War of the Worlds; 2nd Wave

Spike sighed as he sat down in a passenger coach at the front of the train with the other M.A.R.S. soldiers. Ponies, changelings, hippogriffs, griffons, zebras, minotaurs, dragons, kirins, and many more were onboard. Warriors from all over the world were gathered for the fight.

"Six months until war and here we are, racing to get to some position we need to hold, and then wait."

"Ah, you know how it is in the army," Nickel replied, sitting beside him. "Hurry up and wait."

"Still, going to battle positions before the enemy have even arrived?" Smolder asked from the seat opposite them in the aisle, shaking her head. "We know it'll be about six months before the arrive. A bit of an overreaction, don't you think?"

"Not really. We've been advancing in tech to a ridiculous extent in just ten years; what do you think the Amari have been doing in that time? They'll have been upscaling their own technology; how do we know they won't arrive faster now than they did before the War?"

That led to an uncomfortable silence as everyone who heard that thought about it. One way or another, the Amari were probably going to have better technology when they arrived; better heat rays, better Smoke, bigger and faster fighting machines, and there was the possibility they'd arrive faster than previously. All of that was chilling; despite all their advances, the nations of Equus would still have struggled against the tripods as they had been constructed prior to the War. What chance would they have this time around?

"At least we have gas and germ shells this time around," a hippogriff named Sea Bird said from behind them. "They get hit, and they'll be too busy sneezing to defend themselves, and thats if they live long enough to even do as much."

"That honestly doesn't make me feel any better," Smolder replied, turning to him. "That stuff could just as easily make us sick."

"As long as the Amari die, the sacrifice will be worth it."

"Are you serious, dude?" Spike answered. "Don't you want to live and be able to go home afterwards?"

"I care more that those murderers die. How they die, I don't care. And if I have to die to make sure they become extinct, I will. I hate them so much."

"Join the club, bud. I hate them as much as anypo- anybody. But what's got your mane in a twist? THe Amari didn't land anywhere on Mount Aris."

"They didn't," Sea Bird growled, his body shaking slightly and his voice dripping with hatred, "but my uncle and dad were visiting Ponyville when those pieces of manure attacked it. They were killed by the Smoke after Discord had to make a break for it. My poor mother suffered a heart attack and died when she heard about it, leaving me and my siblings as orphans. Thankfully, my aunt, bless her soul, took us in. But I'll never forgive the Amari for those tragedies... Never. Only when they're all in Hell will I have any consolation."

"Wouldn't living through their second invasion victorious be a better revenge?" Smolder asked, a note of sympathy in her voice.

"If I can manage it, yeah. If I can't... If I can't, I'll drag them down to Hell with me, curse their souls to the eternal fire forever."

"Alright, chill, man," Spike answered. "We all lost people we loved. I'm fighting to stop the Amari from harming anyone else I love ever again. We all have a bone to pick with the Amari, and we're going to have a chance to pick at them in the coming months. You don't need to be fighting us and them all at once."

Sea Bird didn't reply. Instead, he turned and looked out the window, lost in thought.

Smolder leaned over, so Nickel and Spike could hear her lowered voice. "We'll need to watch out for him; quite a few dragons thought that way during the War after losing family; some literally tore through other dragons to get at the Amari. All of them I know of were killed, and often got others killed."

Nickel nodded reluctantly. "A unicorn I knew lost his entire family to the heat ray. He went nuts and attacked them with every magic spell he knew. Didn't do a thing, of course, and he got fried not very long after they did. It's the berserkers you need to be careful of; they don't care how many of their own die, so long as they get any revenge."

Just then, the train gave a jerk, which unsettled all three of them. All of them recovered their seats quickly.

Spike also began looking out the window. The Amari were cruel creatures that killed all they came across... except those horrifically unfortunate enough to be made into their meals. And yet they had machines that had ripped through every military they had come across. They'd have a much harder fight this time, to be sure. But would it be enough to defeat them?

He tried to ignore the black smoke coming from the locomotive passing by the upper part of the window. It reminded him too much about the War and its horrors.

Shining Armor allowed himself a moment in private to let his fears flow. The Amari had been firing one shot after another for the past five days, an hour and five minutes between each firing. Each pod or cylinder would be carrying at least four of the fighting machines that had devastated the world, assuming they hadn't been improved upon from last time. Magically enhanced lens on the Royal Observatory had managed to get the closest look at Amari that anypony -anyone, for that matter - had ever had of that mysterious, and now all-too-foreboding, planet. From what looked to be the highest mountain on the planet, ten simultaneous eruptions would occur each time the Amari fired. There would be hundreds of Amari coming, as opposed to several dozen from the previous invasion.

He had ordered Equestrian - and Crystal - forces to take up defensive positions in and near cities. The Amari hadn't assaulted cities just to kill and burn; they were the best source of "food" for them. It wasn't exactly knowledge the remnants of the world governments had wanted to spread, but it was an open secret that the aliens had feasted on the blood of Equus' many species; yes, they had gone after animals, but they had primarily gone after civilized species.

First, they murdered civilians to make them terrified of them. Then they slaughtered the armies to make a point; accept becoming livestock to be eaten at their leisure or be erased from existence. They would have gone full domestication... Praise be the Creator, they died before ever fully implementing that stage.

Cadence and Flurry had been captured by an Amari fighting machine during the last days of the War when the Amari were faultering. He had used every magic spell in the book to free them, and had been unable to. Thankfully, the Amari inside had died before it could carry them away to one of the hellholes they ordinarily took "prisoners," the fighting machine coming to a halt on the way.

IwOnTlEtThEmIwOnTlEtThEm

He mentally shook himself. For added measure, he levitated a bucket of cold water and dumped it on his own head to further clear his thoughts.

Yes, the Amari would be difficult to defeat, but not impossible. Since the enemy required fresh blood to inject into themselves, they would need to land near sources of nourishment, namely inhabited settlements. His troops would be waiting for their cylinders to land, where upon they would immedately be attacked before they could build their demonic engines of war. If all went well, most cylinders would have no chance to be opened before being destroyed, with the Amari in them. Some might land further away and have some chance to emerge, but the various world armies would by then have destroyed the rest of the cylinders and be on their way. There would be a bloody struggle against the aliens, but they could and would be defeated. Hopefully, by then the aliens still on Amari would realize the futility of sending more of their own to die, and would either find another world to settle on or - preferably - die off. That was the grand strategy the world's militaries had come up with.

That was the best case scenario. But it wasn't the only one. It was possible the Amari would focus on one continent at a time, or perhaps on a very big island. If that was the case, evacuation plans would be made for the sake of the peoples there to flee somewhere else and bring troops,weapons, and logistics in. Such a war would last much longer than the previous scenario, but it would be winnable, especially with a navy full of ships with both quick-firing artillery and flak cannons to stop the aliens from crossing the oceans. There were even plans for ships to use a new weapon called a depth charge in case the Amari made watertight machines and tried walking on the ocean floor, pioneered by the hippogriffs of Mount Aris.

Finally, there were plans for guerilla warfare should conventional tactics fail; every soldier knew about Order 718, the command to go dark and begin asymetrical warfare against the invaders. They all had manuals on how to make and use explosives, on how to hide and use the native landscape to their advantage. It would be a desperate but necessary move, as extinction or reduction to mere food sources were the only alternatives, neither being acceptable.

The new armies and machines would work. They had to, or else a terrible, nightmarish future awaited Equus.

Princess Luna watched the moon rise as her magic moved it into position. The darkness that arose as her sister simultaneously lowered the sun was almost welcome to cover the panic that shrouded the world like a cloud. Like the dreaded Smoke itself.

She sighed. Since news had leaked to the public, Equestria's ponies had gone into full-blown panic mode. Some had fled the settlements they lived in immediately, with nothing but the fur on their backs. Others had crowded into stores to purchase as many canned goods that they could get their hooves on. Still more had moved on to make bunkers in their backyards, many of which would have no defense against the Smoke and could likely be pried open by Amari fighting machines. Others - many, many others - tried to pretend that the planet Amari didn't exist and went about their lives, perhaps with an overdone smile and higher-pitched voice than usual. Finally, there were hundreds of petitions demanding that various cities, towns, and villages be given ample protection by the Equestrian army. One or two had even made thinly-veiled threats to secede if they didn't get their way. As if some village militias armed with outdated weapons could do better to defend themselves than troops armed with the most modern weaponry!

At least the secessionists had backed down after some... persuasion. But the canned food riots had lasted for days. It had taken the Royal Guard, armed with traditional weaponry, to force the crowds to disperse. Hundreds were in jail, thousands on probation, and still more out on bail. The damage to the economy had been severe, as were the losses suffered by individual storeowners and their families. At many had been injured, and sadly six killed, during the riots, and the Amari hadn't even landed yet. Not a great start.

And now the news had come from the Royal Observatory; the Amari invasion force would be enormous compared to the previous attack.

She had thought of using the moon to disrupt or destroy the Amari cylinders before they could land. However, the moon was a gigantic body, even if it was much smaller than Equus, and even if she could intercept some pods, others would get through. Additionally, the irregular movement of the moon in this way would upset global tides and likely flood continents. While the hippogriffs could survive that, Equestria and other countries, with most of their populations groundbound, could not. All in all, using the moon to defend against the invasion would upset the balance of the planet too much.

She had discussed using the sun for a similar purpose, but Celestia had shot that plan down. The sun didn't control tides or anything like that, but it was necessary for plants, and those who ate them, to survive. It might be possible to delay the sun for an hour or so, but it would be impractical for another reason; the Amari cylinders, though large to the eyes of individuals, were tiny in space. It would be difficult to track and destroy them while they were in space, and even if they could, again the Amari were firing dozens of pods towards Equus; some were going to get through regardless. And as the Amari could bud off new offspring (that could mature disturbingly quickly, if reports from surviving captives taken by the aliens in the War were to be believed), they could replace their losses. In the meantime, the ecological damage might be severe.

Luna had toyed with another plan; perhaps she could use an asteroid to help destroy some of the cylinders before they landed. But that would require an asteroid to pass close to Equus, and for it to be located, for her to use it. And it would have to be big enough to survive an impact with a fast-moving object in space, which most were not. While there was confirmed to be an asteroid belt around the Equus solar system, they were nowhere near close enough for Luna to use. Thus this plan was virtually impossible to carry out.

The coming war was fast approaching - quite literally - and there was no way to stop it before it came to Equus.

In the meantime, politics had become fierce. Those who had argued that the Amari had "learned their lesson" from the previous attack had been embarrased and put to shame by the reality they now faced. Either the Amari were so determined to have Equus that they were willing to risk another death by disease, or they had focused on vaccines or drugs that could minimize or eliminate the illnesses they had suffered last time. Given the size of Amari brains, they weren't launching this invasion blindly or stupidly; they would have a plan to deal with microorganisms when they arrived.

Either way, the nobility was demanding Canterlot's protection. It already had it; several heat rays had been converted into stationary gun platforms ringing the city. But demands for increased army presence and defense were enormous. Canterlot's nobles weren't the only ones whining about the need to be protected; those from Manehattan were also calling for the military to give them priority.

Idiots. We've already deployed the army to protect our cities; that's been the plan all along, and surely they've noticed the trains full of soldiers coming in. What more do they want, for all of Equestria's plebians and peasants to sacrifice themselves to save a few pennies?

Luna tended to despise the nobility. There were exceptions, such as Fancy Pants and Fleur-de-Lis, who were pleasant to know and talk to. But most were out for themselves, for their blue blood, and for their wealth. Meanwhile, commoners were actively looked down on; it had taken direct edicts from the Diarchy to force factory owners to pay their laborers fair wages and ensure safety on the job, as the nobles who controlled these factories often opposed it despite injury to their workers. It sadly made sense for these pampered elites to favor their own defense over those of the "lesser" classes. At least the tribal system was stable. Pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns and thestrals alike were united on fighting the Amari.

Even though the initial panic had been overcome - sometimes through force, other times peaceably - it was clear that the calm that had settled back upon the world was a temporary one. Security and order had to be maintained. Ponies had to remain at their jobs, especially those directly involved with the military, in order for vital goods and machines to continue to supply the armies. Farmers needed to tend and grow vast numbers of crops to feed the populace and the military sent to protect them. Perhaps the military being sent to guard the cities of Equestria would quiet the panic.

It was now a matter of wait and see. The Amari were coming, and would be here in a little less than six months if they were travelling at the same speed as last time. If all went well, the Amari would be slaughtered in their cylinders without a chance to emerge and all the panic would have been for nothing.

One can only hope.