Hegira: Rising Omega

by Guardian_Gryphon

Chapter 15

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

The alarms hit first. A klaxon designed by a generative AI to appeal to as many of the 'PAY ATTENTION' centers of a Human brain as possible.

The sinking feeling came next, a cold realization of what the alarm meant borne of thousands of combat drills. But General Norris clamped down on that. Hard.

Data hit the main screen of the GMCC at about the same time the SatVision main controller's words hit her earpiece on the main comloop. The lights dropped to an eerie deep red, and rumbles in the ceiling above attested to the automatic deployment of blast shields, sealing of compartments, and severing of external umbilicals on the sea-floor in favor of internal systems.

"SatVision is showing two hypersonic inbound heavy strategic weapons. BMEWS confirms. Quantum threat alarms have tripped in early warning monitor stations in Africa, Iceland, and Greenland. Confidence is high, I repeat confidence is high; Two antimatter warheads coming over the horizon. Calculating impact points and warhead yield, standby."

A second insistent tritone alarm sounded, and the facility's main overseer AI trumpeted a loud warning into every commloop. Identical text warnings flashed on every station simultaneously.

"Dead Hand Activated. 30. 29. 28. 27..."

On deployment of unauthorized nuclear or antimatter weapons, or the detection of quantum waveform manipulation anywhere on Earth's surface, the protocol was absolute.

There could be no risk that a terrorist, or extraterrestrial force would cut the head from the command structure, then gut the defenseless planet after. Or burn the sky again with unchained quantum science.

Strategic Nuclear weapons were to be fired from automated silos on every continent, to strike either the aggressor, if a weapon had been fired, or the moron stupid enough to play with quantum fire if it was the case of someone toying with the same forces that had caused the Winnowing.

Norris nodded, and cycled her microphone to 'vox' on the main comm loop.

"Place strategic strike package Omega into the BattleNet. L-RACs and A-RACs to target *all* JRSF installations and assets, including all Conversion Bureaus, as well as all Barrier Retarder platforms, and Lucapa facility. Any remaining Nuclear weapons after Dead Hand round one fires to be held in reserve."

No sense making it easy for the Equestrians to retaliate. Or for the JRSF to find new conscripts after it devolved from WMDs to a shooting war on the ground.

The faster the distance to their mainland grew, the better, if war was to be the word of the day.

Likewise no sense in spending all of the Nukes at once, and no sense in leaving a way for them to make more Non-Humans easily. Not on their own terms, anyhow.

The wargame AI claimed the heavy Nukes were the only thing that would slow the Gryphons and Dragons.

Slow. Not stop.

Norris disagreed. No computer was going to tell her that a war for the specie's future was unwinnable. Not while she still drew breath.

"General, ELINT projects minimum one point five gigaton detonations. Probable projection is two point one five gigaton detonations. Warheads are moving too fast, with too much jamming for interceptors. The warheads have primary and secondary energy shielding... Flak will not be effective! Analytics AI designates these weapons... Apollyon Class. Warhead designate track Apollyon One is targeted for the Earthgov Air and Space command at Creek Mountain. Warhead designate track Apollyon Two is... Targeted for this facility... Forty seconds to impact."

The hesitation in the man's voice carried through the comm loop, as did the small choke in his throat as he used the dreaded words. Norris could see his tears all the way down in row three, glinting in the red emergency lighting.

Apollyon. A theoretical weapon of mass destruction for which there was no functional defense in any Earthgov arsenal, no matter how secret.

Not so theoretical anymore, the General reflected with an inward grunt.

Norris was well versed in the maths of armageddon. She started her morning reading the latest 'Joshua' files with every breakfast. It helped to scar over the emotional response Humans would normally have by default to the idea of watching a plurality of the population wiped out in a hypothetical all-out war.

A two gigaton detonation would have no trouble producing a shockwave that would pulverize the seafloor so far down that decayed atoms from the base's fusion reactors would be all that was measurably left. That, in spite of an ocean above them, and a quarter mile of rock between the ocean and the first of five layers of twenty meter thick alloy plates.

They'd feel the tremors in every city in the Western hemisphere.

Creek Mountain was an old Cold War installation not far from Cheyenne, and the former HLF headquarters. Their facility wouldn't even need to sustain a direct strike, they only had three hundred meters of rock, and one ten meter shield of alloy plates.

"Message coming in via JRSF Centcom deconfliction hotline. Priority One."

The General felt her own breath hitch in spite of all her years of training, of dreaming, even of hoping for the war she could allow to unfold just by holding her tongue. But Apollyon... The math just wasn't there.

Against anything else, the GMCC was an invincible redoubt. Safe from anything, even the projected abilities of the Royal Sisters themselves, within Earth's Thaumatically deprived spacetime.

Safe from all but the hand of God. Or the Devil.

Without GMCC, the Dead Hand would continue to fire on Lucapa. Round after round, mostly wasted munitions. The L-RACs and A-RACs would pulverize the Conversion Bureaus, and all the JRSF's ground facilities.

All that would be left to stop an army of enraged Gryphons, Dragons that could flatten battleships to ruin single-claw, a flood of supporting Equines with their thrice damned weather and shield magics to support, the JRSFs considerable remaining naval assets, and two very angry goddesses with built-in particle cannons, would be the reserve mags on the RACs, whatever few conventional Air Force bombers that weren't flattened by JRSF naval railguns in the next five minutes... And prayer.

Not enough. Not by any measure. No matter how highly she thought of Humanity.

Without Thor, long since expended, and without the Nukes, there was no point to fighting the war.

Malakim could not be pressed into service in any kind of workable timeframe. Not for the current crisis; Norris knew for a fact that the soonest a launch could theoretically happen was in ten hours, and that with significant failure chances. Greater than fifty percent, and it would still come too late if it came at all.

It had taken a herculean effort by a multidisciplinary task force to get ahold of EarthGov's secret store of decommissioned nuclear warheads, re-weaponize them, update them, and then fit them to modified versions of existing conventional missile hardware. It had been six months of her life after the final split with the JRSF.

Malakim would have to wait.

No path to a forced peace on Earthgov's terms, not without buying time, and saving Strategic resources.

Without GMCC or Creek Mountain, no Nukes, and no control circuits for Malakim.

Simple math. She hated it all the same.

"Put me through, and patch it to the one-commloop, receiving only, for the record."

A click, a warble, and a hiss, was followed by General Hutchinson's voice.

"Norris? I know Beemius has probably got the AI throwing up the umbrellas over there, and neither of us have a lot of time, so I'll make this simple for your ape hindbrain, so we can cut through all the HLF and Echelon Twelve bullshit you've eaten up over the years. Don't be fucking war criminals. And in exchange? I will refrain from erasing you from the surface of this God forsaken planet. You have ten seconds to decide, or the angry young Gryphoness over here, whose sister you and your paymasters killed, will send the no-revoke commit codes to our little presents, and your goose will get very, very cooked in another twenty."

Norris' stomach lurched again. She knew exactly to whom Hutchinson was referring. And she knew that even if Hutchinson was bluffing, a Gryphoness who had once been a child soldier conscript, trained from her earliest memories to kill, who had seen Earthgov murder her only family...

Very, *very* simple math.

The Gryphoness would kill anyone in her command center if she had to in order to ensure the warheads landed, nothing Norris could say or do would stop her. No room to beg, bully, threaten, or negotiate.

She grit out her response with as even a tone as she could muster.

"I agree to your terms. I'm dispatching the order now."

With a tap of her console, Norris closed the channel to Hutchinson, leaving the main loop connected to her mic on vox.

"One-MC break, break. Overseer AI; Suspend and reset the Dead Hand with a two minute off-cycle. I authenticate: Norris Epsilon two nine five."

No sense risking the failsafe shutdown of the Antimatter warheads reactivating the Dead Hand, and starting the whole standoff over again.

"Break. Break. Flight Ops; Send the failsafe codes to all in-flight warheads immediately. Break. Break. Strike Ops, withdraw all combat orders for all units globally, place all assets in Defense Condition two, maintain strike package Omega in the BattleNet. We are moving from Defcon one to Defcon two. Section supervisors, conference in ten."

As hurried orders were passed around both the main, and secondary comm loops, track indicators for the initial package of strategic missiles began to vanish from the main display. The Dead Hand indicators reset to thirty, and then vanished as well.

A tension hung in the air all the while, as the antimatter warheads closed to within enough range that the defense AI began to emit distance indicator pings. Pings which were rapidly increasing in frequency.

At last, the final Nuclear warheads vanished from the display. Norris opened her mouth to query her opponent, but the words never got a chance to exit her lips.

A blinding flash overwhelmed all the main screens, and the sound of thunder split the very air around her.

"Damn them. Damn those dirty---"

Alyra

"Early partial detonation triggered on Warhead one."

Hutch raised an eyebrow. I set my beak, and my expression as hard as I could.

The action technically fulfilled the terms of the hastily agreed truce. Setting the weapon off at medium yield so high in the atmosphere would wreck countless military satellites on the facing side of the planet. All replaceable, but not quickly, cheaply, or easily.

The damage would last months, and hurt the Earthgov military more than it would hurt the JRSF.

It would also turn off the lights in a dozen major cities for hours, be visible to almost everyone in the hemisphere, but produce no other negative effects to civilians. No covering this one up. Questions were going to be asked if I had anything to say about it.

The shock and EMP would hurt, but not outright kill, the GMCC. Mission kill, yes, but only for a short while. Time for the JRSF to get a throat-lock on the Earthgov military, and prevent the whole song and dance from starting again too soon.

There still, I reflected with a grim twisted smile, needed to be someone with authority to surrender when Hutch's superiors delivered an inevitable ultimatum.

I clenched one claw on the rubberized grip of the tactical station's railing. I imagined getting my own claws around the throat of 'Norris,' whomever she was, and squeezing until her evil left the world in short order.

The idea of firing a weapon, let alone a strategic one, directly at non combatant civilians, made every part of me sick. The Human part, the Gryphon part, the God fearing part, and the part that was a sane and moral being with free will.

The second warhead plummeted onwards, on the down-leg of its arc towards Creek Mountain Colorado. I knew what it represented. I knew more about half of the Earthgov's facilities than they did.

High frequency pings were emitting from the holodome, counting down the time to impact.

All the color fell out of Councilor Martin's face, but she didn't say a word. Hutch just nodded soberly. Silent affirmation. I felt part of the tension in my gizzard release. The hardest part would have been judgement from my family, and Hutch certainly was a part of our family.

That Martins, a Councilor, would stand with us in that moment brought my respect for her to new heights. And I knew she'd been important to Dad's conversion. That made her extended family at the very least.

The Earthgov had tried to murder its own to accomplish an objective for the last time. They needed to know who we were, and just exactly how seriously we took their actions. So much the better that at least one Councilor would join the rebellion.

With an antimatter warhead, I finally had the power to make them stop.

Not just the way Dad had made them stop hurting us, but to make them sit up and pay attention completely. To not just be afraid of losing. To be afraid of losing *badly* and immediately.

To make them stop hurting everyone by thrashing and fit pitching in the middle of an extinction we were all trying to save everyone from.

I wasn't naive enough to think that it would come all at once. Or even quickly. Or that we were guaranteed a way out without a horrible war.

But I knew that if I held my tongue, and my claws off the panel, that things would change in ways no other force could hope to cause. I could prevent an end worse, and soaked in more blood, than even the worst war I could envision.

My choice would bring bad. But also good.

A lack of change would leave so much to fester. The poor on the streets, gutted and sucked dry by a system that made no sense. The dead in the alleys, victims of anti-Equestrian sentiment. The bodies on the battlefields; Scorched or twisted by the Earthgov's own weapons, given willingly into the hands of the HLF.

This one act would start to unseat that status quo. Completely.

Forever.

I wasn't naive enough to think that what I'd done was anything but a huge gamble. I knew what the Dead Hand was. Half the junior officers, and ninety nine percent of the civilian population didn't, but I did. The actual strategic arsenal had only been a proposal when I was forced to memorize the specifications. Now it was all too real.

We'd been trained for so many Armageddon scenarios... So many things the Echelon had drilled into our brains that we hadn't understood. They made us memorize and parrot the way fanatics might parrot scripture without knowing or caring what it means.

So many nights talking with Dad and sorting it out. Trying to actually understand, so I could cope. And so I could arm myself with true knowledge.

I knew that if Hutch's counterparty was any kind of smart, she would have placed the Dead Hand on a cooldown. To prevent it instantly starting over if our own warhead failsafes produced any secondary effects. Unfortunately I didn't know for sure that 'Norris' was any kind of smart. I just hoped. And prayed.

Lord please forgive me if I'd made a mistake.

But the alternative was even worse. They had known what might happen when they decided to target a Conversion Bureau. They were getting less than what they truly deserved, by far.

If I'd had a way, I would have pressed the button to kill every last one of the Military Command without hesitation. The good soldiers along with the bad.

I knew I'd probably pulled the trigger on several hundred people who were considerably less-than-evil. But not innocent. No soldier is innocent. Especially not the ones who worked for, and along-side speciesists, and knew it.

Civilians are outside war, soldiers are not. I'd expect my own father to do the same if he had to, and I was 'one of the good ones' in the blast zone. The number of HLF, HLF-sympathizers, and former E12 I was killing would outnumber the 'good' soldiers fifteen to one.

And every one of the Earthgov flag officers was a risk that we just couldn't take anymore. Even the mid level ones could order L-RAC strikes.

Use my father up and cast him out. Let an unseen enemy take his eyes, and try to force-Convert half of New York state. Deny my father an escape, to be the thing he most wanted to be, only to finally accede under heavy political pressure.

Leave orphans to die on the streets, when the fruits of the singularity could house and feed us all. Deny Conversion to minors with no other way out, even though they know what they want. The escape they desperately need.

Tax the already poor as they try to flee the barrier. Invite the Trolls in and let them enslave people so that they can be used as barter for political power, assets on the other side of the Barrier, and valuable gems.

Torture me.

Make me a soldier before I'm old enough to read.

Make me kill before I can write my name.

Torture my sister. Kill her.

Torture our friends. Fill us all with perverse technologies to be shaped into a weapon to be hurled at those who showed us kindness as our world died.

The debt keeps mounting. The risks keep rising.

Fire railguns into the San Francisco Bureau. Drop a world-ender on our closest allies, and a whole city of the innocent with them, and the Council finally makes a public performance of change.

The Humanist anti-Equestrian Generals still sit their titanium and leather thrones.

My father rips the throats out of the Twelfth Echelon. Still no real change in the Council. Promises of diversity training. False oaths that things will get better. Performative donations to charities from corporate heads and Councilors alike. Allowances for the JRSF to become a wholly separate peace keeping force on the shortest possible leash.

But still the Council wants veto power on their actions against the HLF especially, and what's left of Echelon Twelve.

Still come Human high-caste interests over all others. Still Conversion numbers are too low, and the Council will give no extra funds to Genesis. A way for Humans who feel the need to stay that way to survive, and thrive. The only way.

Still the Council courts a disaster that I can picture in my mind's eye in frightening detail.

Untold billions perish as the last Ships leave, and the last land vanishes, and the Potions can't be made fast enough to take the finally panicked and ready masses at the very end.

They prime the pump to feed three and a half billion into the maw of the barrier, vaporized as they scramble over each other when the end arrives, in just a few short decades, bloodletting and butchering to be the last ones standing on the last square meters of Australia.

Celestia begs them to see reason. My father begs them. Luna entreats, and threatens. Their own people scream for relief.

More money spent in the last five years to fire weapons at our own people than to shelter, feed, Convert, or evacuate them.

The Equestrian nation could do so little. What if Earthgov kicked them out? How will passive Ponykind ever find the strength to retaliate to save Humanity from their own warriors? So they bow to the will of the corporatocracy.

A monetary system itself propped up by inertia and fools grasping at power. Something we long outgrew the need for, used as the velvet gloved iron fist of a machine to rule the planet unopposed.

And on the other side, a nearly identical fist of iron, only naked and glinting; The Earthgov holds their new strategic arsenal, and threatens in low but ever-louder tones to use it on allies.

On its own citizens.

Fire Nukes at a Conversion Bureau...

Enough.

They made me. They made me what I was just as much as my father and mother did when they offered me my wings; An instrument of death.

Only they weren't my masters anymore, and I would be no one's slave. 'Right' was an unshakeable and true ideal now. My viewpoint was my own, not some manual of rules set to achieve maximum power and profits.

So I would do what they made me to do. And I would do what God made Gryphons to do.

And in the process, I would sow the seeds to finally unmake them.

No more civilian casualties at Earthgov's hands.

I held my claws still. Kept my beak shut, save to murmur softly to myself.

"For you... Sonya. And for all of us."

One moment Creek Mountain Colorado existed.

A military installation the size of a small city on the surface, home to a fair sized skyport that primarily existed to shuttle high-value officers to and from the Earthgov Air and Space command.

Inside the mountain a vast warren of tunnels that strengthened out to combined lengths in the hundreds of miles, and hosted four thousand personnel. Fusion reactors big enough to run the Eastern Seaboard, with fuel enough to run for a century. An aquifer with enough water for thousands to subsist for twice as long. Hydroponics bays with food to match.

An underground tunnel, wide enough for ten tanks abreast, connecting twenty miles through solid granite to the basement of Cheyenne Mountain, where NORAD, and then the HLF, had formerly resided. An open secret to the entire base command staff at Creek Mountain. Half of them had openly worked in both places simultaneously, and the other half had seen to the day to day workings of Echelon Twelve's military tentacles.

Enough AI computing hardware to run every system on Earth. Twice. With spare power.

A communications suite that could reach out and touch anything on the planet, one of only two that had the control codes for the Dead Hand, and the remainder of the strategic arsenal.

And half of the Earthgov Military's newly re-organized high-command staff, split evenly with the new GMCC under Serranilla Bank.

The next moment, Creek Mountain Colorado ceased to exist.

It was replaced with a fireball, which expanded in an instant to six kilometers in radius. Had Colorado Springs and the adjacent environs still been an inhabited settlement, instead of an abandoned part of the military safety exclusion zone around the facility, everyone in it would have been reduced to base carbons at the speed of thought. At the height of its population over a quarter million would have perished.

Had Alyra not dropped the warhead's yield to fifty percent, and programmed it to detonate only after passing fifty meters into the ground, the Thaumatically Pumped anti-deuterium reaction would have reached out and burned off half of Denver as well, albeit without casualties; The city had long since been ceded to the cold starving winters of the Winnowing. The need to increase power grid efficiency, combined with the desire for a military exclusion zone meant it had never built back.

There would be not one single civilian casualty from the blast.

The top of Creek Mountain, and Cheyenne mountain, were flung into the upper atmosphere as an immense radiationless cloud of ejecta that touched the top of the atmosphere, and eventually clocked in as the largest such cloud ever produced by an intentionally detonated Human weapon on Earth.

The Creek Mountain Facility, the Cheyenne Mountain Facility, and everything attached to them, were dissociated at the atomic level before nerves could even fire in the dead officers' minds.

Moving at the speed of light, the thermal pulse cooked the surrounding fifty one point four kilometers in a perfect circle, wiping out every object on the surface in an instant. Rock. Steel. Petrified plant matter. Military Vehicles. Military Personnel. Duracrete. Nothing survived.

As the lurid red glow faded over the horizon, and the ground stopped shaking, failsafe breakers in the Northamerizone powergrid tripped, in response to both the Creek Mountain and Serranilla Bank detonations. Every city south of Harrisburg, and East of Phoenix went dark as the AI controlling the power grid scrambled to disconnect and save the most sensitive and important components.

Three quarters of all satellites in orbit above the Western Hemisphere shut down, fried beyond repair in an instant, including the most hardened military platforms. Communications for the Northamerizone vanished instantly from the global grid.

As the fireball finally completely faded a minute later, the surviving parts of the SatVision constellation came above the horizon, moving opposite to the vector of the Genesist colony ships sheltering in the lee side of the Earth's curvature.

All that was left of Creek Mountain Air and Space Command was a crater three miles wide, and one mile deep, sitting in a vaporized carbon scored circle, capped by a cloud of ejecta potent enough to drop global temperatures by a degree celcius.

A scar visible from orbit.

From her position suspended in the control column, Veritas couldn't help but smirk as ghostly ballistic track lines and EM waveforms flashed across her mind.

So. The apekind had finally snapped. At long last.

In her best projections, a vast world war would touch off an evacuation panic, pushing huge numbers to Convert by the fastest produced and mostly widely available serum. The Ponification Potion.

The outcome she had so desired, and so long worked for.

Even one or two billion dead would be nothing, the rest would more than make up the needed difference. Kicking, screaming, and scrambling to become exactly what she wanted them to be.

What she needed them to be.

Thousands of being-hours of investment had gone into funding and expanding the PER, and the HLF alike. The carrot to lure, the stick to prod. And even funding for the Bureaus too, and the occasional manipulation to ensure they didn't fail early on.

Laying the seeds for the linking of the HLF with Chrysalis' Changelings had been, in her not so humble opinion, a stroke of brilliance as well. It served to keep the Changelings and other races further at odds, small rebel Hives notwithstanding, and it gave the HLF untold potential to damage not just Human stability on Earth, but Gryphon and Pony stability in Equestria, via the Diamond dog go-betweens.

Prodding the dreams of the Humans' military leaders to stoke their fears, and inspire new weapons had been trivial. Manipulating their corporate and financial structures to fund all sides of the conflict, until the fires of war were stoked to white hot heat, had been practically no effort whatsoever.

They had been an excellent target. Humans. Grossly swift reproducers. Brilliant makers of horrifying innovations that she would soon twist entirely to her own ends. But most importantly, numerous already in number, and easily manipulable through their fears, and their nightmares.

Their racism, classism, greed, and paranoia had been like a pre-fertilized field with perfect sunlight and water to the seeds of her plan.

And too, there was fantastic poetry in it. All things in full circle. As if the Hegira had never even happened, when it was all over.

At last all the pieces were reaching their points of full fruition.

All-out war would shatter any burgeoning alliances that posed a risk to the Dispossessed.

Feh.

And to think the void of voids had once voted for that idiot Sombra's plan in favor of hers. They'd soon seen their error.

Creating crystalline Ponies. A mistake that had been a thorn in her side for years, until she finally found a way to quietly dispose of their growing threat. At least long enough to keep them a few centuries behind. The meddling students of the Solar Avatar had spoiled a potentially permanent imprisonment. But the damage had been done. Enough damage had been done.

That their creations patterned off carbon-based Equines would have a burgeoning free will, resulting in eventual rebellion and loss of control, had been an obvious outcome.

Using the crystalline gateway device, the 'Tipler Cylinder' Human theorists called it, that Ponies had once used to arrive in Equestria as the means to seal off their 'Crystal Empire' had been a magnificent use of a leftover piece of the Hegira that had cemented her role as leader of the Dispossessed.

Damning the fool Sombra to have his essence split into crystal amulets as a punishment for his failure had been one last stroke of genius in a flawless campaign. It more than made up for her past failings, and exile.

The times she had used those amulets as a gateway to wreak havoc with the Alicorns' feeble attempts at peace, and stability. It was both amusing, and elegantly satisfying. Ponies were so bad about touching shiny things they just didn't understand. Humans too apparently.

She closed off the loop on her recollections with an amber trilling sigh of contentment.

No matter. And no matter that her own local weapon systems remained more or less destroyed.

Whether the Humans finally took the full plunge, or merely contented themselves with a few exchanged 'strategic' weapons, and then fell to more smoldering squabbling afterwards, either end would serve her ultimate goal neatly.

And Genesis would not survive the day regardless. No escape for Humans beyond Conversion.

Killing Fyrenn, Neyla, and Skye would further cement absolute victory. Three of The Six all gone in one bright flash.

Veritas thrummed a deep violet note of satisfaction, and trained her eyes-linked-to-sensors on Shenzhou expectantly, holding the retreat trajection spell on the cusp of her awareness.

Not much longer.

Skye

"Aston! Right side of the faceplate, in three seconds, full overcharge!"

I couldn't give the warning too soon, or the Troll would parse it out for herself, and might duck. It usually took the ones with bloodlust going a solid five seconds to make sense of anything said in Terran Common though, so I figured three seconds was perfect.

The brute was the last of her kind in the room; The next to last one had gotten swiss cheesed by Aston's particle rifle pretty quickly. Apparently he forgot the first rule of how not to be seen, because he'd stood up right into our second volley of fire, and he'd already gotten quite a few weak spots in his armor from the first round.

I didn't feel the tiniest whiff of sympathy for him, the one Neyla had slaughtered, the one Aston and I were about to pulp, or any of Troll-kind. I knew enough Ponies who'd lost foals, particularly young fillies, to roving Troll packs. I knew what kind of life had befallen those stolen foals. Let's just say that I was a *big* fan of what the Gryphons had done to the Trolls, right up until the point that they stopped. And that stopping was the only part I took issue with.

Not a very Pony-like sentiment, but I'd never been an average Pony. Even before I met Fyrenn and the rest of our whacked out little herd. I always felt the whole 'no violence, peace in our time' schtick was a stinking hypocritical pile when it came from our nobles. But maybe that was just my opinion of my fathers talking.

Right on the cusp of the three second mark, I concentrated and reached for the magic sustaining my frontal shield. A quick restitch of two threads in the spellweave, a ticklish gray one, and a vanilla spiky one, and the shield lashed out like a net, going from convex to concave on the outer surface, and shrinking down to grab the Troll's head.

I smirked, and twisted. Hard. The action forced the weakest part of her faceplace, the part that had been hit five times already by my pistol, directly into Aston's line of fire.

The Troll locked eyes with Aston over the holosight over her rifle, at point blank range.

"Hi."

As Aston said the word, she squeezed the trigger, having flicked the overcharge switch in the breath before.

There was a colossal 'TSEEWWW' mixed with a 'WHUMP' as the Troll's head vaporized to atoms inside the helmet, and the blast continued, weakened, out the back of the armor, splashing across a far wall support strut to leave behind a nasty divot.

Good shot red two.

I raised one hoof, and Aston reached out with her offhand fist to give it a bump.

We both turned out heads just in time to see Fyrenn and Neyla perform the most gorgeous combination dual backflip, laying into the remaining Wisp with three swords all at once.

It promptly fell apart like that dumb tomcat in the Looney Tunes whenever something slices him into a bunch of little rivulets.

What a magnificent pair they made. Not for the first time I had to fight the urge to keep plotting how I might help Alyra get those two hitched and snogging their hearts out. Or however Gryphons expressed romantic affection. One hell of a battle couple in the making.

I quickly squelched the distractions, fired up my combination holding/disruption spell, and let loose with my pistol in sync. The Wisp died like the one before it. Screaming. Some deeper primal prey animal part of me always felt a sharp chill at that sound.

Like the thing was going to reach out and freeze my soul.

I murmured aloud, "Yeah. Fuck you too buddy."

Human curse words really were helpful, and maybe even fun I decided. The invective made my stomach churn a little less, and refocused my train of thought.

Time to save the world again. Or at least one very important corner of it, undergirding the future of Humans as a physical species, along with all the lives of the ship's skeleton crew, my family, the ground staff of the facility... No pressure or anything.

Presuming World War III wasn't off to the races outside. Fyrenn and Neyla didn't even have any idea how close everyone was to the brink. For that matter I didn't know how much worse it might've gotten.

Fucking Mondays.

Actually it was a Thursday. But Fuck Mondays anyways. And this particular Thursday too.

Astris, or the thing inside him... It struck me that the arrogant prick I decided I hadn't liked very much was actually a Wisp, and not the real Astris... It spared only a half second lazy glance at us before getting back to trying to murder us in spectacular fashion.

Worse, and much less cool ways to go, than an antimatter explosion.

But not today, Physics. Not today.

"I need that door open."

Thanks captain obvious.

I rolled my eyes at Fyrenn's statement, wincing and regretting my sarcasm instantly as I saw the golden ichor and blood oozing from a deep gash in his chest armor. The Wisp spike was still in there. Holy forking shirtballs those Gryphons could take their punishment for something with such brittle bones and low mass.

I lowered my horn, and began the delicate dance of math, instinct, physics, and memory that underpinned the best magic I could muster.

"Stand back. I'm going to do a science."

Human memes were pretty cool too I guess.

Martins

"You understand your orders? No discussion of anything about what's happened. With anyone besides senior staff."

A chorus of nodding heads and murmured affirmations from the fourteen captains filled my terminal. Zebra, Gryphons, Humans, and Ponies. A majority of Humans, but enough of each of the others to have at least two representatives of each.

I could feel the next words hitching in my throat. I clamped down on my feelings as hard as I could, and ground out what had to be said.

"If all goes well, wave two will have good news to bring, and you can unseal what happened here today at that point, where it isn't going to cause unrest for you. If no future waves arrive... Then you're to assume the worst, and use your best judgements. Godspeed. I hope I'll see you all in about two years, by your perspectives."

I bit back tears as each captain nodded, and gave their sign off. Some waved. Some spoke ancient prayers of blessing for me, in the language of their kind. Others just did their best to hold back their own emotions.

We'd all agreed fairly rapidly; Asking them to stay in orbit and provide any additional support presented too many risks, and complications. For both them, and us. They had a massive journey to undertake. And they were not outside the range of LEO, or even theoretical HEO strategic weapons.

I knew each and every one of them like family. To know they would escape the horrors that might unfold in the next few minutes. Hours. Days. Years... It helped quench the pain.

If they made it, and we'd given them every possible chance and advantage... Then brothers of Man, and Equestrian, would yet survive. Somewhere beyond the heavens.

My life had gone into the Genesis project. A beautiful, shared dream, of wings for all kinds soaring through the stars.

And if anything went even slightly wrong in the next few moments, I'd never get to join them. Wave two would die right there on the African plains. And all of us left on Shenzhou with it.

Curses of the gods on whatever sick fool had given the order to fire Nukes.

And double curses on these 'Wisps.' It finally made sense why Ponies kept up their alliance with the Gryphons. Why Gryphons themselves were so harsh, and frightening. Their whole point was to fight off nightmares in the dark reaches of the world too terrifying for Human, or Pony minds to easily get to grips with. To fight monsters, your best bet was monsters.

I hoped dearly that the monsters who had become some of my most trusted allies were prevailing. Both the ones I knew so well in the power core, and ones I knew far less well out halfway around the Earth.

"Status?"

Alyra shook her head at the query, vocalizing the answer the way a trained soldier would. Every time that young woman spoke or moved in a way that betrayed her upbringing, it tore out a small piece of my heart.

How the Hell could any Human being do that to another? She'd probably killed more people than Hutch had. And suffered worse than any torture most soldiers had ever experienced.

Maybe we were the monsters. Not Fyrenn and his kind. At least they restricted their warfare where the young were concerned. Not something one could readily say of Humanity in this age, or the last.

"Unchanged. No movement from the Earthgov military. The BattleNet is in pieces. Our own link to the outside world is barely holding. No word from below. No change from the enemy ship."

Hutch exhaled and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice sounded... Not defeated, but perhaps truly exhausted. For the stress to be so visible on his face... He'd run out of patience with our former leaders long ago. As we all finally had, apparently.

"If GMCC wanted to, or could start up the ballgame again, we wouldn't be here talking about it. I just got an encrypted text flash from Brendt... Apparently they sent the ultimatum a moment ago. I still can't believe you signed it."

I snorted, and straightened the hem of my top reflexively. Force of habit for many a military officer, and civilian official. I didn't bother to hide the disdain in my voice. I'd felt some hesitation initially. Having a few minutes to contemplate the idea of my colleagues firing nuclear armaments at children had done wonders for my rebellious streak.

It didn't hurt that they'd tried to block, disassemble, and squash my life's work at every turn.

"To Hell with the Council. If we live through this, I'm unilaterally pulling my representative district out of the whole damn show. It wouldn't be hard to get a secession measure going. Not once people see what Norris almost did. Maybe we'll try for protectorate status with the Gryphons. Better protection than EarthGov would give."

To my surprise, though not that much surprise, Hutch nodded sagely, and scratched the bald dome of his head above his right eyebrow.

"I'll bet you anything you like that Fyrenn will vouch for you. After this shitshow? I'm frankly ashamed to call myself Human anymore. I want out. I don't even have to give up the JRSF bars to get feathers. Aston wants to take it as a double header with me. We keep putting it off... But I guess we're past time for putting things off now."

A moment of silence passed, and the General looked up at me with a forlorn smile. I'd never seen him smile like that before. It suddenly struck me how close a friend, and ally he'd been over the years, in spite of how harshly I'd judged him on first meeting.

His next words brought a smile to both my face, and Alyra's, and a chuckle out of the depths of my wracked and tired bones.

"I'm gonna ask her to marry me tomorrow."

As the laughter faded, quickly as it had come, I shook my head slowly, smile dissipating shortly thereafter.

"Hutch, much as I disagree with you about feeling ashamed to be Human... I very much hope you'll do your ceremony here with us. I have always wanted to see another species' wedding rituals. Gryphons will do for a first foray. In fact as a Councilor, I can make it official by Earth laws as well, if you're so inclined to do a more Human style affair. Before I swear off my position officially."

Hutch shook his head, and winked. True joy entering his words, almost brightening the bridge visibly for just the briefest moment.

"Janet, I'm flattered and honored. But truth be told? I think we're just gonna elope."

Alyra smiled, rolled her eyes, and flattened her ears.

"You need to work on my Dad. I think we're close... He just needs a friendly push. Or two. Maybe a shove. You're not afraid to give my Dad a shove are you?"

I smirked in spite of myself, and gestured out the view dome towards the Wisp ship, answering on Hutch's behalf as he laughed silently to himself.

"Alyra, if we survive this day, I don't think any of us have cause to be afraid of much besides the Wisps ever again."

Fyrenn

The squeal of protesting crystalline material was almost unbearable as I dragged my right talons down the transparisteel wall. The motion barely left four tiny scratch grooves, but that wasn't the point. The extremely pained, and annoyed look on not-Astris' muzzle was.

Surprising us all, it spoke, sounding almost disinterested as magic from the Unicorn's horn continued to flow out into the top of the torpedo, and the side of the antimatter bottle.

"You really shouldn't do that. If I slip while doing this, we will all perish immediately. The torpedo safeties are... No longer present."

Whether it was true or not, the words elevated my heart rate as a matter of reflex. And I suppose that was the point. To hit back at me in the same petty way I'd lashed out with my little 'nails on chalkboard' maneuver.

What the Wisp didn't know was that I had far more important reasons beyond mere pettiness.

With a concerted mental effort, I quashed the temptation to look over at Skye. Sitting just out of view of not-Astris, the brilliant little Unicorn was busy stringing together a spell that was at once both familiar to me, but also eerily new and, if the thrum in the jaw of my beak was any indication, exceedingly powerful.

Not for the first time, I reminded myself that people who underestimated Ponies did it at their peril. Especially Ponies like Skye. I'd never seen an Equine take to so many decidedly un-Equestrian things as quickly as she did. Lots of people mistook her for a Convert when they first met her.

I had only a fleeting idea of what dark and painful life events had shattered her cultural and biological passivity defaults. Something terrible to do with her biological family. I found myself wanting simultaneously to know everything, and nothing about it.

Later Fyrenn. If you survive this. Later. Hell of a lot of things to accomplish first.

Neyla smoothly took over the task of distraction as I briefly slipped into silent thought.

"You will not leave this place alive. Either way."

The demon thing inside Astris' head actually turned to offer Neyla a brief disdainful glance, followed by a twisted, sick bastardization of a smile that was not at all at home on a Pony's face.

"Would you kill an innocent little Pony just to get at me?"

The words left me with a hollow, aching stab of pain in my core, distinct from the ongoing dull throb of the embedded Wisp tail barb. I didn't know Astris, the real one, at all. But the part of me that wanted to protect innocent life, that went all the way back to my Marine days, and had only gotten stronger with the arrival of my feathers, hated the idea of killing him.

There was something else there too. A nagging sensation of a need to protect him because he was a Pony, and Gryphons are natural protectors of Ponies.

Anyone peddling bullshit about Gryphons as stomach-prodded carnivores gobbling up Ponies at the slightest provocation was a dumbass. Anyone suggesting we ever took a life without careful consideration was either selling something on the enemy side, or just didn't realize how much thinking we could do in a short span of time.

And all the legends about us being gold-loving greedy psychopaths apparently stemmed from a mistranslation of our words for 'treasure' and 'children.' We barely had a use for money, and our social safety nets would have made Marx blush and fan himself profusely.

But apparently there were bedtime stories amongst the Ponies about our species living in decay atop a dying tree, hoarding dwindling stocks of gold and gems, bickering and infighting ourselves to death. There had to be a story about an idiot with an agenda behind that one.

Poke our resources, we'll poke back in kind. No more no less.

But our fledglings? Hell, even the fledglings of other races? Poke that. See if anyone besides the young of your species is still there the day after. If you live long enough to see the tail end of the slaughter.

The vast majority of that protective instinct extended to any innocent creature, regardless of age. Perhaps more so Ponies than anything else though.

But as the old proverb went... 'The needs of the many.'

I knew in that terrible moment that I had it in me to do it, if there was no other way. But only just. And only if there truly was no other way. And I hated that realization with every fiber of my bleeding, exhausted, pain-wracked being.

Neyla delivered her answer with far more surety than I'd've been able to press into my voice.

"Come out here and see. Or just wait for Aston to finish cutting through the door, it makes no difference to me."

Aston glanced up from her work with the fusion cutter tool, to fix Neyla with a deep stare, raising an eyebrow in surprise. I also thought I could see a hint of disgust there too. Typical of her. Good soldier. Even a good friend. But not a very good warrior by my measuring stick.

There is a big difference that Humans seem to keep missing. Warriors are steeped in battle, and function in it the way birds do in air, or fish in water. All warriors are good soldiers, but not all good soldiers are warriors. A soldier is just someone who has been trained and equipped to fight, and does it for a career at some point.

Aston never had the stomach for the things full unbounded warfare could ask of a soldier. I didn't blame her for that. No judgement here. Not everyone should be soldiers, or even warriors. Surprisingly, not all Gryphons are warriors, though we are all predators.

But I sure as hell wasn't pleased that Aston's stance had gone 'from preachin' to meddlin' in the past, as my grandma used to say.

At least she'd bowed out before it got to a point where I'd have had to hurt her. Or worse.

They tell me what I'd done was because of something called 'red-lining.' If anyone had bothered to study Gryphon history they'd have known the fastest way to commit suicide-by-Gryphon is to even so much as breathe a half-baked threat against even one of our young.

Alyra. At least, I reflected grimly, if the Shenzhou went up in an antimatter explosion, Alyra, Neyla and I would all die together. None of us forced to bear the awful weight of carrying on without one of the others.

I blinked back a stream of tears at the thought, glancing first at the ceiling, in the direction of the bridge, then at Skye, then at Neyla.

Daughter.

Sister.

Mate-to-be?

People use the phrase 'and then something inside snapped.'
Something inside me snapped. Not for worse, but for the better.

Time almost seemed to stop. I could see the future in my mind's eye.

There was Neyla, curled up beside me with one wing over my back, and my own right wing. Red feathers in her crest, the same as the blue in mine. Under the canopy of both our wings, sandwiched between us, Alyra. Skye. Stan. IJ, still a Changeling, but no longer a Hive Queen. And a little foal; Part Pegasus, part Changeling.

A picnic of fruits, breads and cheeses split between them. Something Skye had said had provoked a bout of laughter so intense that even IJ was rolling around in the deep green grass completely out of control.

Across the patch of turf Kephic. Sildinar, locked deep in a loving gaze with Seyal. Varan. And two other Gryphons locked wing-in-wing who I recognized as with a sudden start. Hutch. Aston.

Sitting beside and between them, an eclectic mix of both Natives, and Converts. More Ponies. Gryphons, some whom I recognized, General Sorven in particular. Changelings. Even Diamond Dogs, and a couple of young Dragons.

A family. And around that family a clan, like nothing the world had ever seen before.

And in the same instant, the vision was gone.

But I knew, deep in my heart of hearts, that it was possible. And I knew I'd give anything to make it real. No fear followed in the vision's wake. No nameless paranoia. Only love.

Suddenly living to see tomorrow became, somehow, even more of an imperative. The pain in my ribs vanished in a warm golden glow that spread out to the leading edges of my wings.

I grit my beak in determination, and stood aside as Skye finally rose, horn bathed in a piercing blue and teal glow that manifested as hypnotic and complex fractal bursts and sparks.

As she moved to stand in front of the transparisteel pane, she opened her eyes.

They glowed, literally, with the same blue colored fires of energy.

I shivered in spite of myself.

Not-Astris turned, sensing the approach of the intense magical field, but it was far too late by then.

Wordlessly, but with an expression of pure unadulterated hatred on her muzzle that spoke volumes, Skye released the pent up thaumatic weapon.

A dazzling burst of teal and blue shot straight through the glass as if it wasn't even there, piercing Astris' skull, and wrapping itself around his mind through his eyes, ears, nostrils, and muzzle.

A piercing cry came from between his lips, and then he collapsed on the deck, as if someone had simply shut off his neuromuscular system with a switch. In fact, I wagered that was exactly what Skye had done.

Subtle dancing glows persisted around the Unicorn's head. I realized almost immediately what she'd done. She'd trapped the Wisp there, while also severing its connection to Astris' body.

Brilliant, and terrifyingly effective. As always.

She stood panting for a moment, head hung, fur lathered in sweat. I moved to place a wing over her back, and met her eyes with a smile.

"Damn good shot. You are one in a million, you know that?"

A tiny hint of a smirk graced her lips, and she cocked her head slightly.

"Actually feathers? That damn good shot is more like one-in-a-billion. I know Mages who have studied under Celestia herself who couldn't do that little trick to save their lives. I was not at all sure I could pull it off."

Neyla shook her head, and chuckled, a gorgeous musical chime that washed over us all and seemed to bring with it hope, and energy. She shook her head again and spoke to Skye with a warmth that always made me feel just that much more alive to have even heard it.

"Skye, I would never have doubted it. Even if I had some frame of reference to understand how difficult it was. None of us would have doubted it."

Aston switched off the fusion cutter, placing it on the deck, and then reaching over to ruffle Skye's mane as she spoke with a similar smile.

"You, m'lady, are a steely-eyed missile-mare."

Skye smirked again, and stepped out from beneath my wing, reaching out through the glass with her telekinesis to begin diffusing the torpedo, and undoing the Wisp's other half-finished machinations, muttering aloud as she worked.

"We're not quite done yet. But I'll wear the title with pride."

Veritas knew something was wrong instantly. A very particular pinprick of light in the void, the low thrum of a specific Wisp's thought processes as it worked to complete its task, suddenly replaced with a flash of blue-green pain, and then silence.

As if it had been cut off. By death, or disruption, who could say?

The taste of the severing was very similar, disturbingly so, to the way that the most recent disconnections had occurred. Those voices had not rejoined the void.

A decision was made in but a tenth of a second. Consensus from the void followed. The bright
glow of the control column dimmed, replaced by a bright violet flare as a trajection spell formed.

Veritas murmured aloud through gritted teeth as the spatial fold enveloped her.

"If you want something done properly..."

Comments

[17JosephLC]

I sincerely hope the Genesists make it through. I hope Humanity survive and thrives on other worlds, in the light of other stars.

Also, this question kinda comes out of nowhere, but… what exactly happened that botched the Lupine Diamond Dog program?

[Numinos]

Oooh, boss battle incoming : )

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11028979
Well, it wasn't the Lupines specifically, it was actually all Diamond Dogs. It was partially covered in ED, but the biggest problem was that the EarthGov was paid under the table to look the other way on the Pack Dynamic issues. Which are fine, if you go into the program understanding them, and joining a reputable Pack that will take care of you...

But if you have no idea what you're in for, and you fall in with the wrong Pack, you can end up essentially a slave-class 'citizen' in a Troll Pack. So people understandably hit the roof when those issues started coming to light, and seeing that EarthGov had done no work at all to screen packs, or to prepare new Converts.

11029015
"Why do I hear boss music?"

[KireiShojo]

11029156
Not to mention the use of it by gangs and cartels.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11089293
Yeah, that created no end of tragedy and sorrow that will last long after the Earth is gone