Fallout Equestria: Duty

Fallout Equestria: Duty

Dreams of the past part 7

“We'll stand our ground, no matter the cost!”

~O~Frostmane~O~

        “Report. What's the status of the battle group?” I inquired in a bored tone of voice while sitting behind the main console on the bridge of the Luna Dream. Princess Luna had assembled quite a strike force to try and push through the enemy defenses and end this war once and for all. I, of course, had told her that it was a stupid idea. Sending over eighty percent of our troops into a single operation left our borders vulnerable. She, on her part, had informed that, if everything went to plan, there would be no need to defend our borders after this day.

        “They are reporting only minor losses so far. Mostly ground troops trying to breach enemy bunkers along the lines. We're still jamming any of their long range communication, so they can't call for reinforcements. Only ten percent of the enemies aerial forces remain. At this rate, we will be able to move on to their next garrison in a matter of minutes.” one of my Ponys, a mare, reported after checking the readouts on her terminal screen. Of course, we were ordered to keep out of the fight. Our presence here was only in case something went horribly wrong.

        “Understood. Inform me if anything changes. Everypony has to stay ready to scramble at a moments notice. Keep the canons and turrets ready to fire as well. We never know when they'll pull an ace out of their sleeves.” I ordered, to which the Earthpony mare nodded and got back to work.

This was the most boring combat assignment I had ever been given. We were flying silently and in stealth about three miles behind the main group. Close enough for us to observe them, but not close enough for them to detect the slight ripple our cloaking field caused. Even magic isn't perfect after all.

        “This is ground group three. We've taken over their command bunker. I repeat, we've taken their command bunker. This ought to throw them into some more disarray.” I hear the voice of a stallion through the bridges speakers. Something about his tone of voice struck me as odd though. Sure, he sounded overly confident, like most Ponys who were part of this operation, but there was something else. A slight tremble of fear maybe?

More to lay my own doubts to rest than anything, I switched the main command hologram of the Luna Dream to a map of the battlefield on the ground. The Zebras command bunker was surrounded by several automated turret nests that were, according to our sensors, destroyed. So far, so good. But why was my mane standing on end then? I decided to investigate further and ran a full scan of the facility below.

Sure enough, there were more Pony than Zebra life signs, but there was also a gigantic energy spike coming from that bunker. An energy spike I had never seen before, and it became stronger every second I watched the readouts. I had to make a decision right then and there. To this day, I am not proud of what I did next, but it was the right thing to do as was revealed not too much later.

        “Intercept speed towards their command bunker! Target it with every anti magic shell we have!” I ordered, switching to a view of the battlefield once more. There were a few dozen Steel Rangers in the vicinity of that facility. Even if they began to retreat now, their armors spell matrix would be fried by the blast.

My orders were repeated by one of my officers, and I could hear how my ships engines began to roar from the sudden strain. Our speed increased so much that, even with the suppression fields in place, I had to hold on to the main console so I wasn't thrown off my hooves. I could only imagine what such sudden acceleration did to the rest of the ship.

        “Target in sight. Anti magic shells loaded and ready at your command.” the main tactical officer said, looking at me for confirmation. Surely he had seen the mass of friendlies on his instruments too. Well... at least I wasn't ordering a napalm strike or something. I nodded and the canons began to fire shell after shell towards that bunker. Shortly after the first one hit, the whole area looked as if a lightning storm was going off down there. Blue sparks flew everywhere, deactivating any piece of arcano tech they came in contact with. That, of course, also included several squads of Steel Rangers.

        “Dream eight to twenty, get down there and reboot these Rangers spell matrix. Be sure to use stealth bucks while doing so.” came my next command, while simultaneously checking the command hologram for that energy spike once more. To my relief, the base was now entirely dark. Not so much as a flashlight had survived that barrage. Later we found out that there had been a megaspell under the facility which the Zebras had intended to fire at our aerial forces. Our barrage of anti magic shells however, had disrupted the generators they were trying to use as an energy source for it.

After about ten minutes, the last of the Zebra fliers had been defeated, and the remainder of their ground forces had surrendered themselves to our side. The Luna Dream fell back to her original position, several miles behind the main battle group. We picked up excited chit chat over the radio, mixed with confused questions as to where that barrage of anti magic shells had come from. There was even a Steel Ranger who was praising Stable Tech for finally implementing a long needed reboot feature into their design. I had a little laugh when one of the technicians told him that Stable Tech had, in fact, not solved that problem yet. Luna bless Stealth Bucks, I guess.

        “Hold position behind the main group. All Moon Skulls are to return to the ship.” I ordered with a half smile. I knew that there was so much that could go wrong in this plan Luna had thought up, but the first hurdle had been taken. We had breached Zebricas borders, and now our own Ponies were sending reports back to Rom. As long as none of them was forced into an actual vocal conversation, they should be fine. Otherwise their accent would have been evident immediately.

On the other hand, we had to leave quite some troops behind. Several of the ground forces were either too wounded or exhausted to move on just yet. They needed to rest, but that would have taken time we just didn't have. This was supposed to be one final blow, executed with extreme swiftness and accuracy. We wouldn't bother to take out all their bases. Only the ones that were in our way.

If the whole thing had been planned differently, we might actually have been able to avoid having to fight at all shortly before reaching their capital. Such an operation, however, would have taken days instead of hours to execute. Luna wanted a decisive victory, even though I had advised her to reconsider.

~O~Firestorm~O~

I looked out one of the port hatches as the battle group moved on to our next target. Below us about forty percent of our ground forces had to be left behind, and small camps were already being set up to see to the wounded and give the exhausted ones a place to rest. Of course the twenty or so Thunderheads in our group could have cared for those soldier much more efficiently, but then their medical bays would have been occupied by Ponies that did not belong to their regiment or crew. Just in case this operation went south, the ships needed to be able to take care of their crews. Still, I didn't like it, due to the fact that ten Raptors were also left behind to guard them.

The Pegasi in my group were... slightly annoyed to be honest. It hadn't been five minutes since we had returned to the ship, after rebooting the Steel Rangers armors, and they were already eager to go out there again. Not that they relished the bloodshed, but it was at least better than this forced inactivity we were currently stuck in.

        “OK everypony, listen up!” I said, and any chit chat ceased instantly as all eyes settled on me.

        “We are scheduled to arrive at our next target in approximately sixty minutes. Until then, we do not expect any combat to occur. Dream one to ten, you can take a thirty minute break. Go and have lunch, take a shower, or rest a little. Honestly, I don't care what you do as long as you're back in thirty minutes sharp. After your break is over Dream eleven to twenty will take a break. Needless to say, I want your rumps back here ASAP if there is an alarm. I don't care what you're in the middle of. Drop everything and assemble here. Understood? Good. Dismissed.” I added, and soon half of my Ponies went to do whatever it was they did in their off time. I, on the other hoof, stayed close to the open port hatch I had been looking out of earlier.

Just like Frostmane, I hated all of this fighting. My eye took in every fire and each destroyed tank that we passed by. I didn't miss the corpses either. Zebra and Pony alike. There were so many that it was impossible to count them. A full frontal assault on one of their biggest bases had certainly not been something they had expected, but it had been a foolish move. Hundreds, if not thousands, of lives had been lost needlessly.

I knew, from experience, that we could have taken this base down with only minimum losses if we just had the time to prepare. A little help from the Ministry of Awesome would have come in handy as well. Their specters were top notch assassins and infiltration specialists. One only had to take a look at our commander to know it was true...

I was still contemplating alternative ways to go about this operation when, all of a sudden, the sun was blocked out completely. It was mid day by now, so I immediately looked into the direction of the sun. A giant shadow descended through the clouds. One that was too big to be a war balloon or dragon. Even dozens of them couldn't have created such a large shadow...

Then, the thing broke through the clouds and my heart skipped a beat or two. I couldn't tell you what happened first, me screaming for my Ponies to get ready to scramble, or the siren going off on the entire ship. This thing was massive. Of course I had heard the rumors. Everypony had. An ancient weapon that was from a time when the Zebras embraced technology far more than they did today, and were less restricted in their use of talismans. A weapon so dangerous that it was the stuff of legends for them...

The Leviathan...

~O~Frostmane~O~

        “Hard to port! All sky tank groups ready to launch! Vertibugs, get ready for quick attacks!” I bellowed as I watched the battle group break formation on the main command hologram. My orders were pretty specific. We were not to interfere unless the battle went south. Entering S.A.T.S. I bought myself some time to think it through, then came to a decision. Screw my orders!

        “Vertibugs and sky tanks ready to launch at your command.” one of my officers informed me, and I nodded to the stallion. He caught my drift and nodded to another Pony, who in turn typed some commands into her terminal. The Luna Dreams stealth array shimmered for a second, before being deactivated. All ordnance at our disposal was aimed at this giant of an airship.

Of course, the battle group detected us as well, and some of them decided to aim their weapons at us instead of this new threat. Some captains just were too stupid to see that we were friendlies on their main hologram.

        “Open a channel to the battle group.” I ordered, and soon after I heard the ping that indicated an established connection.

        “This is Vice General Frostmane of the FALC Luna Dream. I'm taking over command of this operation per directive eighty-for, section B, Paragraph three. Acknowledge.”

Only silence greeted me at this for a several seconds. I was sure that most of them actually had to look up the directive I had just recited. They didn't really have the time to do so, as the newly arrived enemy ship opened fire of the battle group. It's canons were massive, and I couldn't even imagine what kind of power source they used to fire such enormous shells. An explosion followed, and I didn't have to check the main hologram to see what had happened. I could see it clear as day through the windows of the bridge. One of our Thunderheads was plummeting towards the ground, its hull ripped into a million pieces. Another one soon followed, though this one had managed to steer clear of the brunt of the attack and managed to stay aloft.

        “Ma'am! The Morning Star has gone silent! The Philamena is reporting heavy damage. They request permission to retreat.” my communications officer stated, and I nodded.

        “Permission granted. Tell them to circle around the battlefield and stay clear of the main fight. The rest of the ships are to scatter as far apart as they can. With shells like these, we can't stay close together!” I said, and my officer went to work, relaying my orders. To my relief, they seemed to listen to me. Thunderheads were slow, but at least they were now moving in different directions. That should have made it harder for this monster of an airship to hit them. I was wrong however. Just as I wanted to order a counter attack, hatches on its surface opened. Out came several missile launchers. Guided missiles at that!

Our sky tank groups did their best to shoot them down, while the Vertibugs flew quick attacks against their heavy weaponry. It couldn't have been more evident that we had been caught with our pants down and were now struggling to get some kind of counter attack going. Some of the Thunderheads fired without order, but their shells and magical beam weapons did little to the hull of this thing. The only things that seemed to be effective, were the shots our smaller vessels took at it.

Sure, the hull remained unscathed, but we were able to take out most of their missile launchers at least. They, in turn, had shot down two more Thunderheads and five Raptors. So far this battle was not going good.

        “Load Balefire shells and tell the battle group concentrate their fire onto these - “I began, but was interrupted by the glass of the bridges windows shattering. A few hundred bullets shot through the bridge, killing most of my Ponies sitting at their stations in the front part of the bridge. I saw one mare, one of the navigators, turn her head to look at me, just before one of the projectiles literally tore her head right off her shoulders!

Some of the terminals exploded from fried circuits, showering the remaining bridge crew with debris and shrapnel. I reacted as fast as I could and typed in a command into my own terminal. The bridge went dark for a second, as the emergency shutters came down. Then, the emergency lighting came on.

        “Report!” I shouted, wiping blood from a cut over my right eye where some of the shrapnel had hit me.

        “They're using some kind of anti armor shells against us. Very small caliber. Unknown material. Casualty and damage reports are coming in from all decks. Every single window has been broken, even though they were made out of bullet proof glass.” one buck, Candy Cane, reported as he pressed one of his fore-hooves down on the trigger of a fire extinguisher. I turned my attention back to the hologram. Apparently, this giant ship was concentrating it's small arms fire on us. If one could call this sudden attack small caliber that was...

Meanwhile, the battle group was firing at the thing, and the Luna Dream was... wait. All four navigators were dead, so why the heck was the ship actually performing evasive maneuvers? I kid you not. The LD was actually flying pretty complex maneuvers to stay out of that rain of bullets. Strangely enough, I didn't feel a thing. Was the hologram maybe defective? No... I didn't think so. Otherwise I would surely have heard the pinging of bullets against the hull. Maybe somepony in engineering had taken up the task? If so, I really needed to find out who it was. That Pony was an almost perfect flier!

~O~Firestorm~O~

        “All Pegasi, launch! I repeat, all Pegasi launch! Prepare balefire charges and place them on the enemies hull. See you on the other side everypony!” came Frostmanes voice through the speakers of the hangar bay. Dream one to ten had, of course, returned from their very short break by now. Some of those who had stayed behind had been killed in the enemies attack about a minute ago, a veritable wall of bullets had hit the Luna Dream. The open hatches had been their demise. Had I not been standing between two hatches at the moment the bullets hit, I would have been turned into paste myself...

        “You heard her! Get those satchel charges ready and launch! Evasive pattern Omega! Don't engage any of their fliers if there are any and you can avoid it. Once the charges are placed, set the timer and get the buck out of there!” I shouted, just before picking up my own bag of balefire charges and jumping out the hatch. Whoever was piloting the LD had to get a promotion after this battle. They had brought us close enough to the Leviathans upper side, where our smaller vessels had destroyed the enemies missile launchers earlier, that their main weaponry couldn't target us as we launched.

~O~Frostmane~O~

The battle group was, by now, concentrating their fire on one specific spot on the enemies hull. I thought that, given what I knew about airships, this section was the most likely to hold their generators. But even with everything we flung at them, their hull barely dented.

The Luna Dream was pretty much on autopilot at this point. Even the canons did not react to any manual input anymore, but kept firing until their barrels were red hot. I did not like being effectively locked out of the system, but I could worry about that later. As long as the Pony controlling everything listened to the bridges intercom, and followed my orders, I didn't argue.

For now though, I concentrated on coordinating the Pegasus, Vertibug and sky tank teams. They had to evade heavy fire and, from their vantage point, could not always see when another one of those giant shells was being prepare to fire. I had, by now, found a pattern and directed my Ponies, and the main battle group, out of the line of fire as best as I could. Nonetheless, we had lost three more Thunderheads and several Raptors... I just wasn't fast enough...

Then, something amazing happened. A second sun seemed to rise as dozens of balefire charges went off all at once on the enemies hull. Differently from the usual attack plan with such weapons, Firestorm seemed to have ordered her Ponies to place them all in once spot to create an opening in the hull. And, Luna be damned, it had actually worked! A hole, about three Ponies wide and one Pony high had been blown into this giants side. Smoke erupted from it almost immediately.

Just as I wanted to change the battle groups target to these coordinates, a call came over the radio. It was Firestorm.

        “Dream one to twenty in position. Commencing infiltration and sabotage.” she said before contact to her group cut off completely. Only static answered me as I screamed for her to delay that order and return to the ship. This airship was big enough to house thousands, if not tens of thousands! Trying to infiltrate it was... insane...

~O~Firestorm~O~

The deck rocked beneath me as the battle group continued to fire on the ship we had just boarded. The section we were in appeared to be some kind of living quarters, and we didn't encounter much resistance at first. That was, until we reached a crossing...

Two of the Pegasi behind me dropped dead, blood spraying from head shots behind them. The corridor was not big enough for all of us to take cover as the enemy snipers took several more shots. They didn't even have to aim very well. We almost filled up the corridor. Twenty more died before I jumped out and returned fire. My soldiers followed suit, and soon two of the red bars on my EFS disappeared. Sure, we had a disadvantage due to our numbers and these tight corridors. This could work in our favor as well though.

After all, the Zebras on board this ship couldn't take cover either...

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

It took us about twenty minutes to find something that at least looked as if it was a vital component of the ship. One shaft that ran almost it's entire length, a computer core cradled within it. My Ponies and I set the last of our charges, set the timers to five minutes and got out of there as fast as we could.

At least, that had been the plan... On our way out, we encountered much heavier resistance than on our way in. On each intersection Zebras were waiting for us. I got hit in the shoulder, while several of my soldiers took some more vital hits. I seriously began to question coming aboard this ship...

~O~Frostmane~O~

The LD bumped hard as one of the smaller shells impacted on its underside, penetrating the hull where it had struck. I could see that it had hit engineering, but the generators seemed to be undamaged. Nonetheless, we began to plummet uncontrollably. I checked the readouts on my screen for any significant damage, but couldn't find any.

        “ARGH! SCREW THIS!” I shouted and galloped towards the forward part of the bridge. Without care, I threw the body of one of the navigators out of her seat, flipped a few switched to transfer all control to one navigation station, and pulled back the stick hard. The ship responded by flying upwards and almost doing a roll in mid air.

        “This is... brzt extra- *brzt*... many wounded.” came Firestorms voice over that crackly radio. I turned the Luna Dream towards this giant of a ship and just hoped that her group could fly a short distance. Most of our sky tanks and Vertibugs had been shot down by this point, so we didn't have any vessel to spare to evacuate them. My Ponies, or what was left of them on the bridge, did their best to use damaged equipment to fire our weapons, but it seemed to be no use. That last hit seemed to have taken out some vital connection, and so our weapons only fired sporadically.

The battle group had, by now, suffered more losses and was retreating. I had ordered them too. Standard Thunderheads were too slow to evade these canons after all. Only six remained... Six out of twenty-two... We really were only still here to pick up our Ponies and buy them time to get clear.

OooOoOoOoOoOo

Firestorms group had been safely extracted, even though they had suffered heavy losses on their way out. Out of two hundred, only around eighty had returned. Moments before, there was a big explosion on board of the enemy ship, and it began to steer away from us, rather than continue its pursuit.

Then something unexpected happened. The Luna Dream was retreating for the first time ever, when a shell hit us in our midsection. It wasn't one of the bigger ones, or we would have been torn apart, but it caused enough damage to blow a pretty big hole into our side.

Not only that, but I lost navigational control completely. The only direction our ship could go now, was straight forward... In other words, we were sitting ducks for those canons. Through the flickering command hologram behind me I could see that those canons were already aiming at us again, as black smoke erupted from every opening in their ship. I sighed and retracted my armor.

        “So this is it, huh?” I muttered, smiling to myself. At least our last battle had been a good one. I heard the boom of their canons even without our outside microphones...

The impact I was expecting however, never came. I opened my eyes once more and took a glance at the main hologram. A badly damaged Thunderhead was hovering between us, and the enemy ship. I recognized the ship. It was the Philamena.

        “Luna Dream to Pilamena! You've been ordered to retreat! Get the buck out of here!” I shouted into my broadcaster. A coughing mare answered me. It sounded like she was in some serious pain.

        “Captain Galeheart to Vice General Frostmane. We won't make it back... Our main engines have kicked it. Get out of here. We'll do our best to buy you some time so you can get out of range...” she wheezed. I ordered her, once more, to get the buck out of there. If their engine had trouble, we could at least evacuate her Ponies onto other ships once we were at a safe distance... All I got as a response, however, was her saying that she could not understand my last order. I could literally hear the smile on her face as she said that.

The Philamena did an amazingly good job at drawing the enemies fire, while we made a run for it. I opened the shutters and looked back at them, even though many of my officers protested this action due to the wind. I didn't care. I saluted the brave mare as her ship finally failed her. The ship, named after Princess Celestias pet phoenix, did not explode in a fireball or break apart. It's engines simply went silent and it began to plummet towards the ground below...

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

It took us several weeks to manipulate the memories of all the Ponies involved in this operation, and I just didn't want to perform another memory spell for like... forever! All I wanted was to get some sleep, while the Luna Dream was getting an overhaul in our main base near Las Pegasus. Underground and totally secret, of course, but still a nice little base with all things a Pony needed to relax.

Just as I flopped down onto my bed, my doorbell rang. I groaned, and called the Pony in. Jerakal looked serious as she removed a stray strand of her gray mane out of her face with a hoof. Why she was also looking a little disturbed, was something I found out only a few minutes after, as it was the reason she had come to disturb me at all.

OooOoOoOoOoOo

        “What the bloody hell...” I murmured as I looked into the chamber Jerakal had found in the furthest back of engineering. Had the mare not noticed the obvious empty space and sealed up doorway on the Luna Dreams original plans, none of us might have never found out about it.

The room was almost empty, except the mass of cables running from a cylinder in the center of the room the walls. Several of those cables had been severed during our last battle, but the glass cylinder was still intact. Given that this hidden room was close to our mainframe, it didn't take much knowledge of technology to know where those cables were going.

In the tank, floated a Pony... A Pegasus mare to be precise. There wasn't much left of her green hide or blonde mane and tail, but she looked at me. The mask covering her muzzle only left one red eye free, and that eye looked at me with infinite sadness as I began to realize what had truly happened during that battle...