War of the Worlds; 2nd Wave

"White Tail Woods, everypony," the earth pony conductor shouted as the train was slowing down. "White Tail Woods."

"Get ready to disembark," Lieutenant Azurite commanded. "Take what you have, then get to your assigned machines. We'll be moving out within the hour, and I want everyone ready on the dot."

The train continued to slow down as it reached the big curve that would normally have led it to Las Pegasus. Finally, it came to a stop, and white steam billowed from the engine, along with a long, loud hissing.

"Go, go, go!" Azurite ordered.

Spike quickly got up and walked off the trains, followed by everyone else. He marched his way over to the flatcars that were in back of the coaches and waited for the workers to get the ramps set up so the mechs could get walking too. It took a while for them to do so, but once it was complete he practically ran up to the first machine on the car.

It was in a crouching position, waiting for someone to get inside. He promptly climbed up into it, closed the cockpit, and turned the machine on.

Like the others, it would take some time to get under steam. In the meantime, he would wait.

Mudpudjaris watched the first of the fighting machines take shape. The legs were in place. The torso would come next. Then the tentacles and at last the heat ray.

Of course, other weapons, such as the Black Dust, would be added on. And there were other weapons the Hives Council had approved of, some which would see the light of day only when battle with the natives came.

It would take some hours before all the equipment was ready. Mudpudjaris calculated that it would take three planetary rotations - Homeworld calculations, of course - to get all the machines ready.

The hivefort that the Camnaris Hive would construct would require equipment that was in supply cylinders. So far, only one such cylinder was within reach, once the fighting machines were finished, but more would be landing within a tenthday's time. By then, the hive's warriors would be relatively safe in their machines.

Mudpudjaris allowed a tentacle to waver in an uncomfortable gesture. From the communications device in their cylinder, news of the invasion was already coming in. Most hive members who had landed had safely managed to build their fighting and flying machines on the New Homeworld. Most, but not all. In a few disturbing cases, the intelligent prey on the planet had succeeded in using explosive and chemically-propelled projectiles to damage or even outright destroy cylinders. Enemy flying machines, primitive but much improved from the previous invasion, had proven dangerous. Additionally, armored machines were being transported to various landing sites by the prey's transport systems, according to data provided by the observation satellites in orbit. They were likely steam powered. Compared to machines powered by heavy elements, they would be very primitive, but the weapons they carried might, in great numbers, be a threat to the People's fighting machines.

Fortunately, the material already in the Camnaris Hive's territory would be adequate, along with the handling machines, to construct the hivefort. With multiple heat rays deployed along the thick walls, and with garrisons of fighting machines, it would be highly improbable that the prey could penetrate them. Even their aircraft would have difficultly inflicting any meaningful damage before being destroyed.

In total, the Camnaris Hive had twenty members, including the members in this cylinder, in their assigned territory. A large section of Continent 1, designated Continent 1-2, had been set aside for their hive. It would be enough for the time being, but to make room for other hives, it was imperative that the conquest begin in earnest as soon as possible. Twenty members would not be enough to conquer the entire continent, but raids for destruction, materials, and prey to capture would suffice until the remaining warriors and their supplies had reached the planet.

Spike and the others were slowly making their way through the plains toward the first cylinder in their path. It was still miles away, and it would take time to get there.

"Wish these dumb things would move faster," Sea Bird said over the radio. "I want to get my licks in."

"We're still some klicks away," Smolder replied, her voice echoing through the receiver. "We'll make it."

"The flyboys said the Amari are out already," Spike added. "They're building their fighting machines, and quickly."

"And they also said that the Amari in two other cylinders had already finished construction, and are headed toward this one," Nickel put in. "We'll be facing twelve fighting machines in total."

"This is Lieutenant Azurite; zip it, all of you. For all we know, the Amari are tracking our transmissions. No further communications are allowed unless I say so. Out."

Figures.

The journey so far had been entirely uneventful. But that meant a lot of monotony and boredom.

"Guess I'll try turning off the mike and try talking to myself," Spike mumbled.

Rainbow Dash struggled to fly while in harness. It was made all the harder by her metal wings not being as reliable as her old ones.

As she flew high over the Bone Dry Desert with the other Wonderbolts, she thought of the horrific second attack on Ponyville. She remembered the pain of the heat ray as it burned her wings off. She remembered plummeting towards the ground, saved only by Twilight's magic and Fluttershy's courageous efforts in flying her to a field hospital in a town the Amari fortunately didn't attack until a couple days later, by which time she had been transported north, to a town called Fortune's Rest. There, she, the other Element Bearers, and the Princesses had awaited the end... which thankfully hadn't come.

It had taken a lot of work for Twilight to build her new wings. It had been painful as they were fused into Rainbow's neural system so they could operate as closely to the real thing as possible. Although they worked well, it meant she couldn't do all the daredevil stunts she'd once enjoyed, nor use her feathers to communicate or hold objects. It had been so difficult. Something important had been ripped away from her, not to be brought back in this life.

She was fortunate she still had friends to get her through it. A lot of Equestria had been laid waste, and millions of ponies had died, not to mention losses among the other races on Equus.

As a member of the Wonderbolts, and thus the military, she was determined not to let the Amari win. It was why she was tolerating wearing a harness with machine guns strapped to her sides. It had seemed a ridiculous idea, given the inevitable recoil, but magic had managed to solve that problem with a kind of suspension system that would nullify the recoil of the guns. She'd flown twice with this harness, fired the guns, and they'd worked.

"Contact!" Captain Spitfire shouted. "Flying machines, two of them, below us, perhaps three thousand feet. Looks like they're heading for the railroad. We can't let them damage the rails, or our boys and girls on the ground won't be able to get in place to take out those cylinders. It's up to us to stop them."

Rainbow felt a little sick as she saw the flying machines. The reminded her of three-dimensional trapezoids, outfitted with small wings, a small but lethal heat ray on each of its four bottom corners, and, somewhere under it, a Smoke projector.

Her blood ran cold. She'd seen the field hospital get smothered by one of those things. It had been a hectic evacuation, to put it lightly. Nopony who had breathed any of the Smoke had survived, which was the vast majority of the wounded and staff.

That coldness soon turned to fire as she remembered coming back to Ponyville after the War. To see her home in ruins, with bloated and burned bodies of ponies killed over a week prior littering the ground. Lily, Carrot Top, Octavia, and so many others had had their lives extinguished, like a hoof crushing a bug.

That wasn't going to happen a second time.

She put on her goggles and, in formation with the others, began to dive.

The Amari either didn't see them coming, or were distracted by their task. Whatever the reason, as the pegasi flew down from the clouds, the flying machines, fast as they were, couldn't outrun the diving pegasi.

Spitfire fired first, followed by everypony else. Machine gun bullets spattered across the upper side of the leading flying machine; first dents, and then holes, appeared in its structure. Somepony must have hit something critical, because the flying silver trapezoid began to burn, flames blazing out of the holes the pegasi had put into it. As it began to nose over, it exploded and broke in half; the front sped groundward, followed by the end section.

The Wonderbolts would have cheered, but then the other pilot got its act together.

Several of the Wonderbolts had been going so fast that they'd ended up under the flying machine. It took advantage of that fact by firing its forward heat rays.

Fleetfoot let out a scream of terror as one beam went past her. She let out another of pain as the second one bore a hole right through her torso, from back to belly. She staggered, then fell towards the ground.

Thunderlane was fired on next; the large pegasus stallion tried to turn around, but the heat ray caught him in the face. His headless corpse dropped straight towards the ground.

Misty Fly managed to turn around and began pummeling the left front heat ray with her hooves. Another heat ray, almost contemptuously, turned towards her and roasted her stomach. She fell too, not as steeply as the other two, but still in clear danger.

Blaze also turned around and hammered the flying machine with bullets. A heat ray blazed across her wings. She screamed, and fell towards the ground. Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail followed her, clearly trying to catch her. The heat ray, mercifully, didn't follow either of them; perhaps they were diving too fast for accurate targeting.

Wild Fire shot at the rear of the flying machine. The rear heat rays fired; one missed entirely, but the other burned her tail off. She screeched in pain, but flew above the machine, clearly still able to fly and not in critical danger.

Lightning Streak wasn't so fortunate. A heat ray virtually bisected him, ripping him open from neck to tail. He fell without a sound from his lips, spine burned away and very clearly dead.

Rainbow felt her anger burn. She was one of those who had managed to pull up before getting underneath the infernal thing, and now, enraged, she flew onto the back of the remaining flying machine, turned her guns on it, and let it have it, screaming in rage as her bullets either bounced off the fuselage or ripped holes through the Amari machine.

"THIS IS FOR ALL MY FRIENDS, YOU COWARDLY MONSTERS FROM HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL!!!!!" she screeched as her face was lit up in red from both her own wrath and the blaze of her guns.

There was a light explosion from within the machine; Rainbow jumped off as it began to nosedive towards the ground. It didn't explode, but smoke poured from the back of the machine as it plummeted. The heat rays did not fire, although the Smoke projector on the underside of the machine unleashed a stream of lethal gas as it continued to fall.

It did explode upon hitting the ground. Rainbow felt some comfort in that, but it did little to ease the sense of loss she felt. Four, possibly five, dead in just a minute or two of combat. One, perhaps two, badly injured.

She was relieved to see Sky and Vapor ascending again, having caught Blaze. Blaze was alive, but howling in pain. She likely would never fly again, not with her wings gone and her back burned like that. It would be a miracle if they got her back to base, and another one if she survived the treatment.

"Wonderbolts, on me," Spitfire said, but without the same eagerness she usually had in her voice. "That's two flying machines down, and the railroad secured for the moment. But we don't leave any of our own behind, even the dead. Gather up the bodies, or what's left of them. We'll hold a funeral for them back at base."

As the surviving Wonderbolts scrambled to follow her orders, Rainbow couldn't help but wonder; How many of us will survive next time? She couldn't know, and anger and sorrow warred in her heart.

"Tenth Aerial Squadron here," came a voice from the receiver. "We're found a cylinder; Amari already out; they're building their machines with some kind of chair things. Looks like they've nearly completed their tripods. M.A.R.S. Corps, you'll have to hurry if you want to get 'em before they're done."

"Ten-two," a female voice said, plane engine in the background. "I'm seeing four machines heading towards this cylinder from the northwest. By Celestia's mane, they move quick!"

"Ten-five," a male voice broke in, "Another four from the southwest heading for their location. Also moving at high speed. You'll have a fight whether you want it or not, M.A.R.S. Corps."

"Squadron 1-1 here," Lieutenant Azurite replied. "Copy. Out. Alright, boys and girls, we've got eight completed fighting machines ahead of us, and it looks like they want a fight. Four more, if the Amari finish them. Do not let them finish them. Speed up your machines. Overclock them if you have to for a while if necessary. We outnumber them over four to one, but anyone who gets overconfident will have to answer to me, if he or she lives through this battle, that is. No further radio communications allowed unless its an emergency."

Spike pulled on of the control levers, then pressed a button. At once, the mech unleashed a spurt of steam and smoke and began walking somewhat faster.

Where are the tanks? he thought to himself. The Fifth Armored Brigade was supposed to help them.

Colonel Javelin facehoofed. The train carrying the Fifth Armored could not have had worse luck.

Everything had been smooth sailing at first... until they reached the bridge. The bridge, over some no-account creek, was wide enough for the train and its cars, but the tanks were too wide. The first tank had slammed into the bridge - or vice versa - and had been flung off its flatcar. The other tanks had suffered the same fate, with all of them suffering some measure of damage, and now they were all off their cars, dinged up and some with busted parts and weapons. Coal that had been loaded in them had spilt everywhere.

"What idiot didn't see a need to extend the bridge to accumulate war traffic in the event of another invasion?" he growled, finally bringing his hoof down from his face. "I want their hindquarters cut off and mounted above my fireplace yesterday."

"It was my fault too," the locomotive engineer said. "I was going too fast."

"Somepony is getting seriously fired for this screw up; I swear I'm living until I at least see that happen," the colonel growled furiously.

"What about Squadron 1 of the M.A.R.S. Corps?" an earth pony asked. "They're heading straight for the Amari."

Javelin thought about it. On the one hoof, the squadron had fifty mechs. They could handle the machines they'd be facing, though not without losses. Furthermore, he didn't want the enemy to have the chance to group up and entrench; the observation satellites would have seen the other train, its mechs, and the aircraft coming. Giving a hard-hitting enemy time to prepare was the worst thing one could do.

On the other hoof, the enemy would likely have more advanced weaponry. While some of their tech hadn't improved much since the first war - the flying machines in particular had been the same as last time - their ground forces would probably have heavier stuff.

In all likelihood, M.A.R.S. would win, but would suffer badly in the process.

At last, he made his decision; it was better to strike before the enemy was fully ready than to wait. As much as he hated the hard arithmetic of war, Equestria and the other nations had the spare bodies and machines they needed to replace those who had fallen. And M.A.R.S. would not be alone; it had the Tenth Aerial Squadron to engage in air strikes and reconnaissance. They would be ready for battle.

"Command them to keep going. And order the Tenth Aerial to begin their assault on the cylinder and the Amari there. With any good fortune, we might destroy their machines before they're completed. Creator bless our forces."

"Copy, command, over and out," Lieutenant Commander Wind Runner answered, before turning off the radio. The blue pegasus stallion looked down, towards the cylinder. The Amari might or might not have been aware of their presence; they were busy building their machines.

"Tenth Squadron, assemble. Command has ordered us to attack the Amari at this cylinder. And you all know that enemy reinforcements are on the way."

They all got into formation, their canvas, wood, and metal machines occasionally making some noise as they did so.

"Prepare to dive on my mark."

No one answered; the wind and the sounds of the engines were the only things that could be heard.

"Mark! Go, go, go, go!"

As one, they nosed their planes over and started their dives.

"Commander! Enemy aircraft!" Prisgarjenkis shouted over the telepathic link. "We are under attack!"

Mudpudjaris looked up; the primitive flying machines of the prey had been observing them. Now, it seemed, they were about to engage.

"Quickly! Into the fighting machines!" it ordered.

"But commander, they are not complete-"

"Follow my orders! Get in the fighting machines!"

The members of the hive did so, raising their chairs so that they could transfer themselves to their fighting machines.

Prisgarjenkis was right; the machines weren't ready just yet. They still needed their communications and targeting systems installed. But they were armored, they had weapons, and they could move. That was all that mattered right now.

Mudpudjaris slid into its fighting machine, the cockpit closing as it wound its tentacles around the two main levers. It began moving forward.

"Scatter! Maintain a distance from one another. Fire heat rays when the opportunity arises."

Its hivemates did so; they turned as necessary and began to move away from one another.

A slight whistling sound could be heard. Seconds later, falling explosives landed around where they had been mere moments before, smashing chairs and damaging or destroying equipment that had yet to be installed as the erupting blasts unfolded.

"That was much too close," another of its hivemates, Clendargenkis, said, a note of relief in it's voice.

"Enemy aircraft pulling out of their dive," Prisgarjenkis said, aiming its heat ray skyward.

Mudpudjaris did likewise, using its viewing screen and best calculations to target the prey craft.

Wind Runner cursed. The bombs had - mostly - landed where they were supposed to, but the infernal Amari had somehow gotten into their machines and moved out before his squadron could re-aim.

They still had rockets and machine guns. And he had his orders; do what damage he could to the enemy.

"Get your rockets ready!" he said over the radio. "I want these things smothered in rockets!"

"Commander, they're aiming at us!" a panicking mare named Sky Buster shouted.

"Keep fly-"

A heat ray passed by his machine, narrowly missing it. He instinctively pulled away, a useless but instinctive response.

Other heat rays were firing, too. So far, none had hit; Compared to the previous invasion, these Amari seemed to be bad shots.

"Keep flying," he continued. "Turn and fire rockets at whatever machine is closest to you and blow it to smithereens."

He followed his own orders, turning to face the machine that had moved towards the northwest. it was still turned away from him, although its heat ray was turned over its metaphorical shoulder and shooting at him.

He punched the firing button. Immediately, his plane was rocked as the rockets sped towards their target.

To his chagrin, most of the rockets missed. However, a couple of them caught the machine on it's "boiler" portion. The machine stumbled forward, falling on its "face" with smoke coming out of its back. When he passed over it, he could see two holes in the machine. One rocket had struck the "boiler" directly, ripping a large gap in the machine. The other had hit the top joint of the rearmost leg, severing it and sending it falling away from the metallic body it had been a part of. Another flyer unleashed a second barrage, more accurate this time as the enemy machine was now stationary. More explosions. One rocket went straight through the hole Wind's own missile had torn into the fighting machine. There was a loud explosion; the machine jerked, and then without warning it blew up in a flash of light that nearly blinded Wind.

"Aaaaargh!"

He pulled up of the joystick and blinked his eyes over and over. At first, all he could see was the detonation. Then, as seconds ticked on, he began to see more clearly.

"One fighting machine off the board entirely," one of his squadron-mates said, triumph in his voice. "That clown didn't know what hit him."

When his eyesight had sufficiently recovered, Wind looked around until he found the downed fighting machine... or rather, where it had been. Other than a few bits and pieces of metal scattered here and there, all that was left of the tripod was a glassy crater in the dirt. No mortal being, not even an Amari, could have survived that.

The moment of victory didn't last.

"I'm hit!" Sky Buster screamed. "I'm going down! Ejecting!"

Wind turned again. One of the squadron's planes had indeed been hit. It was smoking badly and falling groundward. Sky Buster jumped out of her doomed craft, her pegasus wings carrying her out. She didn't stay, but flew eastward again as fast as she could.

Wind couldn't blame her. A moment later, a second plane was hit; Its pilot must have been killed instantly, because it just nosed over, and the pilot made no effort to get out.

Meanwhile, explosions were dotting the landscape around the three surviving tripods. For the most part, they escaped being hit directly, but one was limping from a damaged leg; a third was smoking from a direct hit that hadn't been enough for a kill.

"Okay, time to leave," he ordered. "We've done what we-"

"More of them! It's the northern- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

Wind watched that plane get hit from a heat ray from un unexpected direction. The pilot ejected, but she had been set on fire by the heat ray, and she continued to scream as she fell from the sky, the flames consuming her.

He looked to the left. The northern group they had noticed earlier was now here... and in firing range.

"Get out! Go, go, g-"

A heat ray blasted its way through the front of his plane; the engine exploded, sending pieces of Wind's plane everywhere. By the time his plane hit the ground and disintegrated, Wind Runner was already dead.

Spike and the rest of the squadron continued moving ahead towards the battle site. It had now been several hours after disembarking from the train, and so far, there was little that had been said or done. Action was coming, but when?"

The receiver sparked into life. "This is Tenth Squadron here," a Manehattanite female voice said, sounding on the verge of panic. "We've lost twelve planes and their pilots. We have only eight aircraft left. Heading back to base!"

"Twelve?" Spike counted it up fast. Out of twenty planes that were part of the Tenth Aerial Squadron, only eight had survived.

"Any damage inflicted?" Lieutenant Azurite asked quickly.

"One tripod gone," the voice replied, slightly calmer. "Just went up like a ton of TNT. All that's left o' that one is a crater. Two others damaged, but then the northern group joined them. You'll still be facing eleven machines, M.A.R.S. Corps. We're outta here. Ten-eleven, out!"

At least one's gone. It was no surprise that a fighting machine could explode like that; weapons tests against captured machines after the War had proven that if a tripod's power coil was hit, the entire machine could detonate, vaporizing most of itself. If that had happened, that Amari pilot stood no chance of survival

So the score was one tripod obliterated, with two more suffering some damage, against twelve planes and their pilots lost. One Amari dead, possibly two injured, for twelve of Equestria's pilots.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of despair. He'd known intellectually that Equus' tech would still be behind that of the aliens; it had been repeated over and over again in training. And tests of Amari weapons had shown how powerful their weapons could be, as if the War itself hadn't provided plenty of examples of that. But he had hoped the global coalition's forces might achieve something near parity against the enemy from another planet. That wasn't proving to be true. He sent up a silent prayer for the skyborne warriors who had just died.

He then did his best to pull himself out of his depression. Planes lacked the armor necessary to withstand direct hits. Mechs could, or at least they could survive one hit. And they had fifty machines - improved designs over the original - against eleven of the enemy, with two of the eleven being easy targets. That would leave nine fighting machines in fully functioning condition, and whatever armor they had, it wouldn't be able to withstand the sheer number of heat rays the mechs could bring.

But we'll still likely lose most of-

No! Shut up! We'll beat them. At least, that's what he forced himself to think. His innermost self wasn't fully sure of that anymore, but he did his best to silence it.

Mudpudjaris was displeased. Clendargenkis had been young, but would likely have shaped up to have been a fine hivemate. Now it was dead, vaporized when its machine had erupted. And the machines of Prisgarjenkis and Comdarenkis had suffered damage; the former had taken a direct hit from an enemy projectile, and was fortunate it hadn't managed to penetrate the armor. The latter had suffered damage to its machine's leg, and would be hobbling around until it could get it repaired.

But there was no time to repair or finish the three incomplete machines now. Observation Satellite One had picked up a group of walking machines, clearly of prey design, marching straight for the landing site. There appeared to be around fifty or so of them. If that was true, then the Camnaris Hive was outnumbered badly, even with the new arrivals from the north and south.

However, there were other hivemates it could call upon.

"Call upon Cylinder 3-4," Mudpudjaris demanded of one of the new arrivals. "Ask them if their flying machines are completed."

There was a moment of silence, and then the other said, "Yes, Commander. They are ready to be deployed."

"Excellent. Order 3-4 to send its flying machines at once. We'll need their assistance to survive the coming battle."

Again, there was a pause, and then the hivemate replied, "They are on their way, Commander. They'll be here in half a tenthday."

"Good, but the enemy will be here much sooner than that. Contact Cylinder 3-5 and ask them about the conditions of the hivefort they are constructing."

Another pause. "Cylinder 3-5 reports that the construction of their hivefort is underway, although it is still in the foundational stages with none of its defensive heat rays set up."

"At least we will have a place to fall back to if the prey force us back. All units, form up in a line; we will face the enemy and await our air support. Do not fire until I give the order."

"Yes, Commander."

"Enemy forces, a couple miles ahead!"

Finally, as the sun, was beginning to go down, the M.A.R.S. Corps had found their enemy.

Spike could make out individual fighting machines, although not specific details, from this distance. But their shape was all-too familiar. Visions of cities and towns burning, of mass of fleeing soldiers and civilians being burned alive, of the Smoke smothering whole mobs...

He forced it down. Those things weren't going to happen this time around. Now the natives of Equus had weapons that could fight back; they weren't on a 1:1 basis with the enemy machines, but they were better than stationary artillery.

One of the fighting machines was lightly smoking. Good; flyboys have left that one an easy kill for us.

"This is Lieutenant Azurite!" the radio crackled. "Form two lines; one in front of the other, checkerboard pattern, with the rear machines able to fire through the gaps in the first line. And don't bunch up. If you get hit by a heat ray, it better be your business, not that of anyone else. We don't want them taking out two or three of us in one shot."

1st Squadron, M.A.R.S. Corps, formed up as its commander had ordered. Black smoke exuded from the exhaust pipes of the mechs as their pilots steered their machines into their two lines.

"Very good. We'll be advancing; the flanks are to overlap their lines and prevent the enemy from retreating. Begin shooting on my mark; if any of you start shooting too soon, I'll have the hide of whoever does. Those heat rays aren't as powerful as those of the enemy, and we need to conserve our energy. Begin advance."

The M.A.R.S. line began moving, its many pilots determined to stop the Amari from repeating their cruelties upon the inhabitants of their world.