A New World, A New Threat: Of Their Own Accord

The M1A3IG tank sped across the field, the turret rotating to the front. Corporal Alvarez looked at the sensor on top, switching between infrared and standard vision modes every few seconds. It was hard to locate targets normally in this thing, and going sixty-five miles per hour didn’t help.

Then, he caught sight of it. “Pony town, to our twelve. This is it, load high explosive, prep canister round,” he said, turning to the gunner. Private Wilson nodded, slamming a red-colored 130mm round into the tank gun’s chamber. “Round up!”

“Copy!” Alvarez looked back into the tank’s sights, noticing the tank had joined with its brothers in a v-shaped formation, heading towards the tow. Only six tanks, all M1A3IG’s, sped towards the town. The town approached, now two and a half kilometers away.

The radio crackled to life, Lieutenant Fine’s voice filling the tank. “Pick targets and open fire!”

“You heard the man, open fire,” Alvarez said, staring back into his viewport. The tank shook as the 130mm gun went off, propelling five metal sabots at the buildings like a giant shotgun. Three seconds after firing, the shots hit the buildings, blowing in the walls.

One and a half kilometers away. Alvarez reached over for the joystick to the remote-mounted M2 Heavy Machine Gun on the turret. He started to fire. The noise didn’t make it through the noise of the engine, or the armor of the tank, but the tracers coming from it certainly did make an impression.

A green bolt of energy flew past the tank, hitting the ground thirty meters behind it. “Contacts, contacts, someone locate where that round came from,” Alvarez said, peering through the white and gray picture coming from the screen.

“Got him, thirteen degrees to our left.” Alvarez nodded to Specialist Jacobson, the tank’s loader, before turning the CROWS mounted M2. He fired off a burst of five rounds, watching the rounds kick up dust, before hitting a blob of heat-colored picture.

A buzzer sounded in his earpiece.

The voice of Lieutenant Fine signalled the ceasing of all combat operations.

The shot pony got back up, obviously angry, as he began to walk back towards the paint-covered buildings which had served as the “town.”

Alvarez opened up the cupola of the turret, and stuck his head out. The air of the tank was recycled and overly hot, but he sure as hell couldn’t get fresh air when the shrapnel was flying around.

“As you can see, the M1A3 ‘Improved Gunnery’ is the peak of human tank technology,” the loudspeaker boomed. “Armed with a Rheinmetall M255 130 millimeter wide cannon, ceramic-steel composite armor known as Chobaum II, and a top speed with regulator of seventy miles per hour, it is the king of the battlefield.”

Alvarez turned, looking at the grandstands. The ponies on it, a mixture of military brass and aristocrats looked at the tank, awe crossing their faces. Of course it would, that was some of the Equestrian Infantry’s best, the 9th Hussars. And they’d just gotten squashed.

Alvarez waved to them, before getting back inside the tank. “Ceska, take us home,” he said, collapsing into his seat. It wasn’t often they got to take Blackjack out, but when they did, it was something special.

“Stay the fuck awake,” Alvarez said, elbowing Private Wilson. “You may have done decently in a combat exercise, that doesn’t mean you’re graduated from being a fucking boot.” He continued to glare at the Private until the kid guiltily sat up in his chair.

“Good Afternoon, Gentlemen and Gentleponies, and good job,” Lieutenant Fine said, tapping the microphone at the podium. “You’ve all gone over the information about the encounter given by my counterpart, Lieutenant Pauldon. However, let me summarize a few points about the encounter.”

“Here we go.” Sergeant Vasquez said, a grin breaking out on his face. Alvarez also let a smile sneak on to his face, crossing his legs. The Lieutenant didn’t often give praise to the Platoon, but he only put on that face when he was ready to chew someone out, and he was staring straight at the ponies in the audience.

“It is clear at this point that the Equestrian Infantry is woefully under-equipped, under-trained, and if I may dare say so, under-qualified. Let me put this into simple terms: the 11th Cavalry came away with  no casualties. The 9th Hussars were eliminated almost to the man. Not a single Abrams was destroyed, and if I’m getting this right, all US equipment was unharmed,” Fine said, obviously disgusted with the incompetence he was forced to deal with.

“This was without the larger arms of the 11th Cavalry and her detachments coming into play, especially air support and artillery fire, which would have destroyed the houses of the training area even further. Fine looked around the room, glancing now over everyone. “I want explanations, and I want solutions. Preferably ones that make sense.”

Alvarez grinned at the smackdown, but he still pitied the poor ponies in the room. Still, the LT had a right to be angry. As strange as it seemed, he’d get in a shitload of trouble for this, since certain factions of upper brass, including his CO, wanted this to show what valuable allies the ponies could make.

A pony raised its hoof. “Our briefings didn’t include half of the capabilities of your equipment, and when they did, it was underestimated to the point of utter absurdity,” he said, defiantly. Fine nodded, calming down a little.

“Noted. Any tactical ideas on the matter? Any suggestions for the future?” he asked, glaring now at the infantrymen in the audience.

Another pony raised its hoof, this one with wings. “We need better integration between the Pegasi Corps and the Unicorn Corps. Our aerial recon didn’t do jack when we had to request authorization to tell the unicorns to open fire on your vehicles. Or, in general, a pegasi or earthy squad can’t do anything at range because we don’t have unicorns right next to us.” Fine nodded, jotting down notes.

“Anyone else? Anyone?” He glanced over the audience, desperate for something to write down. “You, you’ve got your hoof up,” he said, pointing to a unicorn in the back.

“W-well, um, our equipment isn’t worth anything,” he said, obviously more timid than his pegasi or earth pony counterparts. “We fired our most powerful anti-creature spell at your vehicle, and it only seemed to scratch it. Our earth ponies can’t do anything if humans can hit them from down the road!”

“Duly noted,” Fine said, obviously appeased. “Good work, all of you. It’s around dinnertime now, grab something from mess, then report to the airfield for further exercises. Dismissed.”

“So there I was, the chaingun firing behind me, fifty ponies to my front-”

“Fucking bullshit, there weren’t fifty of them there, you smug asshole,” Alvarez said, hitting Specialist Jacobson in the shoulder. “Even if there were fifty of the things in front of you, you took out what, one or two? The gunners did all of the work!”

“Just because you got stuck on bitch duty doesn’t mean you need to shit all over my story, Al.” Jacobson shoveled some more of the mess hall slop, today disguising itself as pasta, into his mouth. “And besides, you’re the one who pissed his pants the first time when those cannons went off,” he said through a mouth of food.

“I lose my cool one time when there’s a giant explosion going off, one fucking time-”

“Cardigans, at your six,” Vasquez said, before innocently sipping his drink. Cardigan was what everyone was calling the ponies. Like all military nicknames, the original was complicated and stuck up its own ass. Apparently some officer had said they were as incompetent as Lord Cardigan leading the Light Brigade, and the name stuck. Even if a few people didn’t know what exactly the Light Brigade was.

The five ponies were an assortment of colors, but they all wore the dull-metal armor that was typical of the Equestrian Infantry. They were unarmed, but they still kept their armor on, unlike every single other pony in the mess hall.

“You here to own up to your ass-kicking?” Wilson grinned, looking around to the approaching ponies.

“You hay-fuckers only got jack shit done because of your fancy toys. You hadn’t had them? We’d have kicked your ass from here to Canterlot,” the lead pony, a stout unicorn who looked like the pony version of a trailer park baby, exclaimed.

“Bull-shiet,” Jacobson said, laughing. “We’d have kicked your ass sideways if we’d been wearing lorica segmentata and yelling about profligate equines running amok again.”

“You donkey-fuckers wanna go?”

“You faggots have any insults besides what we may or may not stick our dicks in?”

The infantrymen got up, putting their food aside for a moment. The mess hall suddenly got extremely quiet, everyone focusing on the brewing fight. Jacobson cracked his knuckles, both sides mentally preparing.

“Break it up!” Lieutenant Fine yelled, Lieutenant Pauldron next to him. “Calm the fuck down.”

Alvarez sighed. As much as he wanted to go, Fine was right. He couldn’t risk fracturing the already-strained relations between the two forces. Still, they would only have to put up with this for a little while, then they were back in the sandbox.

“Three months, three fucking months until the Marines get the 3rd up and running,” Fine said, walking over to them. “Just keep calm until then.” he said, sympathetic.

Alvarez nodded, calming down.

“Solid copy.”