Lyra's World

Commander Bradford called a general meeting the next day. Everypony in the base gathered in the main control room. It was crowded, despite their losses – X-Com had been recruiting, and there were far more dragons present than there had been when they’d mounted their last-ditch defense against me in the same room.

The glowing sphere in the center was also more crowded, and not in a good way. Huge swaths of territory glowed an ominous red, and there were dozens of alien attacks marked, all over the map.

“Congratulations, Dr. Vahlen,” he said as she walked in. I was right behind her, with the rest of the science staff. Johann and the other transformed pony were already out in the crowd. I didn’t see the bats anywhere. “I heard about your recent breakthrough. I only wish it had come sooner.”

“It has been only a few weeks,” she said. “If you expected any discoveries to be made even this quickly, then you know little about the pace of science. As it is, I feel like a mountain goat leaping from boulder to boulder without a net to catch me should I place a hoof wrong.”

He sighed. “I know. And I expected to have weeks or months before I’d have to make this decision.” He turned to the crowd. “Thank you all for coming. Over the last few weeks I’ve seen each and every one of you go above and beyond the call of duty, helping to push back the alien threat. I’ve seen acts of heroism, of sacrifice, that would shame any military on Earth.

“But it’s not enough. As of 08:00 this morning EDT, the Council of Nations has authorized me to enact the Omega Protocols. The launch codes for the world’s nuclear arsenal have been put in my hands, to be used to deny the aliens any benefit from the ground they capture.”

Then he turned to me. “Lyra, before I take this step, is there anything you can do to help us? If I wished for the alien menace to be stopped, could you find it in your heart to grant it in the spirit that the world needs?”

“That’s a terrible idea,” I said. “I mean… if you really want to make that wish, I’ll grant it, but a widespread wish like that, that’s already focused on destruction? It’s just… not really a good idea. It could kill a lot of dragons.”

“And how many people will die if we’re forced to go nuclear?” he asked.

“I have no idea. What’s a nuclear?”

“A terrible weapon,” Dr. Vahlen explained. “It harnesses the process that lights the sun, in order to destroy entire cities in a sea of fire. But commander – she is not lying. I have studied her wish-granting capability, and it is not under her control.”

“Then who is controlling it?” he asked.

“Random chance, perhaps,” Dr. Vahlen said. “What the ponies call ‘fate’.”

“Then at least it’s a chance,” he said. “Lyra – I wish that all the aliens on and around the Earth would be destroyed.”

I gave a heavy sigh, and focused on the map. It was supposedly detecting all the aliens on Earth, and it seemed like the easiest way to avoid destroying myself by accident. Not that I could actually be hurt, even by a wish, but it couldn’t be good for X-Com to have me explode in the middle of their pep rally.

Suddenly, an alarm went off. “Sir!” said one of the civilian dragons, running back to his slate. “We’ve detected a nuclear launch. Multiple nuclear launches!”

“What?” Commander Bradford asked. “How many?”

There was a pause, and then the dragon looked up, his face pale. “All of them.”

===

“The war is over,” I told Dr. Vahlen, as she tried to herd me into the blast shelter with the rest of the X-Com personnel. “You don’t need me anymore. I’m going to go up to the surface and see if I can save anypony.”

She paused. “Be safe,” she said, wrapping her arms around my neck and giving me a dragon-style hug, like Spike always does.

“There’s nothing up there that can harm me,” I said, nuzzling her in return. “A little sunfire isn’t going to do anything. I was at ground zero for the explosion that created the universe.”

“What?” she asked, taking a step back and looking at me in confusion.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll tell you later. Get to the shelter.”

I was halfway down the hall when I remembered something important. “Hey,” I said as I turned back. “How do I get to the surface?” But it was too late, the heavy blast doors on the shelter were already closed, and forcing them open would certainly ruin its effectiveness as a shelter even if it didn’t immediately kill everypony inside.

So I started looking for stairs. I found an elevator, but riding it to the top just dumped me out in the big glowing map chamber. There was a stairwell up from there, but it only led to a couple of offices and a restroom. I wandered down a few of the other hallways, and found a memorial wall with the names of all the dragons who’d been killed in action, and a huge dormitory where all the dragons must have slept. It would have been fascinating to explore if I’d had time to waste on that, but each time I’d come back to the map room, and look up at the glowing sphere, where the flashing red arcs of the ‘nuclear missiles’ were slowly making their way from their launch points to their target cities. They were getting really close.

So I had a thought – what if we were inside a mountain? Maybe the exit wasn’t at the top at all! I’d never explored the lower reaches of the base, since the lab was only one level down from the map chamber. So I headed back to the elevator and pushed the button for the lowest floor. It got about halfway down when the nuclear missiles hit.

There was no fire, or anything like that – I was deep in the bowels of an underground base. But the ground shook, and the elevator screeched to a halt, jolting back and forth and tilting a bit to the side. I tried to force open the doors, but there was only solid rock behind them – it had stopped between floors, and the base had a lot of space between floors.

Then something heavy thunked into the ceiling, denting it. Several more somethings followed. I had time to get a stupid look on my face and look up, and hear a noise like a thousand tons of crumbling rock falling down an elevator shaft, and then the floor dropped out from under me as the elevator was jolted free.

I’m not sure if it was the fall or the thousand tons of rock that killed me, but I’m pretty sure it was the rock that made me stay dead for so long.