Ponyville, five months later

Spike shuffed the deck of cards in his claws as the other members of the squad gathered around the table near the tent stove for a game of poker. Nickel checked on the frying pan cooking vegetables on the stove as Smolder, Sea Bird, Sovereign Rights - a yellow earth pony with a desire for greater liberties in Equestrian law and greater federalization of Equestria - and Green Grass - a green kirin - sat down.

"I''m starving," Smolder said, sniffing towards the stove. "I'd kill for a plump chicken."

"Would you kill an Amari for it?" Spike asked.

"Oh, yes," the other dragon said, smirking. "A chicken or good goose for every Amari I take out would be a nice bounty."

"I thought dragons mostly eat gems and gold?" Green said, raising an eyebrow.

"We hoard gold, we don't eat it. And yes, we eat gems. But meat is always good, especially if it's been fried first. And we dragons know how to do that well enough," Smolder added, licking her chops.

"Don't worry, I have a few sausages that I'll put on the stove after the veggies are done," Nickel answered.

"Oh well, better than nothing," the yellow dragoness said. "Anyway, what's up for grabs in this game?" she asked as she picked up the cards Spike had passed to her.

"Just a few bits from today's paycheck, added with a bonus of a few gems I found in the local jewelry store," Sovereign told them. "Oh, and this," he added, dropping a large red ruby on the table.

"Is that... a fire ruby?" Smolder asked, eyes fit to burst. "Where...?"

"I did a few odd jobs here and there for Maud Pie. She needed some errands done and she was too busy mining to do them herself. This was my reward."

"Does she realize how rare they are?" Spike asked, looking up from the ruby.

Sovereign shrugged. "She said she had one in her rock collection, and that one was enough for her."

"That will make for a good snack," Smolder said, rubbing her claws together.

"If either of our host dragons win the pot, that is," Nickel reminded them. "And play fair; we're squadmates, after all, and we'll be fighting the Amari together. This is primarily for fun, with a little extra zing added."

"Oh, of course," Smolder reassured him. "But I'm going to win anyway, so it makes no difference."

"We'll see about that," Spike said, with a mock sneer on his face."

Luna looked through her personal telescope into the sky. It was vigil she had been undertaking for the past two months.

The Amari, as far as anyone was aware, had yet to land. But it was always good to be ready.

However, it would be difficult to pinpoint their landings. It was true that she wasn't the only one looking towards the stars; across the planet, the many races of Equus were anxiously scanning the skies, looking for any trace of the Amari.

The aliens had fired about once every 65 minutes for five days, then paused for another two, before engaging in a second wave of firings, again once every 65 minutes, for a final three days.

She paused for breath. It had been calculated that well over five hundred cylinders had been launched if this were the case. Even if that was off, the potential for thousands of Amari to emerge was terrifying. Given the panic that had previously taken place, there had been a clamp-down on all information. Another panic would make it harder to resist the enemy when they arrived.

The Equestrian military had built itself up to impressive heights; over two million in the various military branches, with an equal number in reserve. There were about a thousand tanks and five hundred Mark 1 and 1.2 Mechs ready; six Mark 2s, gigantic in comparison with the first generation, were undergoing their final trials, with another four still incomplete at Manehattan. At least the soldiers weren't complaining about the new Mechs; these slow but powerful walking fortresses had most of their kinks ironed out early on at the urging of every Princess in Equestria, and the soldiers testing them seemed to love them. Luna could sympathize, watching their single but very powerful Amari-made heat ray turn captured fighting machines into slag, or vaporized large parts of them outright. In addition, they had several large quick-firing cannons; several three-inchers, along with a couple eight-inchers for good measure. These blew apart Amari fighting machines with little trouble, though the cannons weren't quite as effective as the heat ray.

Additionally, anti-air tanks had started coming off the assembly lines; these were of two kinds; one type carried a battery of six heavy machine guns, the other a quadruple flak cannon that fired 25mm shells. They were also slow, but were much better armored and capable of turning their guns on ground based enemy fighting machines if necessary. Their main downside was a lack of dedicated anti-ground weapons; they lacked machine guns, so if the Amari had anything like infantry this time around, they would be vulnerable.

Other nations had managed similar feats. While the hippogriff military wasn't nearly as large, they had ringed Mount Aris with defensive artillery of all sizes, along with plenty of anti-air guns and a massive oversupply of gas masks and food for the troops manning them. Additionally, they had a medium-sized but elite navy of powerful dreadnoughts of various classes. A small number of submarines had been built; these carried torpedoes and a single deck cannon that could be used for direct fire upon a tripod or be used to fired at Amari flying machines. The hippogriffs also had the ability to evacuate under the ocean if they had to, though this was hoped to be a last resort. Klugetown, in the desert to the south of Equestria proper, had spent a fortune developing essentially the same strategy as the hippogriffs; put artillery literally anywhere that could hold a modern heavy gun so that every approach to the city was covered. AA guns would cover the skies. Luna personally was unsure if they could hold; unlike Mount Aris, Klugetown was landlocked, and could be surrounded by the enemy at any time. If the Amari tested those defenses and were unable to breach them, they could still starve the city until the defenders were too weak to ably resist them. Or they might decide to cover the entire city with the Smoke in such large quantities that everyone would run out of air and die.

Griffon armies made use of the fact that they could all fly; in addition to armored airships, armed with artillery, they also had heavy caliber rifles capable of penetrating enemy armor. An anti-tripod launcher was another weapon being distributed among their troops, although it had only just begun to enter mass production. Finally, many were armed with heavy machine guns; their job would be to try to pick off enemy flying machines, which had been found to be lightly armored. Yak armies, being large and conspicuous, had developed alternative weapons and strategies; heavily armored warriors equipped with masks and armed with lances tipped with explosives would charge, as individuals or in units, at the Amari ground machines, hoping to catch them off guard and eliminate them before they could recover. Flak cannons were be carried by the largest warriors, and fired by other yaks standing nearby. Saddle Arabia's armies were similarly armed as those of Equestria, but had also allowed for lancer charges. Like the griffons, they had developed a larger caliber rifle, designed for long distance shooting, a replacement for traditional but obsolescent jazzail rifle-muskets. The kirin were in a similar position, although they had developed a gun that used magic to propel a bullet to sound-barrier speeds, the idea being that while the Amari might be immune to magic, they weren't immune to a weapon whose projectile was fired with magic.

Zebras... they were still tribal. They had managed to gather into one large confederation, but it was politically unstable, and their weapons, though better than the spears they had carried previously, was still lacking. They now had modern rifles, but no large caliber ones. They lacked artillery, and had no armored units at all. What they did have was ingenuity. Many were armed with metal cables, the idea being for small ambush units to suddenly burst out of wherever they were hiding and entangle the legs of a fighting machine long enough for other warriors, armed with explosives, to finish the job. They also had developed mines to be triggered before ambushes, hopefully wrecking or dazing some of the Amari before an engagement even began.

A green flare snapped Luna out of her thoughts. She abruptly turned her telescope to face the offending light, but it had gone as soon as it had arrived. Could it be the Amari already?

She wrote a quick note to her Guard Captain, alerting him of the location of the flare in the sky, and sent it via magic. Sadly, she could see no long "tail" as one might expect of a large object entering the atmosphere.

It wasn't long, however, before she received a note; there had indeed been a flare - or rather, explosion, in the sky. The telescope of the Royal Observatory had noticed an object in the sky in the wake of the explosion that hadn't been there before, but it wasn't coming down. Instead, it seemed to be expanding, and seemed to be in orbit. It was clearly artificial in nature, though, and given that Equus had no technology capable of sending an object like that into space, the only reasonable conclusion was that it was Amari in nature.

What in the name of the night are they doing? she wondered.

She looked at her telescope, and got a sinking feeling she knew what the thing was.

Those sneaky devils. They put an observation device into orbit around our world!

But how had it gotten there? Were the Amari landing, even now? And if they weren't, how had this thing arrived so quickly?

In theory, if one fired a smaller, lighter projectile, perhaps at much higher speeds than normal cylinders, I suppose they might reach our world prior to the main force. Clever little monsters. And in such low orbit. If I tried swatting that thing down with the moon, it would heavily damage the planet. Curse the reality of it.

If the Royal Observatory could view Amari, even from so many millions of miles away, what could this Amari satellite, so close to Equus, with even greater powers of observation, see?

The answer; practically everything of importance.

Her sinking feeling continued to dampen her spirits. If the Royal Observatory had right when it first saw those wisps of gas on Amari over five months ago, this satellite would not be alone. If their calculations were right, there could be up to ten of those things in Equus' low orbit right now. They might not be able to view everything at once, but they wouldn't have to. If they remained focused on observing local campaigns, they would be able to see whatever the defenders were doing, which would provide a massive intel advantage.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," she murmured.

It was unclear if Amari tech would be able to see through camouflage spells, but she wrote another note; every unit in Equestria was to use such magic as they could, along with non-magical means, to hide themselves. It might work, or might not, but she had no intention of sitting back and letting the Amari just peer into the planet's native defenses.

Perhaps, with some modification to the current plans and tactics, the war might still go according to plan.

"YES! I won!" Smolder yelled, raising both fists in victory as the others groaned.

"Aw, nuts. I was looking forward to eating that ruby," Spike muttered.

"Better luck next time," the she-dragon said, not unkindly.

"Aw, well, it was mostly for fun anyways," Sovereign said, putting a smile on his face. "I thought I had you with those two queens."

"Yet no queen can beat an ace," Smolder replied, gathering the winning from the pot.

"I'll get you all next time," Nickel said, spooning some soup with vegetables into his mouth

"In your dreams, tech boy," Sovereign said teasingly, to which he got a light tap on the head from Nickel's now-empty spoon.

"At least we did not fall to infighting, as in the previous game," Green Grass answered, pulling out a pipe and putting tobacco into it.

"Hey, Spike clearly cheated with those aces up his armpits," Smolder replied defensively. "It was made all the more obvious because those cards stank so badly."

"Oh common, give it a rest, will ya?' The purple dragon said, laughing. "I never win, and even you were laughing afterwards."

"Didn't mean I didn't give you a good socking over the head."

Spike would have responded, but all of a sudden a screaming alarm began to sound, jerking them out of their personal squabble.

"All soldiers, report to your local assembly areas immediately! This is not a drill!"

"Oh no, not now!" Spike groaned. "Are they here already?"

"Must be," Green said, still lighting her pipe and taking a puff.

"Let's get going!"

There was a scramble as soldiers rushed to their assembly areas; for five minutes, members of many different races were scrambling around, getting ready for what was to come.

Spike and the others managed to arrive in uniform and in relative order. Despite the neat ranks, a lot of curious and frightened whispering could be heard;

"Where do ya think they landed?"

"Could they be here already?"

"What's holding up the brass?

"Could they have hit somewhere as a first strike?"

"What could they have this time around?"

Lieutenant Azurite's voice broke through it all; "Silence in the ranks!"

The whispering stopped.

"Thank you," the blue dragon said. "First of all, the Amari, so far as we know, have not landed on the planet."

Sighs of relief sounded from everywhere.

"But that doesn't mean I have good news," Azurite went on. "Princess Luna and the Royal Observatory observed a burst of green light in the sky. Upon closer inspection, it appears to have been a cylinder that burst open in orbit. Another observation was that that cylinder was apparently carrying an observation device, and that it was settling into orbit around our world. If this is true, then the Amari have begun their offensive by spying on our world before landing. Other nations observed similar things. If the sky-watchers are right, there are ten of these spy drones in orbit above Equus."

Sky Bird cursed. He wasn't alone.

How are we supposed to fight with those things watching us 24/7!?

"The higher ups have given orders; we're going to be camouflaging our units and defensive positions, by means both magical and mundane. We've had some unicorns cast a disruption spell above our base - and the town - that hopefully will jam their ability to see us. But this is the Amari we're talking about; they lack magic entirely, and its not beyond the realm of impossibility that their equipment won't have any issues seeing through that disguise. Therefore, we'll be moving at first light tomorrow about half a mile away to confuse them, and set up some camo beforeclaw to keep them guessing. If we're fortunate, we'll be able to mask our defensive preparations. However, as these things have been in orbit for perhaps an hour, we can expect them to know our basic dispositions. Command is thinking, or will be thinking, of how we can operate under these conditions, so don't blow a gasket just because the tentacle-heads put some shiny metal in the sky. You are dismissed, but we are now in condition red; everyone is to have basic weapons on them wherever they go, and none of you are to stray more than a mile from the base unless I or someone of equal or higher rank gives the word."

The soldiers began to disperse. Green simply puffed again and sighed, while Sea Bird clenched a claw and shook it silently at the sky. Sovereign simply shook his head, and Nickel gazed up at the sky, perhaps wondering where the enemy satellites were and how they functioned.

Spike and Smolder looked at one another for a moment; there were no words between them, only a silent recognition of the imminence of the coming war before parting ways.

Spike sat down on a hill near the base. It was a beautiful night, with the sky being almost blue rather than black, and the moon and stars shone brightly down on the world. It was as if there was going to be no war, no lethal struggle for existence, no destruction of cities and nature alike in a bid for who would rule Equus.

He sighed. It was all an illusion. The Amari were coming, if not this month, then the next. They would have no mercy, no appreciation for the world or its inhabitants. They would kill and destroy to their hearts' content (if they had hearts), and it would be kill or be killed. One side or the other would possess whatever remained of a blasted, bombed, smoky planet. there was no middle ground.

The fact that this beautiful world would be the battleground to the death between the natives and alien invaders was almost too much to bear.

He sat with his head in his claws as he thought of Ponyville burning again, of the unspeakable thought of Twilight and the other Element Bearers being killed, or worse; becoming mere food for the monsters about to descend upon Equus...

It was too much. Hot tears began to drip from his eyes.

He felt something on his shoulder.

He twisted around, pistol in his claw, his sorrow immediately turned to rage...

Only to see Smolder standing there, looking more than a little shocked.

"O-oh," he said, embarrassed. "I'm... sorry." He put the gun back in its holster, wiped his eyes real quick, and sat back down, eyes fixed on the moon.

I can't even tell friend from foe anymore...

"No, I'm sorry," Smolder said apologetically, sitting down beside him. "I should have realized you were having a moment."

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Why did you follow me?" Spike asked at last.

"I saw you separate from the rest of us after the announcement about the satellites. You were clearly upset and i was worried. I... followed you, and when I saw you... uh, out of order, I tried to comfort you."

Spike sighed again. "I just can't get over that... all of this -" Here, he waved his claw around Ponyville - "is going to be destroyed and my adopted family... destroyed by those... things."

Smolder laid her claw on Spike's shoulder again. "I know what you mean. Garble nearly got killed by those murderers. He survived a heat ray, but... he's been better. Kinda like Twilight, but with a lot more hacking and coughing. He's still taking potions the zebras kindly lent us, but he's changed; depressed, no interest in delinquency anymore - which could be a good thing, but under the circumstances it happened... Well, let's just say I want my old brother back, not this shadow. And at least Twilight is perfectly fine... ridiculous artificial hoof not withstanding."

That got a chuckle out of Spike. "Okay, that's kind of funny," he admitted, flicking away another tear. "I hope you're not upset-"

"I'm not upset that Twilight got off better than Garble. Yes, I want the old him back, but it was bad fortune he got hit. And I saw plenty of dragons die to the Amari, and others slowly wither away, either from the Smoke or heat ray injuries. At least my bro's still alive, and I know in my heart he'll recover... someday."

There was another silence. The moon continued to shine down upon the town and the world, and the stars shone as if nothing was the matter.

Finally, Smolder reaching into a pocket that was on her uniform and pulled out the fire ruby she'd won earlier. "You know, I wanted to enjoy this all to myself earlier, but with the announcement earlier and see you up here..."

She put the tip of one claw, the sharpest part, to the top of it and dragged it down to the bottom before snapping it in half.

"I think we should share it." She handed one half to Spike.

"T-thanks," he said, taking it.

Both began eating their respective pieces of the gem. For a little while, the thoughts of a world ablaze were numbed under the delicious taste. War was still on the horizon, but for one more night, it was momentarily forgotten, the dragon equivalent of candy and the beauty of the night overcoming the fear the two had held in their hearts.

Author's Note

No, I am not going "that far" in Spike and Smolder's relationship. I do intend for them to fall in love, but there will be no inappropriate scenes either explicit or implied.