Russell Kenye eased the Valkiri rocket battery to a stop in the vast, grassy plain and peered out the driver-side window, feeling the cool night air touch his face. As soon as he stopped, his gunner leapt out of the cab and scrambled to work its jacks into place so that its twenty-four long, slender steel barrels would be aimed squarely at their target.

All around them, the yellow headlights of more Valkiris cast their glares about the field as the other crews made the same preparations, all of them trailed closely by supply trucks packed to the brim with more rockets. Tanks snared around and surged headlong in front of them, grass crunching beneath their treads. Above the commotion, squadron of fighters screamed by.

Easily fifteen miles away but engulfing the entire horizon, the white, shimmering barrier shone an eerie pale light on them all.

Russell heard the jacks clank into place, followed shortly by the Valkiri's passenger-side door opening and a broad-shouldered young man in a beige army uniform squeezing into the seat next to him. It was the truck's gunner, Pieter.

"Okay, we're set. Soon as we get the word, we're letting 'em fly." He was staring at the radio.

"About damn time," said Russell. "Been waiting for this for months." He was shaking, certainly with anticipation, but also with fear; there was a distinct jitteriness to it.

"Nervous?"

Russell swallowed and adjusted the straps of his helmet. The absurd idea popped into his head that he was too young to be here, even though he was in his early twenties and Pieter, who didn't look a day older than eighteen, wasn't complaining. "Huh? No, I'm f-fine."

Grinning, Pieter shook his head, his eyes not leaving the radio. "Come on, man, my drill sergeant was scarier than this. They're not even shooting back. You gonna puss out? You'd better not puss out."

"Look, I'm staying put." Russel's hands clamped onto the steering wheel. "We're fighting aliens, I think I'm allowed to be a bit nervous."

"You're a Cape Town boy, aren't you?" Pieter didn't have to wait for an answer; Russell's grimace said everything.

"Shit, you should be glad you're here. You could've been starving in a refugee camp, instead they gave you a gun and a chance to pop some ponies. Don't know what I did to get stuck with a scared kid, though."

Lucky was a funny way of putting it; he'd very nearly been press-ganged into service. He wasn't a soldier by any means, and joining the army was very close to the bottom of the list of things he wanted to do in his life. The only reason he'd signed up was because by the time the recruiters had swarmed his camp, spending another minute there was even lower. By the time he could see every bone of his ribcage, being given a week's training and thrown into the line of fire in exchange for food and a warm bed had seemed like a good deal.

Russell's was about to say this when he heard popping noises from somewhere ahead and saw a few orange pinpricks dot the sky. Mortars, from the sound of it. The men firing them were miles away, but compared to him they might as well have been staring the bubble point-blank. Was it his imagination, or had they made it flicker a bit?

"Look, you think I'm not gonna fight back when I lost my whole damn town?"

"I didn't say that. I said you're a scared kid. Scared kids don't make good soldiers."

"We'll see," Russell said simply. As soon as he finished, the radio flared to life, and almost before he had time to register what was happening, Pieter slammed the fire button.

Russell jammed in his earplugs just in time. He reflexively ducked his head as the rockets screamed barely ten feet behind him, and for several seconds, he was aware only of the ringing they left in his ears. Then his hearing finally began to return and he lifted his head. Even the fireballs erupting and smoke billowing from his Valkiri and those around him, and the unceasing sharp cracks piercing the night as the rockets burst from their tubes, couldn't compare to what he saw when he looked up.

The sky was crisscrossed with dozens of smoke patterns, lit up by the trails of the rockets as they slashed through it like gleaming knives. They seemed to come from everywhere, but all their white-hot fury converged on the massive shell ahead.

Then the echoes faded and the Valkiris fell silent. It seemed to have lasted an eternity, but a glance at the clock told Russell it hadn't been more than a minute.

"Load rockets, move, move!" The order was barked from somewhere in the smoke-choked field almost as soon as the last missiles were away. Russell could hear a pair of crewmen sliding the first rocket of the next batch off of the rack behind him, followed shortly by it scraping against the tube as they aligned it and eased it into place. One down, twenty-three to go. He remembered from his training that it would be nearly ten minutes until the Valkiri was ready to fire its next salvo, and hoped Pieter would be distracted enough not to talk to him. He wasn't.

"Watch it! Look ahead! Ten seconds, they're gonna hit!" Pieter seemed to have forgotten his contempt of Russell and was leaning forward in his seat as much as the cramped cabin allowed. Russell held his breath and counted the seconds.

Right when Pieter had predicted, the sky ahead boiled in the flares of their explosions. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, certainly too many for Russell to count, and their hammerblows echoed across the field as their firelight seared it.

The bubble reacted to this. White waves rippled across it where the missiles hit, as if they were stones cast into a pond, and for the briefest moment Russell saw long, thin cracks, like spider webs, flicker across it. He stared somberly, hoping with all his might that it was breaking. He was shaken out of his trance by Pieter's laughing.

"Beautiful. Beautiful. You see that? That's what life's all about!" His statement was punctuated by another, much smaller round of fiery bursts. Russell guessed they were missiles from fighter jets.

"You think we're breaking that thing?" He figured it was an innocuous enough question.

"Like an egg, Cape Town Boy, like a fucking egg. Don't forget, it's not just us hitting it. Last I heard, those damn Americans had four carriers' worth of planes bombing it, there's God knows how many missile cruisers out there shooting, the Russians had subs torpedoing it...or maybe that was the Chinese. Can't keep shit straight with two dozen countries all going at it." He laughed. "'Course, we're the only ones on the ground."

"Weren't we getting support from Europe?"

"Yeah, planes sitting miles away. Apparently if we get torn up here on the ground, they'll just torch everything from a safe distance and act like they're the real heroes."

"You don't sound too bothered by that."

"You're right, I'm not. 'Cause this is our fight, and our country. Us? We're the only ones brave enough to fight some horses face-to-face."

"Didn't Namibia lose cities to the bubble too? Aren't they fighting on the ground like we are?"

"Fuck cares about them?"

From behind them came the cry. "Rockets loaded!" Pieter dropped the subject immediately.

-----

In a large, ornate, circular room in Canterlot's castle, the princesses Celestia and Luna sat surrounded by glowing orbs. They dominated the room, clustered into large groups that nearly touched the room's high ceiling, their ghostly white glows exposing pale marble where the moonlight couldn't reach.

Every few seconds, a dozen or so of the orbs would fly from their positions and line themselves up obediently in front of Celestia or Luna, who would look them over somberly before allowing them to hover back to their original positions. Examined closely, some of the orbs showed nothing but a tranquil, softly-lit night sky. In the rest, the view was scarred by flickers of orange. Occasionally, an orb revealed only a blazing inferno.

This had been the relentless pattern, hour after hour. As soon as one orb calmed, another would flare up. At first, the sisters had tried to monitor the explosions individually, trying their level best to gauge how large they were and where they were coming from. They gave up when they realized the answers were "too large" and "everywhere," and they searched with increasing desperation for a chance to stem the tide. It became abundantly clear that unless they were willing to take out a carrier or a few missile boats in a suicide attack, they wouldn't get one.

Luna's voice broke the silence. "We cannot keep this up, Sister. You know what we have to do, or it is our subjects who will pay the price."

Far overhead, above the skylight that was the room's only exposure to the outside, the barrier began crackling dangerously. At once the sisters looked up, their horns glowed, and a pair of brilliant energy beams shot into the sky. A second later, the barrier quieted.

Stumbling slightly, Celestia had to catch her breath before she could respond. "I'm afraid you're right, Luna." Slowly, she hung her head. "I had such high hopes, coming to this world. I offered the humans everything. Peace. Wealth. Safety. Friendship. Brand new, physically fit bodies that would allow them wonderful powers and let them survive for centuries." Her head dipped lower. "Why? Where did I go wrong? I told them their problem, I gave them a perfect solution, but...but they..."

Celestia heard Luna walk to her, but was still surprised when she lifted her chin with a hoof and looked into her eyes sympathetically. "Tia, it is not your fault," she said softly. "You made the offer. They were the ones who rejected it, even though you did everything to ensure they would not."

Celestia looked away. "And even some of our own ponies have turned against us. I...I just don't understand it. Can you even remember the last time that happened? They've always trusted and revered us, always. And time and time again we proved that they were right to do so, that we were destined to rule ponykind and lead them to peace and prosperity. What is it about these humans, that some of our ponies could form an organization that doubted us, when all we were doing was helping both our people and those of another world?"

Luna turned and walked so her sister was facing her. "What's done is done. The Elements of Harmony will cast the spell, and then there will no longer be a problem. Those who have lost faith in us are few in number. As the humans fade into a memory, they will become fewer. In time, things will again be as they once were." Her face became serious. "Have you given Shining Armor the word?"

Celestia nodded. "Every available Royal Unicorn Guard is ready. We've told them where to teleport. In only a few more minutes, they'll move out."

"And have you told Twilight?"

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Tia, you know there's a good chance they won't make it back. The only reason you even authorized it was because we need time to get our ponies out of South Africa. She should at least get to see her brother for possibly the last time."

Celestia looked down and away. "I...she can't have that on her mind. She needs to concentrate, the spell needs to work, or this will all be for nothing."

She turned to face the doorway and called out, "Twilight, it's time."

For a moment there was only the sound of hoofsteps as Twilight apprehensively entered the room and bowed.

"Are the other element bearers ready?" asked Celestia.

"Yes, Princess."

"Are you ready?"

"I...I think so. It looks like a difficult spell, and the humans didn't give me much time to learn it. But...I can do it."

Celestia smiled. "I know you can." In spite of her praise, Twilight lowered her head. "Twilight? Is something wrong?"

"Princess...this was all my fault, wasn't it? If I hadn't blown that interview way back then...maybe they wouldn't have thought we were their enemies."

Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a moment, then smiled and turned back to Twilight.

"Not at all," said Celestia gently. "Knowing what we know about the humans now, it was really only a matter of time. In the end, we found a species we just couldn't befriend with kindness."

The barrier crackled loudly, causing Twilight to jump back and grimace at the skylight. Once again Celestia and Luna sent a pulse from their horns, and once again the barrier calmed. Then Celestia staggered and nearly fell over, after which looked slightly desperately at Twilight. Twilight was looking back at her, eyes wide with concern and fear. She took a few tentative steps towards Celestia, but was stopped by her voice.

"We've wasted enough time. Hurry. Before it's too late."

Twilight stopped, gulped, nodded, and galloped out of the room.

-----

Russell removed his earplugs and lifted his head, having lost count of how many times he'd done so. Fifteen? Twenty? They'd had to wait for their supply trucks to come back once. That took awhile; he might have dozed off during that time. He did know that at one point he suddenly got an elbow to the ribs from Pieter, telling him to hurry up and get the plugs in. A glance at the clock told him that it had been six hours since he had stopped his Valkiri. The sun had risen, and its light painted the field a stark yellow, muting the barrier's ominous white glow.

In that time, Pieter had been proven wrong about one thing; the European aircraft weren't hanging back at the base. They had joined the South African fighters and bombers not long after his unit had fired their second salvo, and now it seemed there was never a moment when the magical wall in front of him wasn't being hit by some sort of explosive.

Next to him, Pieter was on the edge of his seat.

"Hey! Hey, Cape Town Boy! You think this is it? You think we'll finally blow the damn thing up?"

Russell swallowed some black coffee from a cup on the dashboard and shrugged, pointedly ignoring Pieter's unflattering name for him. "Hell if I know. It's almost daylight and it keeps doing the same thing. It cracks and it gets wavy, and then it's back to normal."

"Fucking thing. Shoot anything else with a rocket, it'll either blow up or be fine. Usually it'll blow up."

Russell was quietly counting down the seconds until the rockets hit the bubble, but right at the moment when they should have impacted, the barrier flashed brighter than ever before.

It was as if day had come in an instant, and Russell briefly wondered if a nuclear missile had been dropped on it. But there was no heat or blast. Instead, there was just silence, followed by the sound of a thousand thunderclaps as the barrier shattered like glass.

Russell and Pieter sat there in stunned silence for a moment, their eyes not registering what they were seeing. Pieter recovered first, cheering loudly and pumping his fist, banging it against the truck's roof in his excitement. He didn't seem to care.

"Floor it, floor it! We're gonna show those horses who this planet belongs to!"

Russell's stomach knotted, and he suddenly realized how much he'd liked hitting something that wasn't dying or hitting back.

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