Chapter 1: Operation Gauntlet.
Chapter 1: Operation Gauntlet.
Nathan Hale was in the armory bay of the carrier USS Saratoga. He was a tall human male with blue eyes and a gruffy looking face which had given him a rather tough facial expression while his muscular body was hidden by his green US army M-1943 combat uniform. While he normally had brown hair, his head was shaved due the US military's hair style code.
He had holstered his M1911 .45 caliber pistol and his Ka-Bar fighting knife and strapped a few frag grenades to his ammo belt. But before he left, he reached for one more item. It was a picture of him and his step-sister Susan. He hadn't seen her in over a year since he joined the US army. Hale's birth parents died when he was only a child and Susan's family took him in. Joining the army created a rift between him and his sister though and they hadn't spoken for a while.
A loud alarm roared throughout the carrier and disrupted Hale's train of thought. The siren was a signal for all troops to prepare for battle and Hale wasted no time. He grabbed his M48 Battle Rifle (an American variant of the FN FAL which had been rechambered to fire the powerful and accurate .276 Pederson intermediate cartridge) and headed to the carrier's deck.
The deck of the Saratoga was very busy with activity as US Army, Naval, and even Marine personnel were running about to their battle positions. The deck was full of highly advanced U/AV-17 "Hawk" VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) craft. Thanks to the discovery of micro-semi conductor chip in 1924 by Serb-American inventor Nikolai Tesla (which wouldn't be discovered until 1947 in our world), mankind was able to develop more advanced and fuel efficient technology.
The VTOL was developed in 1937 by Igor Sikorsky and it was a very versatile and powerful machine. Apart from serving as a fast troop and supplies transport, it also had two frontal 7.62 machine guns and two door mounted .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine guns to provide close range air support to the troops. Next to the VTOLs were Grumman F-9 Cougar and F9F Panther jet fighters which were brand new to the US Navy. Nathan was a part of the 1st Ranger Battalion of the US Army Rangers, which was to be sent to the front to Vanhoover, one of the largest cities in the pony nation of Equestria.
Lately, Equestria had been very quiet to the human nations and it had been several years before general human populace heard anything from them. The very last time anyone heard anything from Equestria was when their leader, Princess Celestia had visited US president Franklin Roosevelt ten years prior on a top secret meeting which even many high echelon military leaders didn't know the details on.
According to rumors, it involved some sort of biological experiments gone horribly wrong. The princess asked for US military support but the isolationist American government would have nothing of it. However, FDR did agree to lease the Equestrian army with weapons and technology.
However, in 1945, FDR died and his vice president, Noah Grace vetoed the Lend-Lease pact with the ponies claiming that the war was none of America's business. For a few years, life for the human nations went normally, but in March of 1948 the Soviet Union of Russia, a nation which the US and the European Confederation had been in a state of cold war with since the 1920's, went silent.
At first, the world assumed it was merely the result of Joseph Stalin's, the communist dictator of Russia, isolationist philosophy, but in September of that same year, an abandoned Russian navy ship crashed off the coast of the Aleutian islands off the coast of Alaska.
At first the US military thought it was a Russian invasion, but when the US Coast Guard seized the ship, they found that the ship was in shambles and abandoned. They found only one survivor, a Russian Naval Ensign who was in an extreme state of catatonia. He only lived for a few days before committing suicide by cutting his own throat. In the last few days of his life, the Russian sailor cried and ranted mad man raves of bizarre creatures whom he had described as the "six eyed devils".
The Russian Ensign incident, as the locals called it, was covered up by the US government but soon afterward, the Polish and Finnish military began reporting bizarre activities across the Russian border. Strange lights and horrible noises were common reports but the absolute most bizarre occurred when some Finnish moose hunters shot what appeared to be a mutated boar with six eyes and abnormally large fangs near the Finnish-Russian border!
The fearful European Confederation mobilized its military along the Russian border hoping that the Red Iron Curtain, the wall which Stalin built on the Russian-Eastern European border, would keep whatever was in Russian contained.
These incidents showed that whatever was happening in Equestria was now starting to affect the human nations and Grace ultimately decided to take action. He increased the US military budget and ordered his cabinet to prepare for war. He contacted the Equestria government, which was on the verge of defeat and agreed to help.
Nathan Hale's unit was a part of Operation Gauntlet, a top secret US/British military operation aimed at assist the ponies of Equestria. The rangers' mission was to secure the city and regroup with the British forces which were already on the ground there. The USMC Aviation Corp would deploy a few jets and ground attack aircraft to provide air support to the US Army Rangers.
Hale headed towards the VTOL whose call sign was "Arrow Two" that was his battalion's call name. Several other US army soldiers were boarding their VTOLs cradling their rifles and equipment carefully. Some soldiers had Browning Automatic Rifles for suppressive fire support while the medics and engineers were issued Thompson submachine guns. Hale got into the VTOL which was loaded with nervous soldiers and equipment, the squad leader, a US Army lieutenant named Adrian Black gave the signal for the VTOL's pilot.
"We're good to go!" he shouted to the pilot as he closed the VTOL's passenger doors. No sooner, the U/AV-17 took off. The VTOL's propellers first took off and landed like a helicopter but once it was a safe distance in the air, it's propeller engines tilting forward and it flew like a regular propeller driven airplane. Soon after, over half a dozen other VTOLs took off and followed suit. They would arrive in the city of Vanhoover in a few minutes. Little did they expect the meat grinder they were about to be thrown into…
"The American soldiers had no idea what kind of enemy they were facing. Fearing the Equestrian crisis would cause a national panic in a country that was already in a state of fear due to political tensions between the US and another human nation, Russia, the US government sealed its borders in 1950. Newspapers, radio waves, and even television signals became state property and a nationwide curfew was declared. Only the highest groups in the US government and the military knew the truth. The military operation was an exchange; the Americans and British would supply the Equestrian royal army with tanks, ammo, and humanitarian supplies. In exchange we would be giving them one secret weapon which could potentially change the outcome of the war. Something the humans couldn't build themselves. I was part of the team who was to meet the Americans. My team managed to contact the British forces and we headed to Vanhoover to meet the US soldiers, but we were ambushed on the way there. There was no way to warn the Americans. They were on their own, fighting an enemy they knew absolutely nothing about. We don't know the exact details of what happened there. All we know was that Nathan Hale was the sole survivor!"
The US VTOLs arrived over the ash filled skies of the pile of rubble and ruins that was once the peaceful pony town of Vanhoover. The whole town of Vanhoover was in ruins. The streets were full of craters from what appeared to be artillery fire and abandoned horse carts and even a few cars which where presumably imported from America and England. The building were only bleak shells of what they used to be. Many of them had large holes blasted out of them and where full of thick piles of stone, wood, and metal.
Some of the the buildings and debris were on fire which appeared to have been freshly started. From the moment the VTOL's entered Equestrian airspace it became clear that the US rangers had entered the wasp's nest.
The VTOLs rocked rapidly as they were bombarded with tracers and flak of an unknown enemy. Some of the VTOLs fired back with their machine guns but it was futile. Whoever the enemy was, he was hidden by the buildings and smoke. Nathan Hale sat in the cramped VTOL struggling to hold on to his rifle and stay in his seat as the enemy flak bounced off the VTOL's armored hull.
"Hang on back there gentlemen!" the pilot called from behind "Approaching the drop zone!"
The VTOL approached the ruins of what appeared to be a small street although it was difficult to identify due to the fact that the street was full of artillery craters and ruins. The VTOL tilted it's rotors upward and steadily and carefully towards the targets it's rotors kicking up debris.
Once the VTOL was steady, the cargo doors were opened and two soldiers activated it's fast rope mechanism. Two rod looking devices dropped four very strong nylon ropes to the ground.
The soldiers including Hale got up and shouldered their rifles and equipment. Lieutenant Black, being the squad leader was the first to fast rope.
"Go go go!" he shouted the orders to his men. Hale grabbed on to the rope and fast roped down to the ground. His landing made a crackling sound as when his boots hit the concrete road he had stepped on broken glass and barbed wire. Fortunately his boats were thick and he wasn't hurt. The rest of his unit soon followed until a total of eight soldiers where on the ground. Lieutenant Black then began issuing more orders.
"Okay boys, you know the drill. First we need to reestablish contact with Arrow Three and….."
Suddenly, Black was interrupted by a very loud whistling sound that was coming from the sky. Hale looked up and was shocked in awe as he witnessed a dart shaped rocket streaking and whistling through the sky slam straight into Arrow Two's VTOL with a fiery eruption!
The rocket had struck the VTOL's fuselage right below its fuel tank setting the craft ablaze and Hale and his squad could only watch in horror as their only life line and method of support spun out of control and crashed behind was appeared to be an abandoned pony school crashing and created a small cloud of smoke, ash, and fire.
"Holy shit!" Lieutenant black gasped. "C'mon we're getting outta here!"
He then turn to a young red headed corporal named John Kowalski and tapped his shoulder. Despite what had happened, the middle aged commander kept calm. After all, he did serve in the American Expeditionary Force during the Great War of 1918.
"Kowalski!" he shouted at the frightened corporal. Kowalski jumped with fear and his rifle was shaking very noticeably in his hands, but he soon came back to his senses.
"Sir!" he answered back trying to stay in character.
"Your squad go now!" he ordered through all the chaos and tilted his head towards where he wanted them to go. Kowalski nodded back nervously and signaled his men to charge. He then turned his attention towards Hale.
"You're with me! Let's go!"
Hale nodded and with adrenalin pumping through his body, he armed his battle rifle and sprinted alongside his lieutenant. The rangers ran across the wrecked streets trying their best to not trip or fall over any debris. However, after running for only about 50 meters, Kowalski and his squad suddenly stopped.
"Sir up ahead!" he screamed towards Black as he pointed the direction. Black and Hale took cover behind an abandoned horse drawn carriage and got a closer look at what Kowalski was looking at.
"What the hell are those things!?" he shouted flabbergasted at the site he was seeing. Hale was definitely surprised too. Up ahead crawling from the debris were what appeared to be some ponies. At first the rangers assumed they were probably survivors, it became clear that they weren't once they got closer.
This ponies were standing on their hind legs holding weird looking guns that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.
But that wasn't the least of it, the ponies' fur and mane were completely gone and their eyes were a yellowish-grey tint with slimy and scaly skin almost like that of a crocodile's. Their ears were missing and instead replaced with two large socket holes presumably for hearing and their muzzles were abnormally larger than normal and were filled with long razor sharp teeth. Also instead of two eyes, now they had six of them! Some larger than others and they lacked pupils and retinas, instead they were a strong vibrate yellow color.
But the most unusual feature of them was on their backs, they had this weird metal plate and tubes which appeared to have been surgically attached to them. The tubes entered into their backs and where connected to four large glass tubes which were filled with a some sort of yellow liquid.
It was pretty obvious that these mutants were not friendly.
"Take cover quickly!" Black ordered.
Hale, let his training and soldier instincts take over and he took cover behind the carriage. He aimed his M48 rifle and fired a long burst at the nearest mutant pony he could see. the .276 Pederson was powerful and accurate yet it was lighter and had a much softer recoil compared to the old 30-06 rifles Hale had been trained with. the bullets impaled the creature spraying blood and skin as it tore the creature apart. The mutant gave an inhuman gurgle as it fell to the hard ground dead and a pool of red blood formed underneath it.
The creatures snarled and aimed their weapons ready to avenge their fallen comrade. How they fired those weapons with their fingerless hooves, Hale had no idea but he had no time to question as he ducked to avoid the returning fire.
When the creatures fired their weapons, they made a distinctive "bleeping" sound and they fired with very rapid succession of volleys which appeared to be small red balls of heated plasma energy. While they were traveling at a much slower speed then a bullet, Hale got a firsthand look of what they could do to a human being. Their radioman, a ninteen year old private named Jenkins from New York state, tried to duck behind a wall to avoid their fire but he was too late.
He screamed in agony as the energy bolt struck him in his left arm and back. The bolts sizzled as they tore open a large cavity of his back spraying blood and flesh everywhere and obliterating his left arm off! Jenkins's Tommy gun and his radio fell off him and hit the ground with a loud clank. Jenkins slumped over and rolled over on the ground leaving a trail of blood as he rolled over on his back, gave one final groan, and soon left this Earth.
A fellow Ranger charged out from his cover and tried to rescue his fallen friend's body laying down a volley of suppressive with his BAR. While he managed to kill one of the creatures and injured another, he met his friend's fate as one of the mutant's energy blasts struck his breast and tore open his chest cavity.
Hale swore he could've saw that BARmen's still beating heart fly out as the guy slumped down next to his fallen soldier and died. Hale quickly took aim at the injured mutant which had killed the two rangers and opened fired putting the wounded creature out of its misery. The rangers and the creatures just stood there fighting a war of attrition; lead bullets and energy bolts soared through the air. As the two sides were fighting, Jenkin's fallen radio activated and transmitted a distress signal.
"This is Arrow One! Requesting assistance! We are under attack by some sort of walking tank! We have multiple enemies and…*shhhssss*" the broadcast was cut off by static.
Hale paid little attention to it and continued his fight with the unknown creatures. He had just taken out another one of them when suddenly a VTOL with both of its engines on fire and its fuselage and cockpit riddled with blast holes flying out of control from behind some wrecked grocery stores. The VTOL, who Hale could identify as Arrow one by the symbols on its fuselage, spun rapidly and violently out of control and crashed into a building only a few feet away from where Hale's team had been fighting.
Before anyone could react or say anything the VTOL slammed into the abandoned building and crashed sending a ball flame and debris crashing down and knocking Hale, his unit and the creatures to the ground. Hale landed on a pile of loose dirt with a grunt but thankfully he was lucky to be unscathed.
He quickly got back to his feet and dusted off his uniform and picked up his rifle which he had dropped. He wiped the dust off his face and noticed blood on his fingers from a cut he had received on his right cheek. But it was only a flesh wound and nothing he should worry about as he had experienced much worse. His team on the other hand wasn't so lucky. While the creatures he had been fighting were dead, his entire unit had been wiped out. If the creatures didn't kill them, the VTOL's crash did.
He saw Kowalski slumped on a slab of wood which had fallen from a nearby house; his bloodied helmet and rifle were laying next to his feet and his head had a large, fatal gash and was leaking so much blood and brain matter, Hale couldn't tell the difference between the blood and Kowalski's red hair.
Lieutenant Black was also dead, he had been impaled by a metal pole, possible a street sign. He was laying on his back, his motionless eyes were still opened and blood was leaking from his mouth and shattered chest. His death appeared to have been instant.
Hale had no time to mourn though. He quickly gathered up his fallen men's dog tags and he also took a few supplies from their bodies. Ammunition and spare magazine and anything he could carry. He then reloaded his rifle and proceeded down the road to the rendezvous point.
