M.A.N.E.

by BRBrony9

Mercury Rising

For the last three days, ponies across Equestria had been stocking up, preparing themselves in case supplies should run short or the worst should happen with the war abroad. The government had begun crisis preparations; prepositioning emergency supplies, calling up the army reserves, sending out leaflets to the public on 'What to do in the event of a Nuclear Attack.' Bottled water, tinned food, batteries, medicine; all were flying off the shelves, and now, strangely, so were the baked goods in Sugarcube Corner. Though they were perishable and would go stale within a couple of days, the cakes, tarts and pastries were proving as popular as they ever had before.

Pinkie was ecstatic, and also rushed off her feet. The Cakes were away in Canterlot, having taken the early morning train with their foals and a cart stacked high with sugary treats that had been loaded into the baggage car. Pinkie had waved them goodbye, then returned post-haste to the shop, where she had had to start baking immediately; the Cakes had taken the entire stock of prepared cakes with them, meaning she had to bake everything that would be on sale in the shop that day. Rainbow Dash had arrived a little after eight, and together they had finished the baking and opened the shop to the short queue of ponies who had already been lining up outside.

Now, almost half of their stock had been sold, though it was only eleven in the morning. Pinkie was beaming as she served the customers; the Cakes' faith in her had not been misplaced. Rainbow Dash was happy, too- she could rub it in Rarity's face if she popped in later in the day.

'Dashie! We're out of cupcakes!' Pinkie said as she served a mare with the last batch.

'On it!' Rainbow replied, hurrying into the kitchen where there were several more boxes of various cupcakes waiting to be sold. She picked one up and brought it out into the shop, refilling the display case. There was a queue of ponies inside, though it did not quite reach the front door of the shop yet. Pinkie was getting a little worried that they would run out of cakes before they closed for the day, but that was not a particularly bad position to be in. She smiled to herself as the next customer approached the counter. What could possibly go wrong?

Princess Celestia rubbed her tired eyes. An insistent knocking at her chamber door had roused her from the short, fitful sleep she had forced herself to take. She rose unsteadily from her bed and crossed to the door, opening it with her magic as she did so. A messenger stood on the other side, his hoof raised to knock again.

'Your Highness! News from Saddle Arabia.' He bowed to her. 'The USR have broken through our lines, Your Highness...'

They hurried to the war room, where the chiefs of staff were gathered. General Charger looked up, his face lined with stress.

'Your Highness,' he said. 'They did exactly what I feared they would do. They ignored the obvious route. They led with their infantry and their Pegasi airborne troops; broke right through, in the hills about a hundred miles east of where we were waiting for them. We simply didn't have enough ponies to hold them there. Their tanks followed through the gap. Now they're driving straight for the capital.' Celestia seated herself at the head of the table, noting the red arrow on the digital map that was pointing ominously at the Saddle Arabian capital.

'How do we stop them?' she asked in a tired voice.

'I...don't know, Your Highness,' he said. A deathly silence descended in the room. Celestia glanced at Charger, then at Shining Armour, Air Marshal Typhoon and Grand Admiral Bluewater, naval chief-of-staff. Their faces were stoic, but they were blank. Nopony knew how to stop them.

'I have already ordered our troops to pull back from the frontline,' Charger said, pointing at the blue line on the map. 'Maybe, if they drive hard...maybe they can overtake them. We do have defences around the city, but they are not strong enough to withstand this attack. We don't have enough troops in position.' He gestured again to the map.

'The bulk of the 4th Division have landed, but they are still in the port. It will take them at least a day to reach the capital, and if the USR spearhead keeps up its present rate of advance, they will be there before that.'

'We are hitting their columns from the air,' Typhoon interrupted, 'but they don't seem to be slowing down.' Celestia sighed. Equestria's big advantage in the theatre of operations was in air power- they had far more combat aircraft in Saddle Arabia than the USR had been able to muster, and that didn't seem to be helping at all.

'The Saddle Arabians could deploy their reserves,' Charger said. 'It will not stop their advance, but it might be just enough to hold the capital until the 4th Division arrives...'

He was interrupted as the door to the war room swung open. A staff officer rushed in.

'Your Highness! Flash traffic from Saddle Arabia!' She stood, glancing at her chiefs, before following the officer into the next room, which was full of communications equipment, radios and video screens, allowing Canterlot Command to stay in constant contact with its military units around the globe. On the left side of the room, a teleprinter was spewing out a sheet of paper. An officer ripped it off and passed it to Celestia, who quickly read it.

Priority Mercury
NUCFLASH II

Possible nuclear detonation approx. 12 miles north of Phase Line Apple, grid reference 346 311 804 192, in path of USR advance
Detonation occurred at 08:12:54 Local, 11:12:54 EST (Equestrian Standard Time)
Estimation of Yield approx. 4KT
Weapon type u/k
Casualties u/k

End

Celestia's blood turned to ice. A nuclear explosion? She had not authorised the use of nuclear weapons. Weapon type unknown...a USR attack? But it detonated over their own troops...she passed the printout to General Charger.

'What is this, General? Is it one of ours?' Charger read the printout and shook his head.

'No, Your Highness. Not without your command, our troops would never use such weapons.'

'But they could. The tactical rockets do not need the same level of authorisation as our strategic forces, correct?' Charger nodded.

'That is correct, Your Highness. A division or corps commander could theoretically authorise such an action if their troops were being overrun, but they would report it to Canterlot Command immediately. We have received no such report.'

'Then what has happened?' Celestia asked, her voice rising slightly. 'If the USR think we have used a tactical nuclear weapon on their troops...'

'Then they will respond in kind,' Charger nodded. 'And then we will respond to that, and then...'

'Your Highness!' the staff officer interrupted. 'A confirmation just came through. It wasn't a nuclear weapon. It was a large Saddle Arabian ammunition dump that came under fire and exploded.'

'Damn it!' Charger cursed. 'Why didn't anypony spot that from the coordinates?'

'Get me in contact with the USR, now!' Celestia shouted. 'They have to know it wasn't a nuclear detonation.'

'H-how, Your Highness?' the staff officer questioned. 'There's no direct line...' Several times Celestia had proposed the installation of a direct line of communication between her palace and the chancellery in Stalliongrad, but the Chancellor himself had vetoed such an idea, since he, and by extension, his government, refused to acknowledge that Celestia had any legitimate claim to be the leader of Equestria.

'Go through the embassy!' Shining Armour said. 'Where is ambassador Silver Birch?'

'He's at the embassy, sir,' another officer piped up. 'We can try patching a call through.'

'Do it!' Celestia ordered. The communications staff hurried to obey. Before they could act, the teleprinter began to whirr again, churning out another printout. The staff officer tore it off, took one glance at it, and handed it to Celestia. Almost at the same instant, the telephones in the communications room began to buzz. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she read the message.

Priority Mercury
NUCFLASH III

Multiple confirmed nuclear detonations along Phase Line Apple
Detonations occurred between 08:18:21 and 08:21:47 Local, 11:18:21 - 11:21:47 EST (Equestrian Standard Time)
Estimation of Yield between 5-20KT
Weapon Type various USR tactical warheads
Casualties u/k

End

The staff officers were all talking at once. Most of them had phones pressed to their ears or radio headsets on.

'Your Highness, Major-General Firestone of the 9th Division is requesting permission to return fire with his tactical rockets.'

'Marshal, Tactical Air Command requests orders to engage enemy launch sites.'

'They're reporting 30 confirmed detonations along the line...'

'General, I have Colonel Broadsword of the Strategic Command on the line for you.'

'Sir, the 5th Division report they are preparing to launch their tactical nuclear weapons.'

Everything was going much too fast, and Celestia could see it all unraveling before her very eyes. Her chiefs-of-staff were talking urgently to each other, too.

'Less than six minutes between the explosion and their response!' Shining Armour was saying. 'How the hell could they launch their rockets that fast unless they had them ready to fire them anyway?'

Celestia held up a hoof and called for calm, trying to get a handle back on the situation that was rapidly running away from them. They had to focus- the fate of millions rested on their shoulders, and they were wasting time shouting over each other. In little more than six minutes, this war had escalated and brought them all to the brink of catastrophe.

'Everypony listen up!' she said. 'I want a line to the embassy right now, and I want you,' she gestured to the staffers manning the radios, 'to inform all field commanders that they are not to retaliate with their own nuclear weapons!'

A chorus of affirmative replies greeted her orders, and she turned to speak with her chiefs of staff. Before she could say anything, one of the communications officers called out.

'Your Highness! 5th Division says they have already launched their nuclear weapons.'

'What? No!' she shouted. 'Nopony must retaliate!'

'The 5th Division has already done so,' the officer said. 'They have already fired all 48 of their missiles.' The icy blood in her veins cooled still further.

'No...' she breathed. 'Get me through to the ambassador, now, and let us pray we are not too late...' Celestia looked around at her chiefs and, for the first time in a thousand years, knew fear.

The Strike Warning Centre, or SWC, was an oft-overlooked branch within the Strategic Command. The SWC was responsible for the operation of the Equestrian early warning radars, designed to detect, classify and track missile launches and enemy aircraft at extreme ranges. Two over-the-horizon radars on the western coast, and various smaller radars scattered across the country, meant the SWC's operators would be the first ponies to receive a warning of any attack on Equestria.

Lieutenant Dawn Crest sat at his console in the SWC's command centre near Detrot, the radar display an unremitting sea of black and dark green. There was nothing on his scope; no surprises there. He had seen very little unusual on his scope since he took up his post six months ago; apart from a stray weather balloon, a few high altitude surveillance aircraft, and a solitary USR sounding rocket that had been sent up into the upper atmosphere two months ago, setting alarm bells ringing and causing a great deal of embarrassment within the Strategic Command when they figured out what it was. The over-the-horizon radar had a range of just over 3000 miles, allowing it to 'see' the whole of the USR. Five other operators sat around him, each monitoring a different sector, with several other officers monitoring a composite image showing the combined radar returns of every station. Tensions were extremely high since the shootdown, which he had monitored on his screen, and even more so since the war broke out, and the SWC had been on high alert.

A sudden, urgent beeping drew his attention. A blood red icon on his console was flashing, and something had appeared on his radar screen- a blip, small and distant.

'I have a contact!' he called, alerting the other operators and Colonel Redmane, the SWC commander. Redmane made his way over and Dawn Crest pointed to the blip on his screen.

'Identification?' the Colonel asked.

'Nothing yet, sir,' Dawn Crest replied. 'It's at 40,000ft and climbing.' As he spoke, three more blips appeared on the screen.

'Multiple contacts!' he shouted. 'Possible launches in progress. Stand by for ident.' The computers were working rapidly to extrapolate launch sites and trajectories of the radar contacts.

Surely this isn't real? It has to be an exercise- please let it be an exercise...

'I have contacts!' one of the other operators shouted, staring intently at her screen.

It could still be an exercise...even if there is already a war going on...

'Contacts!'

'I have contacts here!'

Within half a minute, every one of the six operators had flashing blips on their screens. Dawn Crest counted twenty on his alone.

It's not an exercise, is it?

'Track their trajectories,' Redmane said, his voice as steady as though he were in his office reading out the morning reports. 'Let me know as soon as you have them.' The computers worked, analysing the radar tracks. The plots appeared on the screen as green lines, data appearing at the side of the screen. Dawn Crest's heart rapidly made its way up his throat into his mouth.

'Confirmed,' he said, swallowing hard. 'Confirmed multiple USR ICBM launches...trajectories indicate their targets lie within Equestrian borders.'

'Now tracking one hundred seven contacts!' somepony called. Colonel Redmane nodded slowly.

'Send the alert signal!' he said loudly, before reaching for a phone on his console.

'Get me Canterlot Command.'

Dawn Crest watched, dismayed, as more and more blips appeared on his screen. Thirty, forty, fifty contacts in his sector alone. Fifty missiles, fifty nuclear missiles, all of them heading for Equestria.

'Colonel Redmane, SWC. Priority Mercury, Flash Override.'

Now there were fifty eight missiles on his screen.

'Yes sir, it's confirmed. They've launched against us. I've already sent the alert signal,' Redmane was saying, but Dawn Crest was no longer paying attention. The thought, that single, terrifying thought, had just struck him. The missiles were heading for Equestria, and he was sitting in the middle of one of their first targets.

'Your Highness, you have to give the orders now!'

'Your Highness, please!'

'You have to do it now, Your Highness, and then we have to get you out of here!'

They had retreated to the war room. An alarm sounded in the communications room outside. Princess Celestia was almost panicking, an emotion none had ever seen her display before. Things had run away from them, got out of hoof. The war had escalated in a matter of minutes, and nopony had ever had any chance to stop it. Now it was too late.

She had failed them all.

'Please, Your Highness!' General Charger said urgently. 'Do it now. We don't have time to wait!' Two staff officers stood nearby, one of them with a metal case cuffed to his foreleg. They glanced nervously at each other as their Princess delayed and dithered.

'I-if I do this, millions will die!' she said, her voice rising. Shining Armour's was remarkably calm.

'Millions are already going to die. Millions of your citizens. There's nothing you can do about that now. But if you don't give this order, then the ponies responsible for their deaths will go unpunished. You can't stop here. Think of all the work we've done over the last 15 years, building this deterrent.'

'But the deterrent has failed!' she shouted.

'I know, but it always came with a caveat, and that was that if it failed both sides would suffer. Both sides. Don't let Equestria be the only one that suffers, Your Highness. The USR started all this, and they deserve to pay for their crimes.'

'But...the lives of millions, Shining!' she shouted. 'If I give this order, then I would be no better than them.' Her voice wavered as if her mind was being pulled in two directions at once. Shining Armour glanced at the digital clock on the wall, the seconds ticking away, closer and closer to the end of days.

'Please, Your Highness,' he said, glancing at the digital clock on the wall of the war room. 'We have sixteen minutes until the first detonations. If you don't give the order...' he looked at the other chiefs of staff. 'If you don't give the order, then everything you have worked for in the last thousand years will be for nothing. We will all be gone, and the USR will simply trot right in and take it all. Equestria will be theirs, and they won't have suffered a scratch.' She continued to hesitate.

'At least you can stop some of it,' Shining said. 'If we retaliate we can knock out some of their missiles, some of their bombers, before they can launch...' She nodded slowly.

'Very well,' she said in a low, emotionless voice. 'Do it.'

The staff officer with the metal case placed it on one of the consoles and entered one half of the combination lock. The other staff officer completed the code and the case popped open. The first officer took out its contents- a red folder and two plastic cards. He passed one to the Princess and the other to General Charger. Shining Armour took the red folder and opened it while the staff officer fiddled with a radio that was embedded within the case.

'Your Highness, you now have your code card. Are we in contact yet?' he asked the staff officer, who nodded. The radio crackled into life.

'General Storm, Strategic Command.' The stentorian voice of the commanding officer of the Equestrian strategic nuclear forces was broadcast into the room from the radio in the case. A moment later, the voice of his deputy, Major-General Nimbus, came through on the radio's other channel, from the Strategic Command's backup headquarters not far from Las Pegasus. Shining Armour flipped through several pages in the folder.

'Ok, Your Highness. You have a choice of attack options. At this stage, we would recommend the major attack option. Then you have to choose between a counterforce or counter-value strike.' She looked bewildered, though they had practiced and read up on the procedure numerous times.

'Which one are the USR using?' she asked. General Storm's booming voice answered her.

'It appears they are enacting a counterforce operation at this stage, Your Highness,' he said. 'But once we launch against them, we believe they will fire their remaining weapons in a counter-value strike.'

The Princess swallowed hard. Counterforce meant that the USR missiles, or at least the first wave, were targeted on Equestrian military forces, primarily their nuclear forces- missile silos, airbases, command centres. Counter-value, on the other hoof, was exactly what the media and the public immediately brought to mind whenever anypony mentioned nuclear war. Counter-value meant missiles targeted at weakening the economic and industrial potential of the nation; missiles targeted at cities, at infrastructure- at ponies.

'I would recommend,' General Storm continued, 'that we initiate a full-scale retaliatory strike, hitting everything we can, both counterforce and counter-value, while we still have the missiles and bombers to do it with.'

'Then...then I suppose...' The chiefs of staff looked at her expectantly. 'I agree with General Storm.' Shining Armour nodded, flipping a few more pages in the folder.

How can they all act so calm? she thought. Their families are all probably going to die in the next hour...Twilight is probably going to die in the next hour, and yet Shining Armour isn't even raising his voice...Luna...

'Did you get that, General?' Shining Armour was saying.

'Affirmative, Plan 6,' Storm replied. 'Your codes, Your Highness.'

Celestia glanced down at the code card she held in her hoof. It was the key to the deaths of millions, but the USR had already signed their own death warrants.

'Your codes, Your Highness,' General Storm repeated firmly. Celestia turned over the card and read the code printed on the back. Then she spoke the second code that she had memorised, to confirm it was really her giving the order.

'Authenticated,' said Storm and his deputy at almost the same time.

'Under the two-pony rule, the order to launch must now be confirmed by the Chairpony of the Chiefs of Staff,' General Storm said, his voice crackly with a sudden burst of static. General Charger spoke his own codes, and again the two Strategic Command officers confirmed them as authentic.

'Clearance has now been granted under the two-pony rule,' General Storm said, his voice as authoritative as ever. 'Release authorisation has been given. Your Highness, please confirm the launch order.'

She looked around at her chiefs-of-staff and the two staff officers, nervous anticipation now evident on all of their faces. Despite her earlier thoughts, Shining Armour now seemed to have aged 20 years in a matter of minutes as he glanced at the clock on the wall, inexorably ticking away the seconds until the end of days. With a dry mouth and a heavy heart, she spoke.

'I confirm the launch order.'

Sandy Oak stood by the fence at Hoofstead again, as he had done every day during his school lunch break. As the son of a serving officer, he attended a school built just outside the base for the children of the aircrew. Today, since it was a Saturday, he had been there all morning. There was always something coming and going, heading over to Saddle Arabia; bulky transports, sleek fighters, hulking, ugly ground attack jets and even a few helicopters fitted with bulbous long range fuel tanks.

Now, though, he was surprised to see that the bombers of his fathers squadron were taxiing out, their white anti-flash paint gleaming in the sun. They seemed to be in a hurry, too, rolling along the tarmac faster than he had ever seen them go before.

Dad never mentioned anything last night...it must be another one of those surprise exercises he says they like to run so much.

He watched the string of jets rumble along the taxiways, heading for the far end of the runway. He counted all twelve aircraft- it was a full squadron scramble, the dozen delta-winged bombers rolling out together, the combined throb of the four jets on each aircraft clearly audible even from his distant location nearly two miles away at the other end of the airfield. Intermingled with them were bulky refueling tankers, which would be used to top up the tanks of the bombers on their way to their destination. He watched as the lead jet came to the first of the two parallel runways and continued to taxi past it, heading for its nearby counterpart. It reached it at the same time as the second bomber reached the first runway, and the two aircraft swung onto the twin strips of concrete together.

Almost immediately, Sandy Oak could hear the engines come to full power as the bombers began their takeoff roll, nosewheels squirming from side to side slightly as they accelerated at a rate belying their great size. He had never seen them take off so quickly; normally they sat at the end of the runway for a minute or more, waiting for takeoff clearance and doing final checks. Not today. Nor had he ever seen them take off using both runways at the same time- he had been under the impression that was not allowed for safety reasons.

The two bulky bombers peeled away from the ground and started to climb, a thunderous roar emerging from their engines, which used water injection to give extra power during takeoff that resulted in unburnt fuel pouring from them as streams of dirty brown smoke.
Though all of the jets looked alike, apart from a meaningless serial number on the tail, Sandy Oak jumped and waved his hooves madly, hoping his father was on board and could see him down below. The two jets roared overhead, banking away to the northwest, climbing rapidly.

Before the first two jets had even left the ground, the next two were turning onto the runways and opening the throttles. Forty seconds later they were thundering overhead, and Sandy waved again, the howl of their engines almost deafening. He stared at the awesome spectacle, his favourite sight in the world, the smoke and the fury setting his heart racing. After every four bombers, a pair of tri-engined tankers took to the sky, racing aloft and following their charges. Two by two, the delta-winged bombers raced into the air, the string of aircraft receding into the northwestern skies. Sandy watched them go, waving as they flew into the distance, waving his father goodbye.

The klaxon blared suddenly. Captain Ice Wind looked across at Fireblade. He could read the same emotions on his partner's face that were running through his own mind.

Not another bucking test...

Ice Wind picked up the red phone on his console, pen in hoof, ready to write down the authentication code.

'South Fork, Overture. South Fork, Overture.'

Overture? But the test codeword for the week is Trapdoor. Overture means...means...

He looked over at Fireblade. His expression had rapidly changed from one of mild irritation at yet another test, to one of abject horror.

'Apple, Niner, Six, Unicorn, Two, Castle, Seven, Phoenix.' He rapidly copied down the code and passed his notepad to Fireblade, receiving his own in return. They both copied the code down a second time as it was repeated.

'I-I have a valid alert code. Confirm,' Fireblade said, his voice cracking. Ice Wind glanced down at the notepad.

'I confirm...valid alert code,' he said, standing unsteadily. The two officer crossed the cramped room to the red wall safe, inserting their keys with shaky hooves. The buzzing as the safe opened startled Ice Wind, though he knew it would happen. They withdrew the two envelopes and returned to their stations. Ice Wind ripped open his envelope and tipped the contents out, scrambling to turn read from the code card and compare it to what was written on his pad.

'Apple!'

'Apple!' Fireblade replied with a wavering voice.

'Niner!'

'Niner!' I don't believe it...

'Six!

'Six!' Maybe this could still all be a test...

'Unicorn!'

'Unicorn!' Ice Wind glanced up at the clock on the wall.

'Two!'

'Two!' Fireblade's voice quivered as he spoke.

'Castle!'

'Castle!' There was no doubting it now.

'Seven!'

'Seven!' This was it.

'Phoenix!'

'Phoenix!' This was the real thing.

'I have a valid launch order,' Fireblade said.

'I concur...' Ice Wind began, before his voice failed him. He swallowed hard, seeing Fireblade's expectant face at the corner of his vision. 'Valid launch order.' He looked over at his fellow officer and they shared a long, nervous glance. The collar and front of Fireblade's light blue uniform shirt were darkened with sweat. He imagined his own was in a similar state.

'L-launch checklist,' Ice Wind said, turning back to his console and opening the red folder. They ran rapidly through the procedures, readying the missiles for launch. As they did so, the teleprinter at the side of the room began to chatter, spewing out a sheet of paper. Fireblade reached across and tore it off.

'It's confirmed,' he said quietly. 'An attack is underway...'

'Checklist!' Ice Wind said firmly, surprising himself.

'Launch Profile 6,' he read off, tapping in the appropriate code on his keypad.

'Launch Profile 6,' Fireblade repeated. 'Confirmed.' Launch Profile 6...that meant cities. St. Petershoof, maybe, or Maremansk. I don't remember...

They returned to the list, flicking switches and pressing buttons. An orange light above them on the front wall next to the clock lit up, another strident alarm tone filling the room.

The other launch control centre has already confirmed the launch. They beat us to it. Now it's all on us.

'Enter launch codes,' he said, tapping his personal code into the keypad. Fireblade entered his own, different code. Ice Wind reached for the key.

'Launch Enable on my command,' he said slowly. Shakily he inserted his key into the slot. His hoof seemed to be rebelling against him, and it took him three tries to get the key in.

This is it, he thought. I turn my hoof a couple of inches to the right, and a million ponies die.

'A-are you ready?' Fireblade called.

'On my command,' he replied. 'Three, two, one...execute.' He turned the key.

At first, nothing appeared to happen except a small icon lighting up on his console that said 'Launch Enable.' Forty seconds later, another light came on. This one said 'Ignition.'

Slowly, Ice Wind began to detect a faint rumbling, a vibration in the floor plating, that began to build rapidly. He slumped back in his chair, exhausted as if he had just run a marathon. One by one, eight red lights on the console flashed to green as the rumbling grew and the missiles hauled themselves free of their launch cradles.

That's it, then, he thought. My job is done. Probably the last job I'll ever be called upon to perform. He could not remember which cities the launch profile called for their missiles to hit. Maybe one, maybe three. Maybe Stalliongrad, maybe Maremansk. It didn't matter. The end result would be the same.

A million dead, maybe more. Celestia forgive me.

The silo doors shot open, rolling clear of the launch tubes on rails and propelled by explosive bolts, opening at the last possible moment so as to minimise the amount of time the silos and their contents were open to the skies and to any incoming attack. The Minutemares roared clear of their silos, eight missiles, lancing into the sky riding atop pillars of fire. Three seconds after launch, each missile pivoted in the sky, pitching northwest, towards the USR. Twenty seconds after launch, they punched through the sound barrier, rising rapidly. Forty seconds after liftoff they were travelling at three times the speed of sound and approaching 40,000ft in altitude, visible for a hundred miles or more in every direction.

To the launch crew, all of this was invisible. Ice Wind looked up, as if at the sky, though he could see nothing beyond the steel roof.

We're going to get hit. They're going to hit our silos. That'll probably be the end of us...

He looked at Fireblade. His eyes were closed.

'Launch confirmed,' Ice Wind said unnecessarily. 'We're done.' Fireblade nodded, his eyes still closed.

'Yeah...and so is everypony else...'

'Nine minutes, Your Highness.'

The nuclear war machine was grinding rapidly into action. Shining Armour glanced at the clock again as the chiefs of staff and the two officers in charge of the nuclear codes gathered around Princess Celestia. He nodded to her.

'Do it, Your Highness.' The Princess closed her eyes and lowered her horn. With a sudden flash of blinding white light, the circle of ponies disappeared from the war room.

They rematerialised outside of the city, the sudden sunlight dazzling them after the dim interior of the war room. They had appeared at a military airstrip maintained for the sole use of governmental aircraft. Though Princess Celestia could teleport herself and those around her, she could only do so over a relatively limited distance, and though she could fly, there were much faster means of escape available.

Permanently stationed at the airstrip was what the newspapers loved to refer to as Celestia's 'Doomsday Plane,' an Air Force jet outfitted as a duplicate of the war room and communications centre she and her chiefs had just vacated. The large aircraft was officially referred to as the TG-21 Dawnguard, the designation standing for Transport, Governmental, a militarised version of the same type of civilian airliner as the one the USR had shot down a week earlier. The four-engined jet was large enough to carry all the communications equipment necessary to run the country from the skies above it, and to house the Princess, her staff, military and civilian advisers, guardsponies and the crew necessary to operate all the equipment.

They had materialised not far from the Dawnguard, which sat idling on the tarmac, ready to depart as soon as they got aboard. Ground crew swarmed around the front of the jet, making sure to stay well clear of its inner engines, which were running, ready to get the bulky jet moving along the tarmac in a hurry. A pair of guardsponies stood either side of the mobile steps in place at the front door of the jet, and one of the aircraft's crew in his dark blue Air Force uniform stood at the foot of the stairs, beckoning furiously at them. They hurried over to the stairs. The senior guard spoke rapidly into a radio as they approached.

'Your Highness!' he said, saluting. 'We have to move quickly. Everypony else is already on board.' The late arrivals trotted quickly up the steps and into the jet. The guardspony spoke into his radio again as he and the two guards followed them up the steps.

'Sunrise is aboard, repeat, Sunrise is aboard. Get us out of here.' The group of ponies filed into the cabin and the crewpony swung the cabin door shut and locked it. The ground crew rolled away the stairs and the pilot gave a quick signal to the crew chief. He signalled back with crossed hooves, and the big aircraft began to move, almost hesitantly at first, rolling slowly towards the runway. The flight crew increased the power as they moved away and started up the outer engines. With all four jets roaring, the Dawnguard swung round onto the runway, and the flight crew opened the throttles fully. It raced down the runway and heaved itself into the air, heading south, away from Canterlot. Its flight plan would take it east, but first it had to gain height to get over the Foal mountains that Canterlot was nestled against.

In the cabin, Shining Armour glanced at the clock mounted on the wall that showed the time in Equestrian Standard. It was 11:40. Five minutes until the first predicted detonations.

Five minutes warning...

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

Maybe I'm just desperate to think that things couldn't get this far- and I didn't grow up during the Cold War, so what do I know?- but how do you jump from getting "small" nukes used against you on a local battlefield to actually launching at the other country? The USR think they got hit with a tactical nuke, so they start launching their own tacticals, and then an Equestrian division actually does hit them with some tacticals, so... time for the end of the world?

[Procrastinating Sidewalk]

5843953 Precisely. The concept of mutually assured destruction relies on the inevitable escalation of nuclear warfare. It starts as a first strike, sometimes a small attack, as you can see in some of the attack simulations in the movie WarGames. Sometimes, however, a massive attack is the first strike. It usually starts as a deteriorating political, military, or economic situation between two or more parties.

[Tacky3663]

My version of an Emergency Broadcast Message in a situation like this

We Interrupt Normal Programming, This is Not a Test, Please Stand By for an Urgent Emergency Message.

**AlertReady Tones**

The following message is transmitted by order of Princess Celestia, and the Equestrian National Guard. This is an Attack Warning, Repeat: This is an Attack Warning. At 6:18 PM EST (Equestrian Standard Time) The Priority Mercury Defense Command detected the launch of over 300 Nuclear Missiles from the USR. Targets cannot be determined at this time. All residents of Equestria must seek a fallout shelter immediately, If you cannot find a fallout shelter, local authorities will lead you to one. fallout is a dangerous product of Nuclear Attacks. Be sure to have enough Food and Water for 14 days and have a battery powered radio with you. The Missiles are believed to impact their targets within the next 10-15 minutes. Repeating: This is a Nuclear Attack Warning, A Nuclear Attack Is taking place against Equestria,
This message will replay in 30 seconds

[RDDash]

I realize that this story is cartoonishly forcing Equestrians to use nuclear option as fast as possible but...

What happened to the rolling their nuclear bombers airborne almost immediately at the first sign of trouble? Equestrians are really slow to act and at this point, they should have realized how insane the other side was.

Historically there was a computer glitch that spooked a military officer into not doing anything stupid, and he probably saved all of our lives in the process.