Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 15th, Gregorian Calendar
"Vampire, vampire, vampire! All stations, TAO; Radiological detection! Nuclear missiles inbound!"
Brendt's head snapped reflexively in the direction of the Tactical Actions Officer as an ear-piercing alarm filled the North Carolina CIC, and red hues replaced the nominally colorless diffuse dim lighting of normal operations.
"REPORT!"
The Gryphon could see the man's abject terror; A ghostly gray-white pallor that had seized his skin like a sudden onset of disease. The officer's voice was vergant on panic.
"Orbital ground-strike missile fire detected! Late-phase trajectories! Twenty four warheads just entered the lower atmosphere!"
Brendt grit his beak, and felt a surge of 'fight' chemicals overtake his body as his mind ranged ahead to an immediate response, followed by questions of 'how,' 'why,' and the grim surety that no matter what he did, it would not be enough.
But try they would, nonetheless.
He reseated his wings, and barked out commands in a voice that could be heard two compartments over, even through baffled alloy walls.
"Calculate emergency intercept! All weapons release on all available targets!"
The TAO nodded, rekeyed his headset, and began typing feverishly at his console as he relayed and expounded on his orders, panic replaced with a steady combat cadence, and dispassionate tone in his voice.
"Fire Control, TAO; All batteries release on interception tracks Omicron Sierra one, thru twenty four! Break, break, Missile control, place forty eight Echo interception missiles into the VLS tubes and fire! Same tracks! Alight forty eight follow on same-type for the reload pool!"
Brendt did the math in his head, watching the twenty four red triangles descend on the central holotank.
Too little. Far too late.
The TAO's next words confirmed it.
"Fire control AI reports intercept window already closed... Impacts in seven seconds!"
Their railgun's best intercept time at the closest missile's range was fifteen, under ideal conditions.
The Captain gripped the tank's central rail, with one claw, and cycled his headset to the One-MC with the other.
If the unpredictable effects of nuclear strikes going off in proximity to the Barrier didn't send a wave of destruction their way, then the EarthGov Airforce certainly would soon enough.
"Crash Dive! Battlegroup; Initiate Crash Dive! Ahead, flank, and down, maximum bow plane extension! Batten down!"
As the North Carolina lurched into a forty five degree forward slant, and four different klaxons fired off in quick overlapping succession, Brendt's back claws dug reflexively into the deck plating. His right ear swiveled to catch the TAO's whispered words of horror as impacts began to register on the central holotank.
"Oh... *God...*"
He knew what the strike sites meant just as well as the TAO. With faster speed of thought, and years of tactical experience, his brain raced ahead to inescapable conclusions that made him feel sicker to his stomach than he ever had as a Human.
Brendt closed his eyes, and fought against the choking sensation of rage, and grief, in his throat.
There would be no coming back from *this* brink.
Millions of railgun rounds, and dozens of missiles poured from the North Carolina, and from every JRSF ship, aircraft, and installation with any line of sight to the incoming warheads.
Not one single round made it within a mile of its target.
Malakim had done its job exceedingly well, exactly as-designed.
The twenty four Nuclear Ground-Strike missiles were travelling too fast, on trajectories that would have been difficult to intercept even if they hadn't evaded detection until well after the viable firing solution crossover point.
The twenty four warheads hit their barrier retarder platforms at exactly the same nanosecond, time-on-target programming perfect to an almost immeasurable degree.
Twenty four identical one and a half megaton explosions blossomed into familiar shaped orange mushroom clouds.
The twenty four Barrier Retarder platforms designated as grounds-zero ceased to exist instantaneously, immolated at the atomic level by the fires of fusion unleashed.
Everything within two and a half kilometers of each of the blast sites then ceased to exist shortly thereafter, toasted by the thermal pulse, shredded by the overpressure wave... Or both.
In the colder or more remote parts of the world, the automated platforms were the only casualty of the blasts.
But in the more livable climate bands, some of the platforms were hosted by habited cities in the process of evacuation, or adjacent developed areas with easy access maglev lines.
And the Durham crossover point played host to the one and only official Barrier ingress point for Converts.
Hundreds of thousands of eyes, mostly Equestrian, turned upwards, as if by instinct.
Though the missile descended with a speed too great for conventional senses to register its passage before the incandescent flare of atomic fire, many Gryphons and Pegasi knew something was wrong nearly three full seconds prior.
Inexplicably, a significant number of the Human personnel, and residents in Durham looked up at the last moment as well, heads defiantly turned skyward in tandem to draw their last breaths.
The knowledge did none of them any good.
The Durham Crossover Point itself was mostly a tent city.
There was precious little in the way of blast-survivable spaces. Nothing that could shrug off a direct ground-level hit.
The flash vaporized the camp, and most of what was left of Durham itself, including the regional EarthGov Military Police headquarters, the Conversion Bureau, and the RDU Intraglobal Skyport.
For a tiny fraction of a second, to those with faster processing minds, the skeletons of Ponies, Gryphons, Dragons, Humans, and other Equestrians were all clearly visible together with the primary structural members of buildings, and vehicles, as everything else vanished in the byproducts of the fusion reaction unleashed.
The bones and alloys turned to dust in the next millisecond.
Unimpeded by the relatively flat terrain, the blast wave shot out in all directions with an unholy howl, shredding anything within two kilometers which the thermal pulse had not already reduced to ash, or slag.
Buildings, maglev tracks, vehicles, and people, were immolated, shredded, and then mixed into a turgid soup of base carbons, with the leftovers bathed in searing radiation.
Ejecta soared into the sky, and rubble flew in all directions, each piece with the force of a railgun round.
Orbital SatVision AI began to enter 'panic' mode as they watched the lights of half the North Amerizone East Coast wink out, along with a large portion of Europe, a quarter of Africa, and half of Central and South America, as power grids switched into emergency shutdown mode to protect against EMPs.
Inside the GMCC, and JRSF CentCom alike, synthesized AI voices atonally announced the carnage that had been unleashed.
"Nuclear detonation sites: Exeter. Bordeaux. Mediterranean Ocean. Qargha. Timbuktu. Kenema. Atlantic Ocean. Belem. Macapa. Ciudad Bolívar. Caracas. Kralendijk. Caribbean Sea. Fonds Des Negres. Baracoa. Nassau. Charleston. Durham. Akron. Sudbury. Fort George. Kimmirut. Baffin Bay. Norwegian Sea."
No one in either command center so much as moved, or even breathed, as the AI spoke out in what would have been almost perfect harmony if they'd shared the same room.
"Estimated Casualties: Nineteen million."
"Jesus CHRIST have mercy! What just happened?!"
General Sorven fumbled madly for her earpiece as CentCom's primary officer of the watch rose from his horseshoe shaped duty station console, and began to parse the information on the main holodome aloud with slack jawed horror.
"Twenty four Orbital Ground-Strike nuclear weapons were launched from an unknown source on the day-side of the planet... Their impact points were synchronized to the Barrier Retarder platforms."
From his position at the back of the room, General Arnshekh spoke out towards the ceiling, addressing the primary facility AI in a voice that sent chills down Sorven's spine, not because it was loud, or insistent, but because it was cold, calculating, and completely calm.
"Computer; Verify casualty projections."
Sorven closed her eyes and shuddered, collapsing backwards into her chair as the synthesized voice repeated the dire tidings it had spoken only moments before.
"Based on impact sites, wind conditions, geological information, population distribution and demographics, architectural blueprints, and initial blast telemetry, the twenty four detonations have caused approximately nineteen million immediate casualties. One to three million additional radiation, temperature exposure, and injury-related casualties are projected for the next twelve hours."
The General didn't need to turn her head, or open her eyes, to know that the next voice to fill the dead air of the CentCom command room was Seyal's.
Where the other three dozen personnel in the room were bound in iron bands of gut wrenching silence, regardless of species, and Arnshekh had spoken with cold clarity, Seyal instead voiced a barely contained fury that made Sorven's stomach turn almost as much as the number the AI had said aloud.
"They just committed an act of war. I move that we stand to Defense Condition One, and begin primacy-oriented first-strikes. Cut the heads off this damn beast. Once and for all."
Sorven exhaled slowly, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She said a silent, ashen prayer of gratitude that her sons were there with her in San Cristobal.
She knew full well that an untold number of sons and daughters... An untold number of children... Had just perished.
And it occurred to her that San Cristobal might be the next crater, depending on who had fired the Nuclear weapons, and why. And what they might do under the duress of retaliation.
And yet, she also knew what *had* to happen next. What response *had* to be given to such callous disregard for life. As much for the good of Humanity, as anyone else.
Sorven screwed up all the energy she could muster, but she felt that her voice still sounded almost defeated as two words escaped her lips.
"I concur."
From the back of the room, Arnshekh's voice rumbled forth, shaking the floor with his assent.
"As do I."
Sorven finally opened her eyes, and cast her gaze down to General Dappled Stratus. The Pegasus was weeping openly, face set like duracrete, but tears streaming from his eyes. He nodded slowly, trying to speak, and failing as his throat caught.
Oh dear GOD...
Sorven realized with an abrupt start that Stratus' father, mates, and four foals had been in Bordeaux, waiting to meet him for his upcoming leave...
Stratus inhaled deeply, shook himself, and then found his voice at last.
"I agree also."
Seyal reached out to type on her console with so much force, Sorven feared the plexiglass would break under the strain. She idly wondered just how many Equestrian citizens of various kingdoms had died in the blast... Enough that Celestia might not even protest as the Gryphons inevitably suggested, and then probably carried out, a no-quarter extermination of the EarthGov command structure?
Probably so, Sorven reflected grimly.
An all-call tone sounded from the CentCom PA, as the Gryphoness patched herself through to the main JRSF Command Comm-Loop.
As she spoke, she withdrew a thick physical steel plated binder from below her station, flicking it open to the appropriate location from memory, mainly for the sake of procedure. Sorven had no doubt the Gryphon General had every single jot and period of the EWO memorized.
"All posts, all posts, this is CentCom with a priority one message. Break, break. All posts, CentCom message for all JRSF and ConSec field commanders is authenticated as follows..."
Seyal shared a brief glance with Sorven, before setting her expression in fury, and assurance, reading the code-words from memory with a forceful, loud tone.
"Day Word: Pinafore. Action Word: Durendal. Authentication: JRSF Gamma. Romeo. Quebec. Two. Sierra. Niner. Six. Eight. Five. Two. Standby for new orders."
To her credit, the Gryphoness confirmed everything from her memory visually against the physical EWO as she continued.
"All posts; We are moving from Defense Condition Two, to Defense Condition One. JRSF CentCom is declaring Defense Condition One - War Footing. All Section Command Officers; Open your Emergency War Orders packets, and proceed to deployment strategy Onyx Five."
Seyal allowed the words to sink in for a moment, before completing the dispensation in staccato fashion, words hurled like darts at the microphone of her headset.
"All posts, all posts; Release of strategic railgun weapons is authorized on all primary EarthGov governmental, EAF, EarthGov Army, and EarthGov Military Police targets. No Quarter for any enemy Command Level assets and personnel. JRSF Commanding Officers with access to railgun and cruise missile weapons systems, select best-possible targets, as conditions permit, using strike package Jade Eleven from your EWO. Prioritize enemy Flag Officers, EarthGov Councilors, and Strategic Weapon launch points."
The fateful words finally spoken, Seyal cycled her headset to the Flag-level comloop, fixing Sorven with a furious stare, who's rage she knew was directed not at her, but at people thousands of kliks away.
"We have to make a statement. And we have to ensure they can not use the remainder of their strategic weapons against us. Ever again."
Sorven finally allowed her own tears release, and nodded silently. She knew precisely what Seyal was suggesting...
And God have mercy... She agreed with the order. Agreed with the rage, and the hatred, and the spirit of vengeance. Agreed with the spite, and the fury.
And, too, with the practicality.
As Seyal turned back to her console, Sorven switched her microphone over to the support staff loop.
"Start issuing immediate coastal evacuation orders for the Florida peninsula, the gulf of Mexico, the east coast of Central America, Cuba, Dominica, and the South American north coast. Send the emergency shutdown codes for all power grids in the western hemisphere."
Seyal's claws once again danced across the control keys of her station, opening a direct encrypted line to a new contact. She waited only long enough for the secure connection to be verified, before speaking out in a low, clear, slow voice.
"Shenzhou Actual, JRSF Centcom. Ace of Spades. Repeat; Ace of Spades."
"...Well, what *are* you supposed to do after you say something that foolish in front of the whole squad? I took it on the chin and laughed like the rest of 'em. I haven't lived it down to this day."
Amrys chuckled at the man's words in spite of herself. The blue and black Gryphoness had found Commander Watkins to be strikingly similar to the Humans she worked with in the JRSF, with an admittedly exceptional sense of humor. For a Human.
As the pair entered the Shenzhou's bridge, Amrys took a deep breath from the stream of hot air rising from the coffee mug clenched in her claws. Perhaps the boredom of the joint posting would be tempered by the opportunity to make new and unconventional friendships.
The Gryphon moved to take her station at the Shenzhou's main operations console, shaking her head, and permitting herself a smile as she exchanged a nod with first the Pegasus at the helm, and then the other EarthGov officer stationed at the engineering console.
Amrys turned her head to the right to glance again at the Pegasus manning the helm, and then out the main holodome. And the entire world came apart in an instant.
"Alert. Radiological detection. Missile Warning. Automatic defense procedures initiated."
Amrys' claws flew into a practiced, fluid series of commands as the shipboard AI trumpeted the warning again, and the alert lighting triggered. The Shenzhou's systems were not terribly different from the Naval warfare architecture she had trained on with the JRSF for several years.
"Missile Warning. Radiological Warning."
It took less than a full second for the Gryphoness to see and understand what had happened. Far less time than it would take to elucidate aloud. It only took another half second of contemplation to understand the implications.
Twenty four orbital ground strike nuclear missiles. Terminal-phase descent profile; Seven seconds to impact. No chances for interception, even with particle weapons. Target zones coinciding with the Barrier Retarder platforms.
It was excruciatingly painful, simple mathematics. Ice-cold, crystal-clear logic.
Amrys moved her left claw to her sidearm, raised the rail pistol to acquire her target, and disengaged the safety in a single smooth motion that escaped the notice of the other three beings on the bridge. Until the whine of the capacitor became audible in the midst of the shocked silence, drawing every single eye instantly.
She locked her gaze with Watkins for a single moment. Not quite a hesitation, so much as an intentional moment of connection. Amrys tried as hard as she could to convey her sentiment with her own eyes, even as she took the space of a single breath to utter it aloud.
"I'm sorry."
The report of the shot was deafening in the confined space of the bridge.
Amrys forced herself to watch in fully decelerated time as Watkin's expression morphed from shock, to fear, to a deeply sad acceptance in the space of just the single exhalation before the pull of the trigger.
She could comfortably take the risk of a moment to express her genuine sorrow.
But with Nuclear weapons falling on populated cities, the luxury of sparing Watkins' life was not one that she could justify. Split seconds would matter now. Billions of lives were at risk.
He had been her friend, and tenuous ally just a split second ago.
Now he was the enemy.
Leave no enemy standing.
She winced internally as Watkin's neck disintegrated outright. The JRSF was issuing Gryphons a specially designed side-arm meant for their larger claws. Though shaped much like a pistol, the weapon had the concussive kick of a Human-sized carbine.
Watkins' head and shoulders were unarmored, and Amrys' shot hit him directly where Gryphons were directed, by both instinct and training, to hit a Human target if possible; Right through the throat beneath the jaw, severing the airway, jugular, and the spinal nerve almost instantaneously.
A painless death, at the very least.
As the spark of her new friend's life vanished from his eyes, and his body began to succumb to the ship's artificial gravity in a slump, Amrys moved her weapon slightly to the left, and hit the second Human officer, a shy seventeen year old lieutenant who had introduced herself as Tanaka, in precisely the same spot.
The Lieutenant's expression seemed frozen at 'shock,' never quite making it to fear, anger, or sadness, as comprehension never had a chance to dawn on her for just why her life had so abruptly ended.
Amrys continued to hold the weapon in her left claw, pointing it at the connecting door to the CIC as she began to enter emergency override codes into her console. Ostensibly the joint position of JRSF and EAF on the Shenzhou was intended to prevent either side from using the ship purely for their own ends.
Councilor Martins had felt that EarthGov's motives were disingenuous, at best, and had seen fit to provide the senior JRSF officers with the top level debugging access codes for the ship's computer. Normally such a blatant security risk would have been scrubbed before spaceflight, but the Shenzhou had been pressed into service with a great many tasks unfinished.
In the end, that had turned out to be quite beneficial.
"Combat alert alpha. Arm all weapons, bring fusion reactors to emergency duty cycle, and standby engines."
As she spoke to the computer, Amrys disabled every other console on the ship, from engineering switchboards, to lighting control, with just four text-based commands, leaving the bridge as the only location with functioning connections to the ship's central processors.
The ship's AI began to atonally list nuclear detonation sites, and casualty projections as small pinpricks of incredibly bright light blossomed around the Barrier's perimeter, filling the holodome with a symphony of death, and suffering, rendered in miniature from their orbital perspective.
The Pegasus at the helm collapsed onto her haunches, and began to hyperventilate, eyes fixed as if by steel wires on the two Human corpses sprawled across the deck, and their severed heads resting in growing pools of blood.
Amrys snapped her head to face towards the panicking officer, and mustered the loudest, most deck-shaking shout she could extract from her lungs.
"PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER ENSIGN! WE ARE AT WAR! LIVES DEPEND ON US!"
The words seemed to have some effect; The Pegasus nodded silently, working hard to bring her breathing under control as she turned back to her console, her muzzle ashen with shock and grief.
"Y... Yes... ma'am."
With a hiss and the distinctive metallic clunk of a manual override, the doorway to the CIC popped open. Amrys waited just long enough to verify that the face in the hatchway was Human, and adjust her aim ever so slightly to account for the woman's shorter stature, before firing down her pre-established bearing.
As panicked sounds filtered out from the CIC, she stepped away from her console and placed both claws on the sidearm for stability, speaking calmly to the ship's AI as she moved to line up shots through the slit of the just barely-open doorway.
"Re-establish tracking of EarthGov Nightwatch aircraft. Start listening in on EAF commloops and begin tracking EarthGov stealth and high-value command and strategic assets with sensors."
Two more Human faces came into view, fumbling madly with their own sidearms. Their positioning was perfect, and with another pull of the trigger Amrys split both their skulls down the center with a single round.
"Shenzhou Actual, JRSF Centcom. Ace of Spades. Repeat; Ace of Spades."
Amrys barely paused to process both the message, and the positions of the remaining Human, and three Ponies in the CIC.
She adjusted her position once more, firing on her last target as she spoke only a single word into her headset.
"Acknowledged."
Her final round shredded the already damaged remains of the CIC's central holotank, before passing directly through the heart of the Human EAF officer that had been using it as a meager form of cover.
That left just herself, and five Ponies onboard. She holstered her pistol, and made her way forward purposefully to the helm, tapping the Pegasus on the shoulder as her eyes darted over the console, and assimilated all the information it had to offer.
"Take the others to the Shrike, and evacuate. Go directly to the secondary emergency rendezvous point in Okhotsk. Transponder off, and radio off. Make contact with CentCom once you arrive, and new deployment orders will be waiting for you. Do you understand?"
The Pegasus nodded, slowly at first, then with increasing certainty. She saluted meekly with one hoof, and then made her way aft to the CIC, muscling one shoulder into the hatchway and pressing to force a wider aperture.
With the survival of all other JRSF personnel handled, Amrys seated herself in the helm station's multispecies chair, and set about redirecting a short-claw access version of all ship functions and sensor information to the helm console.
After a few moments of careful examination, she tapped several controls in quick succession to re-establish encrypted communications with JRSF CentCom.
"CentCom, Shenzhou Actual; Ship is secure. Remaining JRSF crew has been issued evacuation instructions. I'm starting the contingency procedure now, my time to target is three minutes. Shenzhou's sensors have re-acquired both Nightwatch aircraft, as well as several EarthGov strategic assets which are in various pre-launch stages of preparation. Telemetry should be available to you now."
Amrys divided her attention between the auxiliary craft bay status board, and the main sensor plot as she waited for a response.
"Understood Shenzhou Actual. We are receiving your telemetry, and we will make good use of it. Sorv'ea Ch'adh anam bàs tei'run."
Success from your valiant death.
Hearing the old battlecry in Gryphic brought Amrys a small measure of comfort. For a response, she settled on a simple, timeless phrase that seemed to have an equivalent in every language, and every culture.
"Thank you Seyal. Good hunting."
As the Shrike departed, Amrys commanded the Shenzhou to pitch over and fire engines in a full burn retrograde maneuver, speaking up towards the bridge ceiling as the curvature of the Earth slipped from view, then reappeared.
"Plot and display a direct course for a ninety degree impact with the GMCC at Serranilla Bank."
"Pushback in two minutes! Nightwatch Two security details; Clear tarmac for pushback."
Councilor Sakai shuddered as the sounds of distant automatic railgun fire punctuated the PA announcement. Distant, but far too close for comfort. The forlorn wail of an emergency alert siren started up as her bodyguard practically pushed her through the security cordon, towards the waiting behemoth gray aircraft.
Sakai dug in her heels momentarily, frozen in place by the sound of a screaming child in the crowd of civilians that had quickly begun to mob the outer security perimeter.
The rest of Mumbai's intraglobal Skyport was under a ground stop. Civilians were smelling the smoke pouring up from the metropolis. Seeing the fires. Hearing the railguns. They weren't stupid. They knew more or less what the Nightwatch plane was.
The only hope of escape from a city suddenly wracked by the titanic forces of a furious, raging ground war.
Her bodyguard snagged her by the hen of her jacket, placing his other hand roughly on her shoulder and pushing with more than a little impolite force. James Torrens had never been one for subtlety. His voice reflected that almost as much as his stone-faced expression.
"Ma'am? With utmost respect... *Hustle.* This facility may very well be compromised. This aircraft leaves in one hundred fifteen seconds, with or without us on it. Councilors Couldoire, Sato, Liu, Williams, Michaels, and Endris are already aboard!"
Sakai shook herself, and complied in a daze, her mind ranging on from the panicked tear-filled faces of the civilian crowds, to much more immediate concerns as the pair dashed the hundred yards to the side of the aircraft.
The JRSF wasn't going to hurt anyone outside the EarthGov command and military structures. Whatever else the other Councilors might say, or think Sakai knew that for an absolute fact.
Frightened as the people beyond the stone-faced heavily armored MPs were? They were likely much, much safer than she was. Or her colleagues.
"Have you been able to reach Councilors Miyagi or Finch?!"
Torrens shook his head as he practically lifted Sakai onto the airstair. Two waiting EAF officers more or less yanked her into the belly of the aircraft, and then Torrens behind her in turn.
As another noncom ushered them towards their seats, and began to belt them in with five point safety harnesses, James finally managed a response.
"Agents are canvassing right now, but early reports suggest they may be cut off by fighting in the city center. JRSF forces have seized all maglev stations, VTOL and Sea Ports already, and the Military Police report that they're taking catastrophic losses. Mumbai is a loss at this stage."
Sakai could feel her blood freeze in her veins. The attack had only begun ten minutes ago! How in the name of all that was Holy could EarthGov have lost an entire city in that time?!
"Can we do *anything* for them?!"
Torrens shook his head, and began cinching down his safety harness as the noncom moved to work on Sakai's.
"Even if they could find them in the next minute, they won't be able to make our flight. They'll have to take whatever transport their agents can acquire for them. If they're still alive."
The final four words got Sakai's attention more than even the assertion that Mumbai was lost. She stiffened, and fixed Torrens with a searing questioning gaze, lips pinched in a thin line somewhere halfway between panic, and resignation.
Torrens sighed, and acquiesced to the unspoken request.
No sugar coating.
"It's very early stages, ma'am... But reports are already coming in that the JRSF are targeting both Flag officers, and Councilors. With extreme prejudice."
Sakai sat back in her seat, hard, the air whooshing out of her lungs as if she'd been struck in the ribs with a baseball bat. After a moment, she gathered the energy to speak, the words as much a quiet statement of loss and sagness, as a worried fearful question.
"They declared no quarter on us?"
Torrens nodded slowly, listening to something in his earpiece before elaborating in an almost mechanical voice.
"GMCC is preparing to launch a full scale Nuclear retaliatory strike on all cities and installations that are reporting losing ground. Including Mumbai. They hope to take out enough of the JRSF in the process to allow the EAF to establish a defensive cordon around more Human-skewed population centers."
Sakai felt the ice in her blood give way to a fiery flood of objection. She pressed against her safety harness, almost by reflex, as the sound of immense spooling jet turbines began to fill the cabin.
She shouted to make herself heard as a soft klaxon joined the thundering noise of the engines.
"As soon as we are airborne, I want you to go to the SCIF. Signal the GMCC and revoke their Consular authority outright, on my emergency authority! Then get me a direct line to Janet Martins. She's as close as we have to a neutral party, she might be able to get us a diplomatic conduit setup to negotiate a surrender!"
The look Torrens gave her made Sakai angerier, if anything; The man's dumbfounded confusion, and stubbornness when confronted with the obvious, was infuriatingly endemic to the Human military mentality.
Somehow Sakai had known it would be the death of them all one day.
She hated being proven right.
"Ma'am?! You can't be ser--"
The Councilor cut her bodyguard off with a fury which he was very much not used to, mixed with a certainty that was far more familiar.
"We are *not* going to win a war by nuking our *own* cities! The Equestrians will never forgive us, and no matter how many of them we kill today, they will always have the more advantageous position! If they really wanted to kill us all? The only thing they'd have to do is deny us entry outright! We *can't* win this! We have to turn this damn thing off James! Before---"
Sakai's objections, Torrens' misgivings, and the roar of Nightwatch Two's immense turbines vanished in an expanding wall of white-hot light and sound, as four thousand medium tonnage bombardment railgun slugs lit into the aircraft mercilessly as they simultaneously reached the inexorable end of their long parabolic hypersonic arc.
The civilians and MPs at the hundred yard cordon around the vehicle instinctively ducked, the maneuver turning into a mad screaming scramble for safety that was largely unnecessary.
The weapons targeted at Nightwatch two had been selected by mass, and composition, and fired from the Battleship Tohoku with precisely enough energy, to vaporize the aircraft and everything within twenty yards, while impacting with an angle that would minimize shrapnel, and concussive forces to anything beyond fifty.
Specifically tuned to avoid collateral damage. But to leave no chance of survivors at ground zero.
As the fireball faded, and dazed MPs began to pick themselves up off the pavement, all that remained of Nightwatch Two, and her passengers, was a sixty yard wide smoking glass crater.
Force Captain Sommers was just beginning to wonder if that damn Gryphon's words about tracking the Nightwatch planes had been an empty threat, when an insistent alarm pierced the relative calm of Nightwatch One's flight deck.
The aircraft's first officer read, then re-read the computer's report. Sommers could see the answer to her question over his shoulder. She sat back in her jumpseat, and extracted her electronic cigarette from her uniform's breast pocket, flicking the device on, and placing it between her lips as the first officer finally managed to fire off a panicked report.
"SIR!! We just received the emergency loss-of-aircraft signal from Nightwatch Two!"
Sommers shrugged, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply from the cylinder clutched in her teeth, speaking quietly around it more for her own benefit, than that of the panicked lieutenant.
"So. They weren't bluffing after all."
As fear seized on the pilot, and the rest of the deck crew, alarms began to blare, and orders were feverishly shuted, parroted, and then executed.
The jet's engines changed pitch abruptly, as did the angle of the floor beneath Sommers' feet.
All completely pointless.
She took another depe pull from the cigarette, and winced, thinking about the forty six Councilors in the aft compartments of the aircraft.
"Godammit.""
The word was delivered with an almost casual dispassion. The voice of a woman who knew she was already dead, and could do absolutely nothing about that fact.
As Sommers tensed to inhale one last time, her world vanished in a cacophony of shrapnel, plasma, and raw kinetic energy bled off as heat and light.
Fifteen thousand heavy bombardment railgun rounds from the battleship Falkirk pierced Nightwatch One and her escorts mid-air with an inescapable cloud of tungsten alloys moving at mach fifteen, landing less than twenty seconds after the rounds that had obliterated Nightwatch Two.
In less than thirty seconds, over a third of the EarthGov Council perished, cut down by weapons that they themselves had voted to authorize, fund, build, and transfer into the hands, claws, and hooves of the officers that had pulled the triggers.
The war was less than fifteen minutes old.
"We're getting *KILLED* out here!"
"We just lost our lead bird! VTOL Kilo two niner is DOWN!"
"Oh my GOD!"
"Defense grid in sector thirteen just went offline! We have multiple airborne pings INSIDE the Vancouver aerial defense grid!"
"Mayday mayday mayday! EAF three seven niner heavy is---"
"ALERT! GMCC this is Vancouver central! Multiple cruise missile strikes have hit the Seaport, Skyport, and the EarthGov complex! We have Councilors down!"
"EurCom, this is Wroclaw MP HQ; We need *immediate* backup! We're being overrun! There's a Dragon in the building, and--- AAUUUUGHHH!!!"
"No. Oh... No... No... NO! This *can't* be happening!"
"Phoenix contingency has been declared. EarthGov Military Police section chiefs; Proceed to emergency deployment strategy Snowman Three."
"Military Central, this is Lima EarthGov complex; What the FUCK are you doing out there?! We need AIR SUPPORT! We have multiple Gryphons and Pegasi bringing down our Consular evacuation transports!"
"GMCC One-loop, GlobeInt AI; Strategic Naval Railgun impacts detected on Military Facilities; Mumbai. Vancouver. Lima. Los Angeles. Seattle. Tokyo. Sydney. Hong Kong. Tehran. Athens."
"There's still PEOPLE down here! HELP US!"
"GMCC One-loop, GlobeInt AI; North Amerizone power grid has entered a commanded fault-interrupt state. Loss of signal from Nightwatch Two. Lima EarthGov Consular Complex. Vancouver EarthGov Consular Complex. Tokyo EarthGov Consular Complex. EAF bases in Seattle. Los Angeles. Sydney. Hong Kong. Athens. Tehran. Damascus. Albuquerque. Minot. San Diego. Orlando. La Paz."
"GMCC THIS IS NIGHTWATCH ONE! WE HAVE LOST OF SIGNAL ON NIGHTWATCH TWO! REPEAT WE--"
The termination of Nightwatch One's transmission with an abrupt warning tone brought a dead stop to the frenzy of action inside the GMCC's main operations center. The silence was punctuated by the soft warbles and trills of the computer systems, and at intervals by the thunderous clanging of draconic claw's against the room's sealed outer blast doors.
The stipulated JRSF security delegation had mercifully been outside the central operations chamber when the attacks began, and someone had thankfully had the presence of mind to order the facility into a sealed hunker-down state.
But it wouldn't be long before they gained entry nonetheless. According to the radio chatter, they'd killed everyone else on the surrounding three levels of the facility in just four minutes.
General Morales closed his eyes, and spared a half second to say a prayer for the lost souls of the Nightwatch aircraft, and the GMCC, before dismissing as much emotion as he could, as he reached up to toggle his headset to the one-loop.
Before he could speak, the GlobeInt AI's atonal stilted voice came over the frequency yet again.
"GMCC One-loop, GlobeInt AI; Loss of signal from Nightwatch One. Shenzhou security detail. SAC Backup Facility in Brisbane."
Morales winced. He knew that while the loss of the Nightwatch planes was unthinkable, that it was still something for which there was a procedure. A response.
The loss of the Shenzhou sent a chill up his spine. He knew exactly what that might represent.
The destruction of SAC backup in Brisbane meant that GMCC was the only facility left to order strategic weapon strikes. And those would have to be done manually, since the Dead Hand had been disconnected.
A loud 'CLANG' from the direction of the main entry doors told Morales that if he wanted to issue any final orders from GMCC, that they would also have to be issued very, very quickly. Or never at all.
He inhaled deeply, then spoke as loudly, and authoritatively as he could.
"GMCC, this is General Morales. At this time I am declaring the Omega Contingency. Loss of Planet to enemy beachhead. Section leads, retrieve your EWO and turn to the Omega final orders and force disposition section. Begin procedures to decentralize and devolve command to field Flag level officers in preparation for loss of GMCC, and transition of force disposition to a guerilla resistance stance."
All eyes in the command center were fixed on the General. Scenario Omega was more of a laughable theory to the younger, or lower ranking officers. Morales could see the horror dawning on each face in turn as they realized that their only remaining option, aside from surrender, was to burn and salt the Earth behind them, in the hopes that resistance might rise from the rubble.
Morales shook himself, and mustered the will to speak again. He knew what had to be done, before it was too late to send the command codes. Strategic weapons were the only Hail Mary that Humanity had left.
They would have to make them count.
"One MC, break, break. Strike Ops; This is a nuclear mission order. Repeat, this is a nuclear mission order. "
Morales seated himself purposefully behind his command console, and began entering the needed ID and authentication codes on its physical alphanumeric panel. As the codes were accepted Morales locked eyes with the primary Strike Ops officer, and spoke into the comm loop once more.
"Distribute strike package Omega One, as tailored by GlobeInt based on latest enemy force dispersion intelligence, to all Nuclear and Railgun strategic assets."
The General pulled open the deceptively small, unassuming 'biscuit' drawer as its locks disengaged with a small 'click.'
He continued to speak as he gingerly removed the third in a line of familiar red cards ensconced in clear plastic casings.
"Under the single-point-command emergency rule, and the Omega contingency, I give a non-revocable EAM to strike, with high confidence from GlobeInt AI for concurrence. Day-word: Cottonmouth. Action-word: Megiddo. Nuclear Strike Authorization follows. Niner. Echo. Delta. Golf. Niner. Seven. Mike. Omega. Six."
Morales collapsed back into his chair as a loud 'BANG' followed by a rib shaking roar sounded from the rear of the Command Center.
He muttered darkly under his breath as he drew his sidearm, and pressed the barrel to his temple.
"Please forgive me."
Amrys closed her eyes, and said a final prayer of thanks for a life well lived, and future assured. Shenzhou's AI could handle the final task; Dumping the beyond-safe-limit buildup of the ship's fusion cores, and emergency capacitors, into a single one thousandth of a second burst of the vessel's FTL drive at just the right moment.
The acceleration would bring the craft to a mere three hundredths of light speed in the fractional time the drive's warping field was active.
It would be more than enough.
Indeed, anything more significant would threaten the future of life on Earth out and out, which was the last thing the JRSF wanted.
Amrys grinned ever so slightly as the ship's AI let out a low tone indicating the drive was about to engage.
There were far worse ways to die than in the largest artificial explosion in a planet's history.
Two things the Gryphoness knew with absolute certainty as a deep thrum echoed through the Shenzhou's structural members, time seemed to briefly stop, and the bottom of her stomach dropped out.
First; She had done her duty, and done it well. With the GMCC gone, the EarthGov military would crumble within days. Countless lives would be spared, even factoring in those who would die from the blast's secondary and tertiary effects.
Second?
No one was ever going to forget this moment.
Not Genesis. Not the PER. Not the HLF. Not whatever was left of the EarthGov. Not Natives, nor Converts. Not Humans, Ponies, nor Dragons, nor Gryphons.
*This* was going to get everyone's attention.
Violently.
The initial acceleration propelled the Shenzhou straight through the Caribbean Sea's frigid waters. The ship pierced the solid rock above the Serranilla Bank facility at 0.03 C, dissociating and shedding all of its built up energy as heat and light a fraction of a millisecond later.
The GMCC, its shielding layer, the rock above, and the sea above that turned from matter into energy instantaneously as the Shenzhou's over three hundred meter length, and significant, dense mass, moving at a fraction of lightspeed, was converted into nothing but the raw energy release of an impactor unmatched since the end of the Late Heavy Bombardment.
The nexus of the ten thousand gigaton explosion briefly burned hotter than the core of a Neutron Star, before the sphere of untameable energy shot outwards at hypersonic velocities.
Initially, the fireball was only a few hundred kilometers wide, but that grew to just shy of one and a half thousand within the space of four seconds.
All cloud cover on the facing side of the planet vanished as the initial airburst travelled outwards at a speed that would have flattened anything on the surface that dared to stand more than an inch high, had there been anything but ocean water to compress and shred in its path.
By the time the thermal pulse and airburst reached inhabited land, both were robbed of enough power for those taking shelter behind even rudimentary cover to have a high chance of survival.
The power grid had been sent into a commanded shutdown minutes before to avoid the worst of the EMP, and evacuations of coastal areas had already begun.
As rapid as the tsunami's advance was, there would still be many minutes to restart hardened emergency services electrical devices, and vehicles, to move the most critically endangered away from the towering volume of water that had been displaced by the impact.
The ejecta cloud punched straight through the roof of the atmosphere in a matter of minutes, and kept going, sending multiple pieces of debris onto suborbital ballistic arcs, and even a few into escape velocity.
At the explosion's heart, a six hundred kilometer crater took shape. Vaporized seawater, and rock, and gasses coalesced into a faintly radiated steam overtop the immense pool of magma that the heat had transformed the local crust into.
Within just hours, the facing side of Earth began to darken as particulate ejected matter began to take up semi permanent residence in the upper atmosphere, mixing with the leftovers of the Vancouver cloud, the Creek Mountain cloud, and the ashes of the twenty four orbital Nuclear ground strikes, to choke out ninety percent of the planet's feeble remaining sunlight.
Inside twenty four hours, the effect had begun to appear in all observed locations on the planet's surface, as the mushroom cloud finally began to dissipate.
Earth's long and final winter had begun.
"Warning! Quantum Energy threat detected!"
Doctor Kissler's tea mug fell from his right hand as the muscles locked up in pure shock, shattering on the room's gray tile floor as the lights turned red, and a piercing alarm began to sound.
The Quantum Situational Awareness Facility AI repeated the warning in its chipper European accented female-coded voice.
"Warning! Quantum Energy threat detected!"
Kissler scrambled past the forlorn remains of his afternoon tea, arriving at the room's central console in more of a controlled collision than a dignified stop.
As he switched his gaze frantically between the room's central ultrawide floor to ceiling holoscreen, and the main console, a dozen other scientists and officers sprang to their duty stations.
Kissler shouted to make himself heard as he began to enter commands to tune the facility's particle detectors to specific wavelengths. The infographic overlay and map on the main screen changed accordingly.
"PROCEDURES people! Follow the detection procedure! Verify the equipment, check the contraindications, and collate the supporting---"
"DOCTOR KISSLER!"
The panicked shrieking note of Doctor Edward's voice brought Kissler's eyes up to meet his senior colleague's face. The pallor of horror and shock on Edward's visage redirected Kissler's eyes towards the room's main screen once more.
Kissler felt frantically for the edge of the console as his knees began to give out from an instantaneous sheer panic response.
Edwards dashed forward to the nearest military officer, and gripped her firmly by the shoulder, practically shouting in her face to ensure he was heard and understood.
"Send an all-call alarm to both the EarthGov and JRSF battle networks, do it *now!* We probably have less than---"
"Too late."
Kissler's words were only murmured, but they instantly silenced not only Doctor Edwards, but a dozen other hushed conversations in the room as all eyes turned once again to the main screen.
Fixed, like rivets, on the diagram of the Barrier's inexorable circular traversal.
Watched, in silent horror, as that traversal began to accelerate wildly.
To call the Platforms Barrier Retarders was a taxonomic misstep. In many ways they would have best been described as Momentum Deferral devices.
But the EarthGov had preferred 'Barrier Retarders' based on the results of focus group studies.
It provided a better sense of continuity and security to populations. 'Deferral' implied that a debt was building up, and would one day have to be paid back.
True as that fact of physics was, it was something the EarthGov had demanded be kept to academic and military circles, and out of the public newsmedia.
Virtually no one in the path of the ravenous energy membrane had even the slightest idea of what had just happened to them as they were abruptly devoured by the energy discontinuity, their cellular structure rejected at the quantum level by Equestria's space-time, like a disallowed program seized and eradicated by a security firewall AI.
One moment the Barrier was moving at its nominally accepted creep, devouring centimeters of land at a time. Inexorable. Patient.
Yet contained.
Tamed, or so it seemed.
The next, as the final effects of the Barrier Retarders finally dissipated, and the wild energy fluctuations of proximate Nuclear detonations were absorbed, the Barrier's momentum, deferred for three long years, began its inexorable snap-back.
Three years of progress held back came unstuck in a matter of seconds. A quantum tectonic shift of seven hundred and thirty kilometers, like a subduction zone hung on an outcropping of particularly tough granite finally breaking free after a decade of storing energy.
The Barrier rushed forward at 144 Mach, its outer edge jumping out the previously deferred seven hundred thirty kilometers in just fifteen seconds.
The thunderclap of displaced air was so tremendous that cities which suddenly found themselves mere kilometers, or meters from the Barrier's new position also found themselves without any functioning windows, or eardrums.
Every single square meter of land, vehicle, Human being, and Humanmade structure in the disaster zone ceased to exist instantaneously. In their place, on the Equestrian side of the Barrier, an enormous amount of new land, complete with trees, grass, ocean, and wildlife.
Natives and Converts alike in the disaster zone felt a sudden tingling rush, and then a gut wrenching sense of displacement that left many gasping for breath. Distances of just a few meters between friends and family were multiplied almost exponentially.
Those standing side by side were left deposited in tossing waves, or atop mountain peaks, or nestled between evergreens, within shouting distance of each other, but not much else.
Those wearing JRSF gear, or Human made textiles, whether for fashion, or decoration, found themselves abruptly inflicted with second and third degree burns as the Terran materials sublimated violently into their base carbons.
Any distance of more than a few dozen meters became dozens of kilometers.
Those who were whole cities away from each other were suddenly half a continental mass separated.
Hundreds of thousands of Ponies, Gryphons, Zebra, Diamond Dogs, and even a few Dragons, and Buffalo, abruptly found themselves standing amidst pristine, untouched, virgin nature.
The over six hundred million Humans that had stood by them, or been fighting against, and beside them, seared away in an instant of brilliance, with only a 'POP' and the acrid smell of burning left to mark their passage.
"Nuclear detonation sites: Mumbai. Portland. Tucson. Kabul. Bucharest. Jakarta. Estimated casualties: Sixty five million."
Sorven could hear only her breathing, her heartbeat, and the voice of the facility's central AI. All else was awash in the burning, throbbing sensation of blood pumping through the vessels around her ears at a scathing pace.
The General watched, unable to look away, unable to cry, unable to speak, or even to form thought as cogent internal words, as the circle of the Barrier finally slowed, arresting its hypersonic march back down to a more nominal pre-Retarder speed just outside Lucerne, Frankfurt, Knoxville, and Cincinnati.
The Facility AI spoke once more in a harsh nasal atonal note.
"Barrier Impact and loss of all Military and Civilian Signals: London. Cambridge. Brighton. Paris. Caracas. Amsterdam. Barcelona. Algiers. Lyon. Brussels. Antwerp. Paramaribo. Georgetown. Belem. Sao Luis. Macapa. San Juan. Port au Prince. Holguin. Nassau. Fort Lauderdale. Jacksonville. Savannah. Augusta. Fayetteville. Charlotte. Huntington. Pittsburgh. Bamako. Conakry. Estimated casualties: Six hundred and ninety million."
Sorven finally felt something besides an aching hollowness. A sudden upwelling. Forceful. Swift. Acidic.
She bent her head down towards a small trash can under her console and hurled violently, evacuating the contents of her stomach over, and over, and over, until finally all that was left was dry heaves, and a merciful undaming of a flood of tears, and anguished sobs.
From somewhere behind, an eerie, ear-piercing sound issued from Seyal's beak; Something as loud, and forceful as a battle cry, but as forlorn and grieved as a mother screaming out for a lost child, or a sister for a lost sibling, or a child for a lost parent.
Sounds of abject grief and emotional wreckage were apparent from all quarters, except for Arnshekh. Somehow the ancient Golden Dragon was able to maintain almost perfect composure.
Some strangely prescient, sharp, active, awake part of Sorven's mind reasoned that it was probably his age, and experience. You couldn't be that many centuries old, connected to that much wild magic, and not have a full command over yourself under any and all circumstances.
He cycled his headset over to the one-loop, and spoke in a perfectly level, commanding voice.
"Begin retaliatory bombardment, phase two. Start with all known Council safe-houses, the NorthAmerizone ground based communications hubs, and the Hexagon system. They need those more than we do."
After a moment's pause to allow the orders to disseminate, he continued unabated as Sorven pulled herself into an upright position, blew her nose on her sleeve, and began to try and take stock of the data on her console.
"Deploy SAR. Full mobilization. Concentrate on the areas of heaviest fighting, and the areas most badly affected by the Shenzhou impact. The ones that are still there, at any rate. No quarter remains in effect for Flag officers and Councilors, but all others are to be treated as safeguarded prisoners of war if they will lay down arms at first warning. Civilians of all species are to be treated as refugees with priority protected status."
Sorven finally managed to bring her shaking hand up to her own headset, selecting the channel for ELINT and Cyber Ops.
"Send Chuck's red-level attack code across the network; Have him seize SatVision and lockout all other users. Anything EarthGov related that's still connected to SatVision, I want spiked and shredded."
Over her shoulder, Sorven heard Seyal call for her chief of staff. The General turned to see the Gryphoness clutching her beak above her nares in an expression of pure frustration, and sorrow, as she spoke to the lieutenant; A Human man who was visibly shaking as he did his best to hold back tears.
"Dispatch a message to the Equestrian War Council... They need to know what just happened here."
The man saluted, and nodded, waiting for Seyal to elaborate. The Gryphoness finally looked up, and the fire in her eyes gave Sorven both a sense of frigid terror, and of warm, sickly sweet courage.
"Tell them... Tell them that planetary stability has collapsed. Tell them the EarthGov just killed seven hundred thirty million people. Tell them that we're at war."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 15th, Gregorian Calendar
The mauve thrum of the Nightmare's unfettered joy sang throughout the Void like high voltage down a trillion copper wires.
A million images ripped from intercepted radio signals, or piped into the Void by infiltrator agents from their posts, laid out a symphony of destruction, chaos, and ruinous decay.
Here a city burned as a Nuclear weapon dispensed a dozen independent reentry vehicles into the atmosphere over it. There JRSF aircraft strafed EarthGov Army L-RACs, killing the crews inside instantly even as their final volleys took flight headed towards the decks of JRSF carriers.
In one place Humans fought alongside the JRSF cutting a swathe through the EarthGov's military Police with abandon.
In another Human Civllians took up arms and murdered the more vulnerable Natives and Converts of Equine persuasion in the streets, the gutters running red with blood let loose into daylight by automatic weapons fire.
JRSF battleships and destroyers fought valiantly to intercept and destroy Nuclear missiles, meeting with surprisingly high success rates, even as Dragons and Gryphons began to teach terrified Human field commanders the true meaning of unbounded warfare.
Here a Councilor screamed out as he was tortured to death by a squad of Gryphons in the public square in Hanoi. There an EAF plane dropped three thousand pound JDAMs and Napalm canisters on a wounded Dragon, killing not only the great thunder lizard, but three thousand of their own citizens in the process, before two Pegasi dropped an EF-4 tornado and an incessant series of lightning strikes on the entire EAF squadron, wiping it out in an instant.
A little over half a billion dead Humans was a small price.
Seven billion leftover, accounting for the quarter million that would die in the tertiary effects, would be more than enough.
And with their world choking on subzero temperatures, radioactive ash, and a total breakdown of communications, logistics, and power?
An escape would be welcome.
*Any* escape would be welcome.
And for the vast majority, there was but one singular escape.
The Nightmare grinned, as the Host cowed, her spirit shattered as the Void pumped image after image of savagery, hatred, and loss into her mind's eye.
That could not have possibly gone any better.