Lieutenant Colonel Miranda Tuckett yawned into her second cup of coffee. The boost was needed after waking up earlier than usual. She was used to rising at six A.M sharp, but the base had gone into lockdown at around five-thirty A.M.

While it was only a thirty minute difference, she was definitely feeling it.

She glanced at the clock on the far wall. It was one minute past eight A.M. The meeting was supposed to start at eight sharp.

“It’s not like General Beckett to call a meeting and be late for it,” Tuckett said. She pursed her lips in displeasure. A mix of frustration with her commanding officer, and the fact that she didn’t like the taste of black coffee. The mug had been Colonel Michael Hoffman’s, but he had offered it to her after she had finished her own mug.

“That’s because there is no meeting,” Colonel Hoffman said from across the circular metal and glass table they were standing around. He shook his head. “I wanted to talk to you alone, and ‘meeting with Beckett’ was the best excuse to get around the lockdown.”

She knew him well enough to pick up on the subtle twitch of his lips.

“So what’s this about, Hoff?” Tuckett asked. “This about Valery flipping sides? I’m telling you, I had no idea she would turn. We were close, but I—”

“I know you're innocent,” Hoffman said, cutting her off as he looked away from the table. “General Beckett wants me to launch a nuclear strike on Equestria.”

Tuckett’s throat went dry. That was impossible. Only the main portal was operational, and it wasn’t even large enough for a civilian car to fit through. With Valery having stolen the prototype rapid-deployment beacon, there was no way to get something as large as a nuclear missile into Equestria.

“So, are you going to tell him no?” Tuckett asked. She started to pace around the table.

“He’s our commanding officer, so I’m following my orders,” Hoffman said, exasperation clear in his tone. “I want you to reconsider taking Serum-9.”

“No,” Tuckett snapped as she flared out her wings. The wind pushed papers off a nearby desk, sending them fluttering like leaves in the wind. She wasn’t going to return to being a ground-slogging human, and that was final. “This whole shitshow is all because of his fanatic racism. Valery and I kept trying to tell him we could influence Equestria from the shadows, but he wants bodies in the streets.”

“I know,” Hoffman sighed. He shook his head and waved a hand dismissively, before he turned back towards the table. “Nukes aren’t toys, but what can we do? We have our orders.”

Tuckett knew how much Hoffman hated nukes, despite him being the one in charge of America’s miniscule remaining strategic arsenal. The old world had burned away in nuclear hellfire once already. Being a missileer carried baggage.

“So what are you going to send?” Tuckett asked. There was no use arguing. Orders were orders, and she knew neither of them would betray America.

“The engineers are taking one of the reentry-vehicles out of a MIRV warhead. It should be ready to send in a day or two,” Hoffman said somberly. “And depending on how much of the fissile material has decayed, the yield should be around a hundred-and-fifty to a hundred-and-seventy kilotons when it detonates.”

A decently sized tactical warhead. It would flatten most of a city.

“So where are we sending it?” Tuckett asked. If they were going nuclear, she didn’t want to slog her troops through irradiated ruins. Urban warfare in the Equestrians’ home turf would be bad on its own.

Not to mention that, with Raven Rock and Adams AFB under Colonel Autumn’s command, SOCOM didn’t have the troops for prolonged multi-front fighting. They needed to be smart with their decisions.

“That’s up to the General,” Hoffman said, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sure Valery has already used the prototype she stole to get to Equestria and warn Canterlot, so I’m going to suggest other targets. Industrial centers don’t move as fast as politicians.”

“You haven’t lived in Equestria,” Tuckett said with a chuckle that didn’t match her mood. She was trying to push away her growing anxiety. “They don’t waste time when it comes to anything.”

Like adapting to change or acknowledging skilled individuals. In the six months that she had lived there, she had passed basic guard training, made the rank of sergeant in the royal guard, and was on the way to becoming a commissioned officer. She’d only returned to Earth when the first portal had gone supernova in the Everfree.

“Apparently not, have you read any of the newer reports from the other side?” Hoffman asked. He didn’t wait for a reply before he continued. “They’ve already started to make guns, starting with ones made from stamped metal. They even have a submachine gun that looks like a Sten with a top-loading magazine.”

Tuckett had indeed read a few of the reports. She was the commander of SOCOM’s only infantry brigade, so it was necessary to know what the opposition was up to. The clever Equestrians had even made their new weapons compatible with magazines from Earth.

“Even if we throw everything at Equestria, they’ll bounce back,” Tuckett said as she walked to a spot at the table across from Hoffman. She reached for the table and pressed a button. Seconds later, the glass top flickered with light before it clarified into a top-down display of a map separated into grid squares.

“How can you be so sure?” Hoffman asked as he placed blue-colored circular tokens with small objects glued to the top on his side of the map board. “Maybe the General is right, and an overwhelming show of force by leveling a city would make them comply.”

“The villains that stepped on them in the past kept casualties to a minimum,” Tuckett replied as she started to set out several red disks on her side of the board. “They’re going to say enough is enough.”

“Yeah,” Hoffman groused. “And we have fewer ground troops than Colonel Autumn, the Equestrians are starting to close the technological gap with us on top of their magic and population advantage, Valery defected, and General Beckett thinks it's a good idea to fight everyone at once.”

“Unfortunately, that seems to be how the cookie is crumbling,” Tuckett said as she rolled her eyes. She then pushed one of her red disks across the holographic map. It was around the size of a coin, and had a silver-painted feather glued to it so that the feather stuck straight up. She stopped the disk two grid squares from where she had started and looked across the table at her opponent and his blue chips.

Hoffman didn’t reply as he slowly reached for a blue painted disk. A model vertibird was glued onto it. He pushed the disk across five grid squares, which put it onto the objective. He then reached for more tokens which rested on an end table beside him. He set out four tokens decorated with small black-painted servo-motors around the vertibird.

Uprooting power armored forces from the objective would be hard with only pegasi fast response infantry. Hoffman was getting good at taking and holding objectives with conventional forces. The scenario they were playing out had hilly terrain which favored flyers, which were overabundant in Equestria.

Still, one objective didn’t win the entire scenario.

Tuckett pushed a blue-painted feather with gold trim towards the secondary objective on the map.

Hoffman countered her deployment of the Wonderbolts on objective two by sending a second vertibird to take objective three. They were dancing around actual engagements.

It wouldn’t be long before the real Equestrians could go on the offensive.

<>~<>~<>

“What am I looking at?” Grand General Tempest Shadow asked as she slowly raised an eyebrow.

Coming down the road towards her was a vehicle that moved without being pulled by a pony. A rare sight outside of parade floats or trains. It was just as large as a parade float, too, resembling a huge wagon with front wheels that were larger than the back. A steam locamotive’s plow protruded from the front of the vehicle, and the backside of the vehicle was dominated by its large magically-powered engine that was crammed in the middle of industrial-sized food processing equipment.

“That, my dear filly,” Flim said beside her, adjusting the hat atop his red and white-striped mane. “Is an opportunity.”

“Why, yes, General,” Flam said from the driver seat of the giant contraption. Tempest could only tell him apart from Flim by the fact that he had a red mustache. “Is, uh… what are we calling it now, oh brother of mine?”

“Test bed vehicle number one,” the first stallion said with a nod as the vehicle came to a stop. “Your first choice in groundbreaking new military vehicles.”

Tempest walked around to take a look at the side of the vehicle.

“It says Super Speedy Cider—”

“That was the old name,” Flim said as he telekinetically ripped off the name plaque and threw it as far away as he could.

A window shattered in the distance. Tempest facehoofed.

“Take those food processors off of it, cover it in as much armor plating as it can carry, then bring it back,” Tempest said with a sigh. “If nothing else, it’ll be a good enough platform for a cannon or something. Or maybe a crane.”

In all honesty, the vehicle was too large to be practical. They needed something around the size of a normal wagon that would fit on human roads, and was light enough that it could cross bridges without damaging them. The test bed vehicle looked like it weighed several tons over the limit for many Equestrian bridges, and those hadn’t been neglected for two centuries.

What I wouldn’t give to have the Storm King’s airship fleet under my command again. Tempest thought as she shook her head. But, unfortunately, the fleet had been scrapped for parts after the Storm King was defeated. Equestrian military contractors. What a joke.

Tempest dropped her hoof and stared at the vehicle.

While the Flim Flam Brothers may have been a complete joke, there would be others to come with more competent designs.

Equestria would be ready to face the Wasteland soon.

Author's Note

Just a quick little side chapter before I go on vacation for a little bit. Hope you all enjoy. Regular-length updates should resume after the Easter holiday.

Would people prefer side chapters like this one posted to the main fic marked out in the format of [SC#: Title] or its own dedicated side-story?