I think in that moment, my heart momentarily stopped beating as I looked around.

Had Gulfstream just done what I thought he had done? Had he really gone and done the unthinkable?

Just as I tried to process the madness of the situation, the screens in the throne room suddenly began to light up and blast strange and ominous messages, each of them a herald of doom.

"WARNING, WARNING. STRATEGIC NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED. ALL ASSETS GET TO COVER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT. WARNING, WARNING. STRATEGIC NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED. ALL ASSETS GET TO COVER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL"

We were doomed. Now I understood all his odd actions up to this point. Gulfstream had been aiming to do this ever since the beginning.

"Yes. First and second strike capability. Massive retaliation. Fire from Celestial bodies. Faust's wrath. Whatever you call it, the process is the same. Our enemies cannot resist us if they have been wiped off the map and we have obliterated their mechanism of striking back. You know full well what I mean. What is the point of our nuclear weapons if we don't use them?"

His plan had been to obliterate the other tribes in a nuclear firestorm, but of course he wouldn't have been able to initiate the launch without the special data encoded to my hoofprints, which contained part of the genetic frequency for launching the missiles in the first place.

So that was why they showed so much interest in the hooves during the interrogation. They had never intended to extract the actual launch codes from me, but instead were solely interested in studying my hooves to ensure they could get the genetic imprints required to initiate the launch!

Once again, I felt a fool. How had I failed to see this coming? I looked closely at the hoof which had hit the button (Gulfstream, by this point, had breathed his last). I looked closely, and then noticed something odd on the foreleg and hoof. It seemed to have some sort of plastic coating on it, which I noticed was sitting back. I looked closer, and saw that the outline of one of my hoofprints was on it.

They'd recreated my hoofprints in order to initiate the launch without me being here. That means they'd already got to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence.

I felt deflacted and terrified inside at the same time. My own actions had failed to prevent this.

Now we were all about to die... and it was all my fault.

"WARNING, WARNING. STRATEGIC NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED. ALL ASSETS GET TO COVER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT. WARNING, WARNING. STRATEGIC NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED. ALL ASSETS GET TO COVER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL"

"Your Majesty!" Opwinden shouted, snapping me out of it. "We need to move fast if we're going to abort those missiles in flight!"

I nodded, and quickly dashed over to another terminal and took a look at it closely. It was a computer display, with four letter boxes that denoted which letters were needed to destroy the missiles in flight.

One soldier got on the telephone to the Ministry of Defence, whilst Opwinden and I began punching letters in. Luckily, we had a copy of the self destruct handbook which had been left lying around, and out of desparation began working through the codes one by one.

I tried to raise Zipp on the radio. "Zipp, get to cover!"

No reply on my end. Please, let her be safe...

Opwinden seemed to be frustated that the codes he was inputting weren't working. "That insane fool! He actually did it!" he said. "He probably inputted a code that isn't in the list! Now where are the destruct codes?"

As we continued to punch letters into the system, with each option being rejected, I knew I had to take precautionary measures in the event of a retaliatory strike from the earth ponies or the unicorns. I switched my radio to try and talk to Pipp, but unfortunately, I couldn't raise her for some reason.

So, it was back to Zipp. I was on her frequency at last, and was able to speak to her. "Zipp?"

"Mom?" Zipp replied. Her speech was a bit hard to make out, and seemingly was covered under a lot of gunfire. That was concerning, to say the least. I thought they'd said the airfield was lightly defended!

But I had a task to conduct. One that, if nothing else, would ensure our bloodline's survival. "Zipp, get to the nuclear shelter under the palace now," I said, quickly and sternly. "We'll try and get these things disabled!"

Zipp, however, sounded aghast at that suggestion. "But mom, we-"

"NO ARGUING!" I bellowed. "Just do as you're told! I cannot bear to lose you again!"

The voice on the other end sounded annoyed more than anything else, which was a bit of a shock. "Understood."

Us, on the other hand, continued to try and work our way through the codes. Each and every option was being rejected by the system, which suggested they hadn't been set as the code. I knew that there were 26 letters in the alphabet, and each letter had 50 codes assigned to it. Assuming Gulfstream had used on in the list, that's 1,300 possible codes, which was a slim chance to work through.

The systems lit up with a message from the earth pony president. "Your Majesty, if you do not abort those missiles in flight within the next minute, I will have no choice but to order a retaliatory strike! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!"

I was trying my hardest to work under the stress. Only sixty seconds to cancel these damn things. "Any word from the Ministry?" I called.

"Just processing now!" the soldier said. "They're just doing the clearances!"

"We don't have time!" I shouted.

The soldier nodded. "Expedite codes." After a few seconds of beeping, he had them. "ZERO."

I punched that into the monitor, then hit SEND. Within seconds, I received a confirmation of a succesful self destruct for those missiles in the air, apart from one which appeared to have been shot down seperately. Presumably that being shot down was what alerted the earth ponies to the situation.

I panted as I got the confirmation of the destruction of the missiles. We had done it. We had averted a global nuclear catastrophe. Our planet was safe once more.

After a quick conversation with the other world leaders that all was well and that Gulfstream was dead, I could get to work on getting the place cleaned up. And was was accompanied by a slight change in visual image.

I was a war Queen now. And a war Queen should be properly attired for the task. To this end, I requested the state barding and the war crown, in readiness to an address to the populace to tell them the struggle was over. I must admit it did look pretty splendid, even if the metal was a little heavier than I was expecting. The crown was also a nice fit, if a bit too bright for my taste.

As the rest of our party filtered in, all of whom were alive (which was a relief), I then noticed Zipp was dressed somewhat strangely. So, I went over to speak to her. "Zipp, why are you in a pilot's uniform?" I asked, more confused than anything else.

Zipp responded with something of a dear in headlights moment as she tried to come up with an answer.

"Well, uhh, you see now, I-"

"Zipp answered the call. She, without any prompting, took a fighter jet and shot down one of the missiles."

The new voice was Golden, of course, with his own piloting uniform on. I was wondering where he had vanished to. "Of course, I did a bit of dogfighting myself, but apart from that it all went pretty well. Bandits splashed, driven off with two turns of a greased watermelon. The blighters snitched a parcel sausage-end and went goose over stump frogside."

Now there was something Zipp and I had in common- we could rarely understand what he was saying when he was in full military mode. I glanced to her and we exchanged glances, before Zipp spoke again. "I don't mean to be rude... but I didn't understand a word of that."

Golden, however, looked confused. "Really? I thought you all spoke Ponish in here?"

I led them over to the computer terminal and pointed to some concerning data. "The news isn't all good, I'm afraid. Gulfstream made a right mess of the launch system for the missiles, and as a result we can't access the rest of the arsenal. We're still working on getting that fixed as we speak, but we also found something a bit more worrying."

I then pointed to one image I found worrying. "It shows here that, shortly before we breached the palace, Gulfstream sent out a distress call to somepony or other. But I cannot figure out precisely who based on this. I can only assume he had an ally in this world somewhere against whom we are to fight at this rate."

It was just one word. Jinkies.

I then noticed Zipp looking distressed. "What's wrong, Zipp?"

"How can he be here?" she asked, her voice carrying the same note of terror as before the execution.

Just then, the screens lit up- with the last face I had ever expected to see here.

Author's Note

Well, this was an unexpected turn of events, eh? Nuclear war wasn't what I imagine any of you guys were expecting huh?

Anyway, this particular chapter is inspired by two different works of media. One of them is an episode of the British TV series Captain Scarlet, which is a sci-fi retelling of the Cold War. One episode sees the main cast trying to abort a nuclear launch before it can obliterate an enemy capital and start a world war. The other major inspiration is a level from the game Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, which features a very similar scenario.

The conversation at the end of the chapter briefly references both Monty Python and Blackadder Goes Forth; Golden Skies' speech mixes cricket imagery (often used by the British officer class) and incomprehensible banter.

And who could it be on these screens? Find out... next time!