On Behalf of Soviet Equestria

As the needle dragged on the innermost grooves of the record, the crystal pony at the desk on the side of the room rose and approached the phonograph.

“Should I put this one on again?” he called to his friend in the other room.

“Nah, see what else is in the cabinet,” was the reply that came through the open doorway.

The earth pony gently lifted the needle arm off the record with his teeth and let it rest in its holder. He then approached and opened the cabinet that stood beside the phonograph and perused the records that were stored inside. Meanwhile, a crystal unicorn with a blueish hue, clad in refulgent imperial armor, passed through the doorway into the front room of the blockhouse.

“Here’s one,” the earth pony at the cabinet said. “Hmm. ‘Our Little Village.’ Ever heard of that one before?” The unicorn in the armor shook his head. “Alright, let’s try it.”

The earth pony placed the record on the turntable and gave the device a crank. Then, he set the needle on the outermost groove and returned to his desk. The crystal unicorn leaned against one of the bookshelves and listened to the tune that began playing from the brass horn of the phonograph. The song was lighthearted and quick, comprised entirely from the sounds of plucked instruments - guslis, balalaikas, and domras - and the voice of a lone female vocalist.

“Not bad,” the armored unicorn said with a content nod. “I tell you what, these Equusians have a special talent for music.”

“You mean they had a special talent for music,” the crystal earth pony corrected as he returned to the seat at the desk. “They’ve thrown it all away. Now, it’s all marching music. The Reds don’t appreciate anything else.”

“Equusia was always famous for its marches,” the unicorn argued as he approached the desk. “Even back when they still called themselves imperials. It’s nothing new.”

“Well they sure are crazy about them now.”

“Doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned everything else. I’ve heard the performers in this city. They keep the old songs alive. And they do a very good job of it, if you ask me.”

The crystal pony at the desk sighed and shut his eyes.

“Let me tell you something about this city, Diamondstride,” the earth pony began. “This city is a rathole. A dump.” The earth pony smacked his hoof on the desk as he again rose. “Of course, it wasn’t always like that. Foalgograd was one of the most gorgeous gems of the Crystal Empire, you know. I was here years ago. It was beautiful. The city on the river... Bridges over the canals... Every building colored like a pastel. Every block was a spot of color on a giant pallet!”

“And... it’s still all those things,” Diamondstride responded confusedly.

“But you can’t see them anymore. There’s a giant red stain covering it all up,” the earth pony ranted. “And even though we’re here now, the stain is still here. Just like red wine on a rug. No matter how hard you scrub, the big red spot won’t disappear.”

The door to the blockhouse was just then thrown open, causing the two crystal ponies to turn around in shock. One of the imperial higher-ups, sporting his flamboyant crystalline helmet with its massive sapphire strut, barged into the room.

“Get up in the tower and pull that bell cord,” the officer barked to Diamondstride. He then pointed to the earth pony and added, “And you, warm up that telegraph and send a wire to the exchange at the city centre. The scouts flew back and said that the Reds are marching in to attack again. And turn off that damned phonograph.”

“Yes, sergeant,” the two ponies responded in unison.

Diamonstride, with his commanding officer on his heels, rushed up the stairs of the small blockhouse tower.

“These Red morons just don’t get it,” the officer huffed as the plates of his armor clanked against each other. “For months they’ve been running up here over and over again, wasting our resources and energy, only to get beaten back every time. Foalgograd is ours for the keeping. I don’t know what we need to do to jam that simple fact into their thick skulls.”

The two crystal legionnaires emerged from the stairwell in the observation deck at the top of the blockhouse tower. Diamondstride grabbed a dangling rope tightly in his teeth and pulled, ringing the signal bell to alert the surrounding troops that guarded the southern outskirts of Foalgograd. Within minutes, the bells of the other blockhouses that encircled the city were swinging and tolling. Formerly Soviet-controlled defensive buildings, the Crystal Empire had been using them to fend off the Red Army since the capture of the great city many months ago. The imperial army was again gearing up for what seemed to be the umpteenth Soviet advance from the south.

“And there they are, just over the hills,” the officer thought aloud as he peered through the rusty telescope that was fixed to the balustrade of the tower. “Everypony’s been itching to tear apart a few more Reds. Looks like they’re about to…”

Diamondstride waited, but his commanding officer never finished his sentence.

“Sir?”

“They… they’ve got carriages leading the charge,” the stunned sergeant stated. “Never seen that kind of setup before.”

The soldiers of the Crystal Empire readied their defensive lines before the ring of blockhouses that surrounded Foalgograd. The imperials braced themselves as the Soviets pressed onward, tugging lines of tachankas behind them. And as they drew nearer, all the commanding officers stepped in front of their respective brigades and divisions, staring the approaching Reds down. At the centre of the line, a general came forward and commanded the Crystal Army to ready their weapons. He put a hoof in the air.

“Let them approach…” the general called. The Reds charged on. “Wait for it.”

“Forward, comrades!” one of the commissars screamed from atop a Soviet tachanka.

“Wait for it…” the imperial general repeated, staring at the approaching red flags through the slits in his helmet.

A bone-chilling “Ura!” rang out across the tundra as the gap between the Soviets and the Crystal Empire rapidly closed.

“Ready…” the crystal general bellowed to the imperials.

“Take aim!” a Soviet commander roared. The sound of hoofbeats was deafening.

“Almost…” the crystal general shouted, his hoof still in the air as the wheels of the tachankas thundered across the tundra.

“Open fire!”

Before the stallion could even utter the word “charge,” an entire choir of Soviet crank-cannons began to sing. The general standing before the imperial army was struck down on the spot. The soldiers behind him stared, flabbergasted, when his head shot back and he fell to the side, as if struck by some invisible force. But the metallic clanking of the guns continued, the bores flashing brightly as the shots were fired. One of the soldiers at the front of the lines was grounded all the same. And then another fell. And then another. And then a pegasus dropped out of the sky and hit the ground with an unsettling smack.

The imperials were completely and utterly confounded. They had never expected such weaponry to exist, let alone come against them. In truth, they could barely fathom what was transpiring, as they had never seen anything like it before in their lives. The crystal soldiers didn’t dare press forward. What was supposed to have been a charge turned into a reorganization. All the unicorns ran forward while the rest of the soldiers reformed their lines behind them. The crystal unicorns put up a wall of shields to defend against the rain of bullets, but it very quickly began falling apart. But the soldiers had never before experienced such blasts of power in tiny, concentrated shots. It was nothing like an arrow or bolt - it was substantially more staggering. The shots from the crank-cannons were depleting shield magic at an inordinately fast rate, tiring out even the most seasoned veterans of magic in seconds.

The shield wall didn’t last much longer than a minute, and the front lines of the crystal army dropped like flies. The teams of ponies pulling the tachankas - now just a stone’s throw away from the imperials - slowed their pace to a crawl and allowed the remainder of the Red Army to pass in front, sabres, shashkas, and axes at the ready. Gunners tossed their old clips and reached for new ones as the brown-uniformed soldiers of the Kalmuk Military District charged ahead and clashed with the crystal ponies. While the fight raged on the ground, the soldiers on the tachankas turned their attention to the pegasi in the air as they began diving down to take out the gunners.

The tachanka teams had changed since their inception in Saddlestopol. Now, they were operated by groups of seven - two at the crank-cannon, three to pull the weapon along, and one pike-bearer following at either side of the vehicle to fend off aerial attackers. Anypony that had successfully avoided the gunfire dove down to answer to the pikes. The crystal pegasi that weren’t shot out of the air were getting skewered.

The engagement didn’t last long. The imperials pulled back - both on the ground and in the air -  and retreated toward Foalgograd, leaving five of the blockhouses in the hooves of the Soviets. The road from the outskirts to city proper were now wide open.

The Reds rearranged themselves as the blockhouses were cleared of Crystal Army stragglers. The already-high morale had skyrocketed further. The repeated assaults of the past year failed to break the lines at the blockhouses every time. This time, the blockhouses had been captured in mere minutes. After the buildings were secured and the reorganization was finished, the Red army pressed onward, making haste for the southwestern districts of Foalgograd proper.

The Fetlockino region - characterized by small houses and dachas situated on the outer edge of the city - was taken without much of a fight. As the Reds pressed onward toward the city center, houses gave way to lines of buildings and a patchwork of perpendicular streets. The Red forces here bifurcated, with the brown-uniformed Kalmuk Military District marching north and the greed-uniformed Yakuts moving eastward. Main thoroughfares and intersections were thrown into chaos as the Reds fought back the imperials.

Watching from the windows of the gently-colored buildings of the city centre, the Foalgograd citizens were overcome by a particularly distinct mixture of shock and revelry. Strange, new weapons were being carted through the streets, tearing apart the enemy lines in an unsettlingly efficient manner. But at the same, time, hopes and dreams were slowly coming true. For the first time in over a year, red flags were flying in the streets of Foalgograd, and the Reds were throwing out the occupation force. Over the course of several hours, the fighting had pushed through to the roads that ran alongside the River Foalga, the mighty waterway that cut the city into northeastern and southwestern halves. Shortly thereafter, the southwestern half of the city had been declared purged of imperial control as they retreated across the four bridges over the Foalga.

The citizens flooded the streets behind the Red Army, celebrating, cheering, and tearing down the imperial flags of many hues that had been hung during the occupation. Driven by waves of radical fury that hadn’t surfaced since the revolutionary days over a year prior, they grabbed the weapons of fallen comrades and attacked isolated imperial soldiers that were still stuck on their side of the river. The stormy skies over the city on the Foalga finally seemed to be clearing, and the refulgent sunshine of freedom was beginning to peek through.

After a brief period of reorganization, tachanka teams, with supporting footsoldiers, began across the bridges to begin the attack in the northeast, seeking to make haste before the shattered imperials could restructure themselves. Halfway across the Foalga, the advancing Soviets were greeted by loud thwacks and twangs from the other riverbank. Massive diamond javelins, nearly log-sized, flew from the northeastern bank, gently arching in the air before diving back down and smashing into the approaching Reds. Several tachankas were instantly reduced to splinters, and a number of footsoldiers on each bridge had been either thrown into the river or crushed.

The Crystal Empire managed to drag a number of its famous Diamond Carroballistas to the northern bank, and it was perhaps their only chance to buy themselves some time. The Reds, concerned that continued march across the bridges was suicide, turned back and regrouped on the southwestern bank of the Foalga. At this point, fighting ceased. The Reds and the imperials, dug in on their respective sides of the river, contemplated their next moves.

The cross-river standoff would last nearly three hours. But during this period of inactivity, the Party in Stalliongrad was having a field day. Telegrams had arrived from Foalgograd, explaining that half of the city had been reclaimed. But at the same time, messages were coming in from Maremansk, announcing that Emeraldavia had made its move, launching a surprise attack on the imperial camps outside of Crystalnau. One even said that Prince Emerald-Ingot himself had joined the fight. The Crystal Army’s invasion force outside of Maremansk was not only sandwiched between the Red Army and the Emeraldavian separatists, but they had lost their camp and a number of their commanding officers. Eventually, this would give way to the retreat of imperial troops outside Manesk, saving a strained Belequus, which was only days away from submitting to the Empire’s attacks.

The Crystal Empire, stretched thin, betrayed, and unable to counter the crank-cannon, was being torn apart. But contrary to Soviet supposition, they had no intention of retaking the southern half of Foalgograd.

In the matter of a few short hours, the Soviets and their new weapons had done more damage and taken more lives than all of their previous attacks combined. If they managed to cross the river, the same bloodbath that went down in the southwest would repeat itself in the northeast. It became agonizingly evident to the Crystal Empire that they could not prevent the Soviets from recapturing the city. After agitated deliberation, a spiteful decision was reached. If the Empire was going to be run out of Foalgograd a second time, they were going to make one final move that young Soviet Equestria would never forget. The Crystal Empire’s high command ordered the soldiers to set fire to every city block north of the river.

After hours of non-action, the Reds saw the smoke rising above the rooftops. It started at three distinct sites, where massive pyres had been hastily constructed. But as more and more buildings were set ablaze, a wall of fire steadily swept across the northern half of the city.

The Diamond Carroballistas got disassembled and carted off. The Crystal Army was pulling out of the city, leaving flame in their wake as they proceeded north, back toward imperial territory. Every pegasus of the Yakut and Kalmuk Military Districts were ordered to fly out and drag in rainclouds from the periphery. The remainder of the Red Army charged across the bridges and established bucket brigades on the opposite bank, well-aware of the fact that they could do little about the fire until the clouds were brought in.

The Red Army entered burning buildings, evacuated anypony they could find. The frightened citizens fled across the bridges, away from the smoldering flames of northern Foalgograd. In some cases, the Red Army was already too late. At Mareskaya Square, a number of apartment blocks had completely collapsed into a pile of flaming rubble, and by the look of the place, it didn’t seem plausible that anypony trapped inside survived the destruction.

By the time the rainclouds were flown in, much of the north had already been lost.

Great pity was felt for those that lived above the river. The ponies in the south got to watch the defenders of Soviet Equestria chase the Crystal Empire away. They charged out into the free streets, overcome with countless unbridled emotions as the painful monotony of the occupation simply melted away. It was as if they were somehow reliving the revolutionary days from the previous year. For them, the liberation of Foalgograd gave them back nearly everything that they had lost. The same could not be said for the ponies in the north. For them, hope was right across the river, closer than it had ever been before. But before it could arrive, the Crystal Empire took what little they had left and burned it to the ground. To these ponies, the day of liberation was a day of destruction, of loss, and of mourning.

*   *   *

When the lone crystal pony in the telegraph office heard hoofbeats coming up the stairwell, he panicked. If he couldn’t get out before the Reds found him, he’d be dead meat. Carefully but quickly, he tiptoed to the rear staircase on the other side of the room and gently pushed the door open. But he gasped and fell back when he found a young mare in a Yakut uniform waiting for him on the landing.

The frightened crystal pony frenetically climbed back to his feet and turned to find another mare in an identical uniform walking through the doorway of the main staircase.

“Ooh, this one looks like fun, Masha,” the second mare said deviously as she strode into the room.

“The ones that shake like little kittens always are,” Masha, the first soldier, replied with a grin.

“No, please! I didn’t do anything! I just sat in here and worked the telegraph, honest! I didn’t do anything else!” the crystal pony pleaded. The two unicorns were closing in on the distraught pony as he tried not to keep his back turned on either one of them for too long.

“Calm down, comrade,” Masha cooed. “We’re just here to collect the rent.”

“The… the rent?” the confused stallion stuttered.

“Of course,” Masha answered. “You’ve been living in our city for a long time, and you haven’t payed even one month’s rent. Look, Sveta has your bill.”

The stallion turned to face the other mare, but only caught a glimpse of a pair of jackboots as Sveta bucked and kicked him in the face. In a couple of seconds, he was on the floor, out cold.

“Too hard, Sveta,” Masha giggled. “He’ll be out for a while… The interrogation will have to wait.”

“Silly me, getting all excited,” Sveta answered.

Another Yakut soldier entered the room through the door to the main staircase. The pegasus stopped and looked upon the unconscious crystal pony on the floor by his comrades’ feet.

“Just him? Only that one?” he asked.

“Just him,” one of the unicorns answered.

“Alright. Tie him down somewhere, I guess. I’ll pick through all this stuff in the meantime,” the stallion said, taking a seat at one of the desks littered with documents. “The commissars said they’ll be up in twenty minutes. I hope you girls weren’t too rough with him.”

“Don’t give me that, Arkady,” Sveta laughed as she and Masha threw the crystal pony on top of a clear desk in the room. “I told you the same thing a week back, but that didn’t stop you from bucking like a bronco.”

“You know you enjoyed it,” Arkady replied with a smirk as Masha tried to stifle her laughter. Sveta, grinning with her tongue between her teeth, kept quiet.

The two mares tied their unfortunate victim to the desk while Arkady read through the documentation that the imperials had left behind. Presumably, if somepony was still in the office, it meant that something important was left around that he was trying to clear out. A half hour passed easily as Masha and Sveta sat on the windowsill and lit a couple of cigarettes, watching Arkady peruse the documents. The commissars eventually arrived and joined Arkady as they waited for the imperial to come back to his senses for interrogation.

“But my sister is still stuck in Pegadessa,” Masha explained to her comrade.

“After all this time?” Sveta asked, taking another drag on her cigarette.

“Eh. It’s safer that way,” Masha affirmed. “I admit, it would be dull. But she’s better off being up there in a city in the clouds than down here.”

“Devushki! Come over here!” Arkady called from the desk. He and the two commissars were staring intently at something among the papers. The two mares left their seat at the window and approached, while the crystal pony, tied tightly to the desk, remained motionless.

“Looks like comrade Celestia has been a busy girl,” one of the commissars remarked as he adjusted his visor.

“Here, look at this,” Arkady said. He took an elegantly-penned letter in his teeth and presented it to Masha, who shrouded it in her aura and held it where she and Sveta could see it.

“Oh… Nu… pizdets… This is unbelievable,” Sveta remarked, turning to Arkady.

“But it explains quite a bit,” the stallion countered. “There are more letters than just the one you’ve got there, but that one is pretty comprehensive.”

“These all must be delivered to the Party in Stalliongrad as quickly as possible,” the commissar stated. Arkady nodded and laughed,

“Yeah, and Orlov’s going to flip when he sees them.”