//------------------------------//
// Fight Or Flight 
// Story: Friendship One 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

A sudden panic had gripped the war cabinet of Equestria when they learned of the direction of movement of the Griffon army. Why were they going south? Why were they heading for New Zebrica, the launch complex?

Were they trying to hijack the project? Did Grissom believe, as Celestia did, that the gamma ray burst really was coming, had he suffered a change of heart as the day drew near? Was he desperately trying to save his race, replace the crew of the Friendship One with Griffons somehow?

Or did the Griffons mean to stop the mission altogether? If we die here, we all die here as one? No survivors?

Celestia did not think Grissom believed. He certainly had not when she had given him the news of the impending disaster, and there was no reason to think he had changed his mind. It was just a power play, a chance for him to rule over a dead land in the minutes or hours he would have left before doomsday. A doomsday that she was convinced was coming, but the King was convinced would never happen.

So what were they trying to do?

A junior analyst in the photointelligence unit cracked it. She had received a bunch of photographs, still images of the advancing Griffon army's supply train taken by an Equestrian military satellite in orbit. There were three very large vehicles, the shadows of which upon the ground revealed they had ten wheels apiece. Low, flat, squat-bodied things, but with long cylindrical cargos atop their unjointed chassis. Missiles, aboard their transporters. 

Nuclear? had been Celestia's first question, to which the analyst had shaken her head.

"No, Your Highness. We believe them to be anti-satellite weapons."

There was an uneasy silence in the war room. 

"Then they want to destroy our last hope?" Celestia voiced what was on everypony's minds. "Why do they not just fire their missiles now and be done with it, if that is the case?"

"These missiles are too large, Your Highness," the analyst explained. "They cannot be fired from their transporters like some smaller medium-range missiles. We believe that the Griffons need to capture the launchpads at New Zebrica  to be able to fire them."

"They have their own launchpads," Luna pointed out. "Why not simply fire them from there?"

"Friendship One is in the wrong orbit," the Director of the ESEA chimed in, invited to the briefing because his facility was coming under threat, and now the final life's work of every member of his staff was in danger. "Griffonia's missile sites, their nuclear silos and their space center, are on the other side of the planet, quite literally. We deliberately put Friendship One into an awkward orbit, one we've never used much before except for testing. An inclined orbit, slanted at a 30-degree angle from the equator. An orbit that we have easy access to, but they do not. Not from their lands. The ship never crosses Griffonian territory as it orbits the planet. It remains over Equestria the entire time, and does not pass within line-of-sight of any Griffon missile base. The Griffonians put their space and missile facilities as far away from their border with Equestria as they could because they needed reaction time, in the event of nuclear war. They needed time to launch their missiles before they were destroyed in their silos. The same reason ours are out in the desert, far from the border. The difference is, the Griffon space programme is entirely under military command, so their space center is in the same place and for similar reasons. So we couldn't knock it out easily with a bombing run, stop them putting satellites up there."

"Surely they can manoeuvre their missiles after launch? Put them into the correct orbit?" Celestia reasoned. 

"They can, Your Highness," the analyst nodded. "But those manoeuvres are highly fuel-intensive. And these missiles...they are...different, we believe."

"How so?" the Princess demanded.

"They're carrying less fuel. Our intelligence told us when they first built their nuclear missiles some decades ago, the Griffons were investigating anti-magic warheads," the Chief of Staff of the Air & Space Corps replied, a big burly mare in a sky-blue uniform by the name of Storm Bringer. "They'd fit some kind of artefact at the tip, like a penetration aid."

That drew a few confused looks, so Storm Bringer continued. "Penetration aids are devices that are fitted to ballistic missiles to help them evade enemy defences. For example, chaff dispensers, inflatable balloons, radar jammers...anything that might trick a radar into targeting a decoy, or make an enemy commander think there are more incoming warheads than there really are. That kind of thing. The Griffons were working on an anti-magic warhead, one that could break through a magic shield. They needed to know they could destroy Canterlot, bypass its shield."

Celestia nodded. "Yes, I remember the briefings. You believe they have adapted this technology?"

"We believe it's possible, Your Highness," Storm Bringer nodded. 

"The telltale signature of one of these adapted weapons is a larger, more rounded warhead casing," the analyst added. "To accommodate the extra equipment, whatever, ah, artefact they might be using to produce a magic-nullifying effect. That extra weight and drag reduces the effective range of the missiles. We believe some of the propellent might have to be removed to accommodate the changes, too."

"So they have to bring their missiles to a place where they are within range..." Luna nodded. "They cannot fire them from their own territory and put them into the right orbit without running out of fuel."

"And they believe their anti-magic warheads can be effective against Friendship One," Celestia added.

"But how can they know that they even need it...?" Twilight, a small, confused voice from the side of the room.

"We told them," Celestia said bluntly. "We told the whole world. We had to. Everypony now knows that magic will protect the ship on its journey to New Equis. Not just providing propulsion, but safety, too, a shield against radiation and debris. The Griffons know we can protect the ship with magic because every sapient creature on this planet knows it."

"But why?" Twilight asked. As the newest, youngest Princess, she often stayed silent during important discussions such as these, but she felt the need to understand. "Why would the Griffons...if they didn't believe..."

"I think King Grissom may view it as a final snub against me," Celestia explained to her former student. "When I have spoken to him over the past few years, he has always said I was succumbing to madness. Building this ship, wasting resources and time, destroying our economy and society...he does not believe in what is coming. That is why he is invading. He knows we are weakened, and he thinks the whole world will be his to rule over."

"But why not just let the ship leave...?" Twilight demanded to know, to understand the inner workings of the mind of a Griffon sitting on his throne thousands of miles away.

"I think capturing Canterlot is not enough for him," Celestia replied. "He can take the city, he can try to kill or capture us. He can do all that, but I think he wants me to see what he views as my 'pet project' going down in flames before he does so. Perhaps he thinks it will break my mind. Perhaps he thinks it already broken. Mind games, Twilight, something Chrysalis and Discord both well understood. It seems Grissom enjoys similar proclivities."

"His vanity threatens to doom us all..." Luna pointed out harshly. "Can the ship be protected, General?" she asked Storm Bringer. "Will the shields hold if we raise them now?"

"In truth, Your Highness?" the grey mare looked at her Princess. "I have no idea. We don't know what kind of artefacts they may have installed in those missiles. They've never been used against actual magic before. Might just bounce off, might tear right through and destroy everything."

"Then we must not let them test their missiles on an actual live target," Celestia pronounced. "The remaining launches...how many?"

"Eight more, Your Highness, to get everypony and all equipment aboard," the ESEA director informed her. "Two on the pad at Hoofburg, two on the pad at New Zebrica, four on barges, waiting."

"How fast can you get those barges to Hoofburg?"

"Two days, Your Highness, plus another twelve hours and change to get them set up and ready," he replied to Celestia.

"Do it," she ordered. "All launches are to proceed from Hoofburg. General Mayflower? Order every willing and able unit to move and defend New Zebrica space complex. General Storm Bringer? Keep satellite coverage over the enemy supply column and send every aircraft you have to destroy those anti-satellite missiles while they are still on their transports."




With only three days left until G-day, Storm Bringer was not able to scrounge up all that many aircraft for her strike against the Griffon convoy. Two squadrons of ground attack aircraft, squat and ugly with weapons hanging from pylons beneath like decorations on a Hearth's Warming tree. Three squadrons of fighters, sleek and deadly, to provide air cover. One mostly intact squadron of heavy strategic bombers, delta-winged giants usually kept in readiness for nuclear war. There were hundreds more aircraft dotted across various bases, but not the crews to fly them. Desertions had decimated the Air Corps so close to the end of it all, even more so than the army, because there had seemed little for the pilots to do. At least the army could keep order in the streets. Performing a bombing run to put an end to a gang shooting seemed a little like overkill, even now.

While a strong line of soldiers and tanks tried to keep the Griffon tide at bay, the aircraft crept in, flying nap-of-the-earth where possible, clinging to the ground like foals to their mothers, blending their radar signature with that of the ground in the hope of avoiding detection. The convoy's position was relayed to the pilots by the latest satellite pass. Twenty miles ahead. The first of the fighters popped up over a line of steeply rising hills, and all hell broke loose.

Each aircraft found itself suddenly painted by dozens of tracking radars. Their warning receivers buzzed in the pilots' ears. The Equestrian military might have been threadbare now, but the Griffons were still working at full capacity. A Griffon AWACS aircraft had tracked the Equestrian force all the way from their formation point, where each squadron had joined up with each other, circling several hundred miles to the west of their target, before dropping down to low-level for the actual approach. Its crew had vectored four squadrons of fighters into the area, each of which had eight aircraft, each of which carried eight missiles. On the ground, protecting the convoy, was an entire air-defence regiment, with several dozen truck-mounted missile systems and combination gun/missile systems mounted on tank chassis. It was not a fair fight; the Griffons had expected such a response.

The Equestrians broke formation, their fighters climbing to engage and distract the Griffon interceptors so that the ground-attack aircraft could do their work. But there were simply too many enemies. Even with their sophisticated targeting computers capable of tracking several dozen targets at once, the Equestrian fighters could only launch what missiles they had slung beneath their wings, and then they were down to their rotary cannon and its limited supply of ammunition. Though they brought down a dozen enemy aircraft, they in turn were annihilated, missiles tearing through the thin metal of their wings and the vulnerable bodies of the pilots within. The ground-attack planes, keeping low and hugging the ground, were still brought under fire, losing eight aircraft before they got anywhere near the convoy. Even as thy drew closer, they ran into another wall of missiles being put up by the ground escorts. At the first sign of trouble, the detection of the incoming raid by the Griffon AWACS, the anti-satellite missiles upon their transporters had been quickly shuttled into shelter at the edge of a wooded copse, where infrared-proof camo netting had been hastily pulled over them to cover their tell-tale visual profiles. Even if any of the attacking aircraft had reached the target, they probably would not have even been able to find the missiles anyway.

The few survivors milled around, circling behind protective hills, their fuel running down, time running out. With the fate of the entire species at stake, they charged forward anyway, bravely cutting toward the convoy in desperation, pumping out chaff and spitting flares like a firework display. The lumbering heavy bombers, operating far below their designed altitude, were not exactly cut out for this type of work. Streams of cannon fire from the ground tore through them, rapid-fire 30mm guns on mobile tracked vehicles unleashing a hundred or more rounds per second. Spaced out miles from the convoy, these vehicles also carried short-range missiles, which they used to devastating effect against the surviving attack planes. Within two hours of takeoff, there were no Equestrian planes still in the air.

With the failure of the air attack, Princess Celestia now faced agony. If the Griffons reached New Zebrica, everything might be for naught. In less than 72 hours, the world would end, unless their magic could combine and somehow resist it. To do that, they needed all the Princesses, Starswirl, and the Elements of Harmony to all be in the same place, ideally Canterlot. But Griffon forces were making their way to the capital, and to the spaceport. If they captured New Zebrica, they might- only might, but that was more than enough- be able to destroy Friendship One. They did not have enough strength to defend New Zebrica for long enough- another day, maybe two if they were lucky. Then the Griffons would break through, roll up the wide boulevards of the city and the smooth concrete aprons of the spaceport, and shortly after that everything would be over.

There was only one course of action left that she could see might ensure the successful departure of Friendship One and its entire crew, but the time for that was not here yet- not quite.