, wondering why a Human fighter jock would ever choose a Lupine over a Pegasus or a Gryphon for their own future.

Whenever possible, West disasbused his subordinates of the dated, prejudicial notions.  Occasionally with a little physical roughness, but never more than absolutely necessary with the worst offenders.

The way some Humans idolized the Avian form, or the Equine, West had always loved the Canine.  Becoming a Lupine had been not so much a question for him, as an internal mandate.

While a Lupine didn't have the same instincts as a Gryphon or Pegasus for flight, their bodies had ninety percent of the needed tolerances to withstand equivalent maneuvers in a fighter jet.  

And their general speed of thought, and above average ocular nerves did exactly what all Equestrian brains and eyes did to pilot's skills and instincts, as compared to Human organs.

West yanked the stick back, and pulled the throttle into the zero-thrust deadzone, tapping specially designed flap control keys on the throttle with two claws.  The FA-31 bucked into a belly-out braking maneuver, trading near-supersonic speeds for near-stall speeds at a shocking rate without so much as a creak in protest from the airframe.

As the nuclear warheads entered extreme missile lock range on West's HUD, triggering a staccato alert sound unique to radiological detections, he flicked the master-arm switch to the ready position, and waited for the fire control AI to establish tone and lock on as many of the objects as it could.

When the missiles blew through the extreme targeting range into the mid range in a matter of seconds, West squeezed the trigger, and pressed the stick inwards, simultaneously slamming on the right rudder pedal with one paw, and kicking the throttle up to its maximum setting before afterburners.

The Falx ejected four lightweight medium range missiles, two per side, from its high speed low observable launch bays as it dipped and wheeled into an accelerating downward right bank turn.

West watched on his HUD as two of the four interceptors slammed spot-on nose-cone-first into their assigned targets, safely immolating the nuclear warheads in intense conventional explosive fireballs that were large enough to reflect off the Falx's canopy, even at-range.

The Colonel's immediate concern, and ice blue eyes, shifted to the remaining four warheads.  Their evasion and flight AI had outdone his interceptors' in the half-second joust of control fin micro adjustments, feints, and counter-feints.

With a low growl, as the hackles on his neck rose reflexively, West pressed his throttle claw all the way forward, triggering the Falx's afterburners at maximum intensity.  Mach one, and then two, came and went at a rate of acceleration that would have put any Human pilot into an intensive care ward.

West's broad black-furred shoulders and back absorbed the G-forces as though they were no more than a stiff breeze.  Though Gryphons could do it the best, and were most known for it,  Lupines could also bend their perceptions of time in combat to a similar degree, if not quite as extreme.  They alone among Diamond Dogs possessed the unique gift to such a top-tier extent.  Most other canids struggled to match them even two-thirds of the way.

With a flick to the control column, the Colonel brought the nose of the jet to a midway point between the missiles, and picked a target.  The warheads sensed his approach and began trading time-to-target for evasive actions, pinwheeling out into spiraling maneuvers designed to make it hard to track all four at once.

West had been ready, cueing up multiple instructions to the Falx's weapon AI with his throttle claw on the shorthand command entry keys as the jet completed its turn.

With a squeeze of the trigger, all hell broke loose.  Every remaining missile in the jet's arsenal ejected from the launch ports in quick succession, streaking outwards in a display JRSF personnel affectionately referred to as 'Itano's Circus.'

At the same time, fire from the FA-31's twin forward railsaws erupted into the sky, cleaving one of the nuclear missiles into giblets almost instantaneously as it crossed the firing line in an attempt to evade one of the interceptor missiles.

Three down.  Three to go.

The AI in the remaining warheads swiftly caught up to the change in tactics, and began to dump their built-in chaff ropes.  Angel wing patterns of burning magnesium and metal chips blossomed from all three weapons as they pushed into ever more complex loops and turns, exploiting their massive thrust to weight ratio, and sleek profiles to the maximum degree possible.

West picked a single primary target, and began a right barrel roll to put his guns in a more advantageous position.  The warhead reacted by violently braking, deploying drag fins and disabling its main engine briefly.

In defiance of any conventional logic, let alone the Human programmed subroutines of a Human-template AI, West juked the stick back violently, pulling the inverted Falx's nose towards Earth, and placing it directly on a collision course with the decelerating warhead.

AI did not panic, but when confronted with extremely sudden and violent changes to the environment, with very little lead time to cope, they were prone to simplified snap decision making.  West was counting on that.

The warhead juked hard to avoid a collision, reigniting its engine rapidly to gain more control authority, and to lessen the closure rate to the nose of the Falx.  In the process, it failed to take into account one of West's missiles, and the two objects met in a sudden bright orange fireball.

The Colonel had already begun an inverted climb, combined with a partial aileron roll, and heavy acceleration, placing the Falx just outside the damage sphere of the explosive collision.

Two tones and a glowing indicator on the holo-HUD spoke to the demise of missile number five.  West had ordered two thirds of his remaining missiles to focus on a single warhead post-launch, ensuring that its defenses would be overwhelmed through sheer numbers.

Pushing further into the aileron roll and going nose-down, the Lupine pulled the jet back to level, and pressed the throttle to highest afterburn position once more.  The last warhead, having evaded its pursuing missiles, had resumed a trajectory back towards its original target.

With a slight smirk, West pulled back on the gun trigger, and began to waggle the wings slightly, causing the slugs to disperse in unpredictable patterns downrange.

The warhead was prepared for the incoming stream of fire, but not the random nature of the spread.  Two rounds caught up with it, tearing through a steering fin violently.  It was enough.

West began a gentle turn outwards, before rolling and banking back inwards, flanking the crippled missile from its right side.  The target profile was pitifully easy to acquire, and then to fill with enough superheated tungsten to render the nuclear warhead safely nonexistent.

Red fire reflected from the canopy, West's icy eyes, and the frightening pure white of his fangs.

"SD Control, Menace one-five;  Splash six warheads.  Proceeding to original objective."





Neyla

I could feel my heart stop as the Wisp's tail bit deep into Fyrenn's armor, lodging somewhere between his ribs.  I prayed it wasn't embedded in something vital.  It looked to me like it might have collapsed one of his lungs, but we could operate without one of those for quite some time without too significant a decrease in strength.

The pain must have been unimaginable.  His wounded shriek, something he rarely did even under intense duress, spoke to that fact.  The sound locked my own lungs in shards of ice that felt as if they might as well have been real, actual crystals, rather than a simple manifestation of a 'FIGHT' response, paired with a sympathetic bond resonance.

Those who truly love must share each other's hurts.  Physical and emotional.

A snap decision flew from my mind to my left claw in less time than it would have taken light to travel the same distance.  'Tachyonic neurons' was Skye's term for the mechanism behind the supposed physics violation.  Apparently Humans still believed nothing could conventionally travel faster than light, even though a Gryphon brain inside an MRI had beaten a fiber optic cable years previous by a factor of nine.

For all their incredible imagination, Humans certainly seemed sure of themselves when it came to physics.  Too sure sometimes.

I felt the sword leave my talons as my muscles moved in considerably less physics violating timeframes, though no less astounding to most creatures, zipping along a perfect shallow arc to embed itself in the Wisp's side just as I closed the now emptied claw on the back of my enemy's throat.

The Troll was monstrous, easily one of the largest I'd ever encountered, to the point of his own detriment.  He was frighteningly strong, and it would be no exaggeration to say his muscles were equivalent to medium carbon ceramic armor in their density.  

But he was slow as tree sap in the dead of winter, and had no sight lines beyond his immediate forward quarter.  A place no sane enemy would stand, given the size of his claws.  I'd been forced to allow him to hit me glancingly once to bring him into melee range, and my right wing joint was still completely numb, even under the armor.

At least it still functioned, and there was no pain.  Yet.

I'd shattered his faceplate with my pistol's butt in exchange, crumpling the expended weapon, and freeing the Troll's jaws to work as weapons on his behalf.  But also making his face vulnerable.

Leaping onto his back with my new clawhold to anchor me, I caught sight of Fyrenn once again, pulling my second sword free in an arc that bisected the Wisp's tail handily, and opened the weapon's second hidden short blade at the same time.  The motion left part of the bony limb still hanging out of him, even as he then plunged his own sword, held in his off-claw, down hard into the Wisp's head.

The force was enough to shatter its helmet, and knock off its lower jaw to the floor.  I barely had time to watch Fyrenn begin his follow through with the back-blade of my sword, combined with the ripping and tearing motion of his own beak.  I had my own kill to make.

With a twist of my claws, I buried my talons deep into his spine, piercing his thin neck armor, and the weakest sinews over the second vertebra.  Leftover habits and training from my time as a Scalebuster;  I knew exactly how to kill something with a mostly impenetrable hide, and a truncated range of motion as compared to mine.

The motion sent shockwaves through his nervous system, forcing his head back, and his jaws open in a yowl of pain that was far louder than Fyrenn's.  Satisfaction shot through my breastbone like white-hot meade. 

Yes you bastard mutt;  Feel your spinal column rattle and twist.  You think you're going to kill me because you're bigger, but your bulk is going to kill you in the end.  And you deserve it.  You raised arms against me.  And the one who I'd have as my mate.

No painless end for you.

I drove my remaining sword's front-blade deep into the open maw the Troll's throaty scream had provided, intentionally angling the curve of the alloy to ensure it wouldn't kill him with a painless instantaneous slice of the brainstem, nor swiftly with a prick to the carotid.  Instead the edge plunged deep into his airway, releasing a flow of capillary blood that gushed forth with nearly the same intensity as a major vessel.

With a slight push, the blade's tip mauled the valve controlling the access to the Troll's stomach, and lungs, allowing the blood I'd set loose to cascade into both like a firehose.

As he moved to close his jaws reflexively, I pulled back on the sword.  His jaws snapped shut, but not around my foreleg as he had planned.  I could feel my sword blade split his tongue, and savage the roof of his muzzle as I continued to pull it out, razor edges ensuring minimal friction in spite of his immense bite force, which only served to wreck his own snout irreparably.

As the weapon came free I vaulted backwards, giving him a push to the deck, and allowing the tip of the curved sword blade to split the end of his muzzle in the process.  I knew those nerves were as sensitive as any part of their biology, and the pain would cause his heart to pump even faster, making the torrent of blood filling his lungs, and stomach, that much worse.

He ceased to be a threat almost instantly, gripping his throat and spluttering great torrents of his own life out of his muzzle onto the catwalk plating in a vain attempt to stem the reverse flow that was drowning him on his own fluids.

I relished the short pause the other two Trolls displayed in spite of themselves as I stepped over their commander's writhing, whining not-quite-yet corpse.  They were no pushovers, and for them to show hesitation meant that I'd scared them.  Not an easy feat.  But one I relished.

We were down to two Wisps, not counting the thing inside Astris, and two Trolls.  But I knew our odds were not much improved.  We'd taken injuries, and expended weapons just reaching that point.  Even if we won the claw-to-paw-to-tail fight, which was far from certain, we almost definitely would not manage to do so before Astris finished his foul work.

They would win the war, even if we won the battle.

My eyes flicked to the doorway leading to the inside of the antimatter fuel bottle closet.  I had one grenade left.  If I gained entry, I could use it to force an explosion early, one that would set off the fail safes that Astris still hadn't disabled, resulting in all the antimatter being blinked out of existence safely.

But I knew exactly what that maneuver would cost me.  To get the door open, I'd have to take near-fatal injuries.  To get the grenade past Astris' potential defensive spells, or simple impetus to throw it back, I'd have to deliver it myself, and hold it there until the end.  I wasn't at all sure the Genesist armor, particularly in a weakened mid-battle state, could hold off the force of a point-blank grenade enough to protect me from fatal shrapnel injuries.

A risk that would be worth it, no matter the outcome.

I let loose with a war cry that shook the floor grating, and made to charge the access hatch.  But The move turned out to be an excellent opening distraction for our backup, rather than a prelude to a sacrifice play.

"SURPRISE MOTHERBUCKERS!!!"

Radiant blue pulses zipped over my head, just clearing the space between my ears, and triggering a reflexive duck.  I dug in my back paws and fired my suit's thrusters to shift my momentum away from the antimatter access door, and towards Fyrenn's opponent, who was still hanging on by a thread, locked together with him in a grim embrace.

My vision cone came around enough to see Skye, magic shield raised ahead of her, the soft blue glow of interlocking hexagonal energy parting in tiny organized holes as her spellweave automatically opened brief pinprick firing windows to accommodate the blasts from her pistol, and Aston's carbine.

Aston herself was fully armored up, and holding down the trigger on her carbine in fully automatic mode, lance after lance of particle energy peppering the two Troll's who I'd so badly frightened only moments before.  Skye's more accurate shots following on to each new breach in their armor that Aston's heavier weapon created.

God above bless their perfect sense of timing, and grant them protection.  Sisters of mine in spirit, and battle, if not in blood.  In my ledger, that kind of rescue completely balanced out any mild resentment I felt towards Aston for her reaction to the way Fyrenn had acted to save Alyra.

"AY'YAR AD'N'HARST! GHYU BUAI'DH A T'HOI A'YAR MA F'THR'ACHEN AG'MA KOMP'AN'ACH!"

The loose Human common-tongue translation of my ear-shattering war cry would have been "Forward to Victory, my sisters and my mate!"

I knew the slip in reference to Fyrenn was coming, but did absolutely nothing to stop it thundering out.  I knew Aston wouldn't understand.  Skye might bother to translate it for herself later if she remembered.  Fyrenn was getting better at old Gryphic, so he might catch it.

And I hoped he did.

As I cannoned talons first into his opponent he let loose a wordless battle cry of his own, digging in deep with his beak between the horrid creature's wing-roots to stop it moving out of the way.  Between the tearing of his beak, and the slashing of my claws, the thing and its armor both simply collapsed into a wriggling heap of bone and crushed basalt crystal.

The wisp inside rose, as the first had, and I sent it on its way with a loud hiss.  To my surprise, Skye caught on to the opportunity of the moment, and loosed some sort of spell from her horn, concurrent to a blast from her pistol.

The twin energies struck the Wisp's ethereal form at exactly the same moment.  Perfect time-on-target execution as the Humans call it.

With a scream of unholy rage and pain, the combined energies began to slowly vaporize the writhing creature as it thrashed in the hold of Skye's magic, suddenly unable to move to complete its escape, panicking as the combination of the spell, and the particle energy, rent its own true self asunder in ways it had thought itself immune to.

For the first time ever in battle with them, few enough opportunities though I'd had, I saw the last armored Wisp pause, rooted in place as if what had just happened dealt it a physical shock.  My own shock ran deep as I whipped my head around to see the demon in Astris had paused his work as well, stolen muzzle held agape in shock.

"OH YEAH?!  How about THAT?  I can KILL YOU OUTRIGHT you piss-brained little energy clouds!  COME ON!!!"

Fyrenn chuckled weakly, wincing as the action exacerbated the pain in his collapsed lung.  He offered me a knowing smile, then called out to Skye as he rounded on the remaining Wisp with his sword, tossing me my second blade in the same smooth pivoting motion.

"Skye?  I name you an honorary Gryphon, and worthy of any legendary title we could bestow."

His next words were delivered to the Wisp as he brought his sword back to ready position in a two clawed grip.

"You heard the lady.  Come and die Ssh'Le'khar."

My heart always skipped a beat, and it put fire in my wing edges when my love used Gryphic curse words correctly.





Hutch

"You go with her, the kid and I have got this!"

My own words still rang in my ears, even though Aston and Skye had booked it for the engine room more than a minute earlier.  At least we were much closer than the forward torpedo room.  There was a chance they'd get there in time.

Alyra paced back and forth between the bridge and the ops room slowly.  I could feel her tension radiating like heat.  And more than a little of my own, actually radiating as heat and sweat besides.

It brought a completely unwanted, and far too amusing question to my mind.  The brain's usual weird way of trying to cope with combat stress.  Did Gryphons sweat?  I'd never seen sweat on them, not that I could conclusively identify as sweat anyways, usually by the time Gryphons reached a point where you'd think they might sweat, there'd be a lot of bodily fluids caked on them.  Usually blood.  Usually their enemies' blood.

Multiple tones and a whole mess of red text started coming out of the data link Skye had cobbled together, breaking the chain of lighter thought instantly.  

I knew enough to parse most of it, but it was Brendt over the comm who solidified it all for me in one concise summary that made me wish I hadn't gotten out of bed that morning.

"Hutch.  GMCC just put out a hit list of priority A-RAC and Nuclear targets.  You're on it.  So are we.  And JRSF's New Centcom on San Cristobal.  And the new Conversion Bureau Network Headquarters in San Francisco.  Strategic missiles are already airborne, they're still positioning the A-RACs.  But it won't be long."

God dammit.

It was finally here.

The day the Human race decided to actually properly go and fuck ourselves.  Intentionally.

"Bastards.  Targeting the rebuilt SF Bureau tells you all you need to know about those sick Equestrophobic fucks they have in charge over there now.  What's the play for ya'll?"

I gripped the Captain's station until my knuckles turned white as Brendt's voice washed over me.  Something about a crash dive for the battle group.  That would definitely do it as far as saving their skins.  They were a symbolic target, it didn't matter if they were actually hit now, or later.

A pickle on the back of my neck brought my eyes up.  Alyra.  Those twin gold orbs bored into mine with an expression I couldn't even begin to unpack completely.

I could see rage, for her former masters, unwittingly doing their dead level best to cut her life short yet again in the process of trying to kill off Humanity's best shot at survival as a species, genetically speaking.

Love, too.  For her family, for her fellow beings of all stripes.  For me, as part of her extended family.

Sadness.  Finality.  A pure and burning core of grit that promised to fight to the end.

The kid had seen so much.  Been put through so much...  It was not fair for her to have suffered so much at Human hands, only to die at those same hands, in the process of trying, in spite of everything to save them.

I'd seen what they'd done to her.  The metal spikes laid into her spine.  I'd seen the guncam recordings of what they'd done to her sister.  Forced myself to watch every last second.

I'd seen what had happened to the San Fran Bureau during the 'Vancouver Incident.'  Stupid name for an event that almost killed the entire population of two cities, would have stuffed the Earths climate worse than it already was, levelled a Conversion Bureau in a third city, and a military installation in a fourth, along with dozens of parallel smaller strike actions.

And I knew that the same bastards who had been party to those orders to strike were probably sitting in the new GMCC at the bottom of the Caribbean, and in a dozen other highly placed military command posts, smirking their bigoted faces off as all their deepest held wishes were coming true right in front of their eyes.

I blinked, and saw something else in Alyra's eyes.  The dim reflection of a little girl melting under the assault of a trillion tiny machines that had originally been designed to save life.  Newfoals, Newfledges, and other sundry civilians being dragged from the crater that had been the SF Bureau.  Smoke coming off the bodies of those that had been too close to the RAC shells that had atomized the building, but still far enough away to remain in one piece, and not well sheltered enough to avoid the overpressure and thermal shock.

The pall of concrete dust falling out of the atmosphere to coat the bodies of the children from three species who hadn't made it, mercifully few though they had been.  

Hell...  One was too many.

Fuck that.  

Not again.  Not on my watch.

We were not toothless in this fight.

"JANET!"

Martins strode into the room with her usual commanding, confident gait.  Nothing stopped that woman when she was angry.  And I needed her to be very, very angry.

"Unlock the HASPs."

She blinked, then blinked again, processing my request.  I prodded again, feeling the tingle of blood leaving my fingers as I gripped the railing even harder.  My stomach lurched.  How much time was left, really?  How long ago had the fire commands been given?

"All the remaining enemies are in the power core.  It's a low risk maneuver as far as accidentally granting them any system level control.  Janet, if we don't do something?  Tens of thousands of people are going to die in the next five minutes.  Us included.  Genesis waves two through the end, included.  A hell of a lot more in the next five days.  And then the rest of the goddam Human race in five months when the Gryphons find out what happened, get their armies together, and finally decide we're not worth saving because we fired NUKES at CHILDREN from HALF A DOZEN DIFFERENT SPECIES.  We have to stop this war before it starts.  Do those antimatter torpedoes have an atmospheric flight rating?  Do they have an intercontinental range?"

I all but knew the answer.  No way you could design a weapon to hit something half a solar system away, and it not have the range to hit a pin on the other side of the map.

Martins nodded slowly, and inhaled deeply, holding up a hand.  The woman's patience was gonna kill me with an aneurysm before the nukes did.  Didn't she know the clock was running?

"Yes, Hutch.  They have the range, the equipment for atmospheric flight...  And the yield to kill anything on the planet, no matter how buried, or armored.  But you are asking me to fire two antimatter weapons.  The first two antimatter weapons ever actually used on Earth.  Against Humans.  Against the Earthgov military.  Who have no idea that we've built these weapons.  Do you understand what the repercussions from this will be?  For Genesis?  For the JRSF?  For the Accords?"

I rammed a fist into the console, working as hard as I could with the other hand to call up telemetry from our hardlink onto the bridge holodome.

"Do you see that Councilor?  That's two dozen nuclear missiles with MIRV tips carrying six warheads each.  FOUR of them are targeted to the San Francisco Conversion Bureau for CHRIST'S SAKE!  Do you have any idea how many people twenty four warheads will kill, and not just in the Bureau, even if they have set those to the lowest possible yield?  Half of San Francisco is about to be vaporized! The safe self-destruct can be triggered right up until the last five seconds of flight.  What else does JRSF have access to that could threaten GMCC, tucked away on the bottom of the ocean?  It's this, or DIE!  And we, you and I, would deserve the Hell we'd shortly find ourselves in if we let those innocents go with us, without putting up a FIGHT!"

She pierced me with her eyes.  Steel in the rain, backed by flashes of lightning.  Then her gaze shifted to Alyra.  Fire, and lightning, some kind of understanding passing between them at lightspeed.  

And then, merciful Lord finally, she nodded.

"Computer.  Recognize Martins, authorization Pi one one three eight.  Rescind weapons lockout for torpedo munitions."

Her gaze flicked back to me, and I almost flinched.  Almost.  I could sense her frustration, but also her pragmatism.  She knew how it was all going to unfold if we did nothing, and thankfully she was the sort who accepted facts quickly.

"It takes dual authentication to fire the weapons at a surface target.  We meant them for starship defense.  Not for all out planetary war.  Any two recognized officers will do."

Alyra moved to stand beside the Unicorn at tactical.  The poor thing skidding sideways as if hit by magnetic force.  Not so much afraid of the little Gryphoness, I figured, as he was of the idea that he'd be asked to do the deed.  

I wondered how much of Alyra's willingness was about sparing that Unicorn a terrible choice, and how much about defending those she loved.  And how much might be about some vengeance for her sister.

All valid reasons as far as I was concerned.  I knew a lot of my former colleagues had been the political, Humanist types.  Probably knew how bad their logic was, and how trashed their morals were, deep down.  But I'd never really accepted how far gone they were.  Never admitted it to myself.

Until now.

I nodded, and began entering authorization commands into the Captain's console as Alyra did the same on the tactical station.  Her Dad was canny.  He'd seen to it that she carried a set of officer's tactical command codes.  His trust was well placed.

I swallowed to try and get some moisture into my mouth and throat, and did my best to speak with more firmness and assurance than I actually felt.

"Acting Captain Terrance Hutchinson;  Antimatter surface deployment authorized. Gray five over beta two, JRSF Echo two seven two.  Strike."

A piercing alarm sounded, and the bridge alert lighting pulsed in acknowledgement.  I nodded to Alyra.  The kid didn't hesitate.  Her voice was like iron striking on iron.  Not even the tiniest hint of a quaver or hitch.

"Acting Tactical Officer Alyra of Kh'yn'eos;  Antimatter surface deployment authorized.  Red seven over gamma four, Genesis Gamma nine eight five one.  Strike."

That ear splitting sound again, and then an acknowledgement from my panel.  I tapped out a series of coordinates, then looked back at the Gryphoness.  Seeing her there, backlit by the combat alert lighting, armor slightly singed, eyes on fire with a controlled, justified rage, I decided that maybe she wasn't a kid at all anymore, affection I meant by the term notwithstanding.

She was a huntress.  And she was ready to make the kill.

"The targets make sense?  And the warhead programming?"

She nodded in response, and made a few final adjustments on her panel, then looked back to me.  The certainty in her eyes was all I needed.  I nodded, inhaling slowly.

"Fire when ready."

Alyra tapped just three controls on the console, and I could feel the slight vibration beneath the deck, my head turning as if pulled by gravity to watch the two brilliant purple-blue lens flares of the weapons pull away into ballistic arcs.

"Weapons away."

I nodded, and tapped my comms panel.  Time for our demands.  Nothing too complicated.  Just 'stop being fucking war criminals.'

I decided simultaneously that I would phrase it exactly that way, and that it would be a fair request in exchange for stopping the fifty kilograms of antimatter in each warhead from wiping the entire Earthgov military command staff off the face of the planet.  Two gigatons and change a piece.  

Bigger than any nuke ever.  By a lot, if my math was right.

I just hoped, and prayed, that they would agree with my math.  

Or we would all burn.

Together.