Chapter 2

"Okay ya'll know the plan, let's move out." The commanding officer said over the radio

"Yes, sir." Every company replied. Rainbow Dash looked around the Vertibuck and scratched the back of her head

"You do know the plan Rainbow, right?" Thunder Wing asked, said mare looked at him

"Pff, of course I do... why wouldn't I?" Rainbow replied

"You have no clue do ya." Thunder Wing said with a chuckle

"No..." Rainbow confirmed looking at the ground, everypony chuckled

"How is it you never listen when we talk about the plan?" He asked

"I only remember someting like... 'okay everypony here's the plan'..." She answered, Thunder Wing looked at her in disbelieve "What? I get bored fast..." She said as she saw his look

"Rainbow those were like the first few seconds... but nevermind that, you just need to know that we are on standby until the commander says else, and when we're deployed you don't need to worry about civilians, there are none." He answered while he face-hoofed a bit

"Okay Hotel, bring 2 platoons to Bravo company, and one to Char-." The commander said but got cut off by another transmission "Affirmative, Alpha." Was all we heard "Okay change of plans, Alpha needs the heavy guns, I'm sending the rest over to Alpha and Charlie, I need a heavy Vertibuck attack platoon for Charlie. Out" The Commander ordered

"Yes, Sir." Everypony answered, and the Vertibucks broke formation, most of them flew to the east and west, Rainbow's bird and a couple of others landed right where they were.

"Okay, everypony, ya heard him. Alpha needs help, let's kick some ass!" The commanding officer of the platoon shouted, and the platoons moved out, we walked in a slow trot to get there as fast as we could without being exhausted when we get there. With every step we took the firefight got louder, as suddenly something hit the tree right besides one of the soldiers, and everypony ducked into cover

"Okay we are very close, check your weapons and mags!" The CO shouted, right after nearly everypony looked their weapons over. "Okay, then let's roll!" He shouted as he started to charge, everypony following not even a second behind. As we ran in, we saw ponies running away from the battlefield

"Where is everypony?!" The Echo CO shouted

"They're all down there! And got many wounded soldiers, but we can't get there!" One pony shouted back as they grabbed several medic things from the supplies that laid around "Okay, we got the heavy weapons right here, we need to speak with your CO!" He shouted over the shooting and zipping by bullets

"Ohh the CO? He's right there!" The pony shouted back and pointed at a pony without a head

"Who's in charge then?" The Sierra CO asked

"Dunno, somepony down there." The medic said with a shrug and walked over to one of the wounded and started to bandage him up

"Okay here's what we're gonna do. Squad 1 and 2, you're gonna lay down cover fire while the rest charge forward on my mark. Squad 3 and 4 you're gonna spread to the left, while squad 5 and 6 go right. The rest are on me. Also squad 1 and 2, as soon you see me giving the mark you move up to us! Sierra 117 you hold fire until I give to order to open up, would hate to bring you out to early. Now get ready and on my mark we move. Ya'll ready?!" The CO said

"Oorah!!!" They shouted in response

"Okay, one, two, three, mark!" The Officer shouted and everypony took off. Rainbow Dash stood behind with Squad 1 who started to open fire on the city, trying to pin everypony or rather every Zebra inside. The pones charged across the field, bullets striking to the left and right to them a couple even getting hit and falling dead to the ground

"Hey, there they are!" One of the soldiers exclaimed and pointed at their CO who signed them to move up

"Then let's go!" Another soldier shouted and a second later they were on the move, right as they charged the Zebras seemed to intensify their fire as bullets started to fly everywhere. Rainbow took that as her sign and started to open up, her minigun spun up, the first barrel was empty which made sense, but right after the bullets started to fly. In an instant it seemed the fire of the Zebras stopped as the 50 caliber rounds ripped through the walls and exploded only a few millimeters behind them, sending shrapnel around everywhere. Rainbow in the meantime slowly started to move up, as she passed the squad which was pinned down only seconds before, they all stood up and followed in her wake, shooting occasionally. Suddenly something exploded on her stopping her in her tracks. That round was quiet big, which meant something more heavy was in there.

"Rainbow, left side of the road, very close to the building!" Thunder Spark shouted, Rainbow focused there and found herself starring down a 30 milimeter auto-cannon. The tank shot again and again , but this time Rainbow took a step to the right, the first shell flew by her head so close she could fell the heat of it, she continued to walk to the right and the shells continued to miss. She in the meantime made her missile launcher ready. She pulled the trigger and in milliseconds the launcher let the rocket lose, used the recoil to eject the cartridge and load a new one, and since Rainbow still held the trigger let that missile lose too and the process started again. In the meantime the first missile hit the wall of the house blowing it to pieces, the second missile missed and hit the wall behind the tank, but the third and fourth rocket hit the tank right at the exact same spots, just to make sure that if the first one didn't wen't through the second one would. And in confirmation the tank blew up sending the turret flying several meters in the air and landed somewhere out of sight.

"Big one!" She heard a shout, she looked around and saw the CO waving at her, she nodded in confirmation "Keep up the suppressing fire, we're gonna move up!" He shouted as he started to move forward in a ducked position, everypony following him. Slowly the Companies started to close in on the city from all sides, before we knew it we found ourselves in the cities center, they got ambushed a couple of times from some side ways or houses, they lost a couple of ponies but finally managed to push through everything and take out the surviving Zebras, they were resistant, you got to give them that, but it didn't take long for them to get overrun and  slaughtered, as soon the center was clear the firefights stopped in an instant, we finally had the city.

"Alpha and you move about half a click down the east, I want you guys to set up a perimeter there and then dig in. Echo I want that you send out a scout team about 2 till 3 clicks down the east, I want to be informed immediately when they spot enemies. Bravo and and the rest of Echo set up security and defenses around the city, and Charlie... you get the wounded into that big building to my right and then get to the north-east and close the gaps there. The armored units will be with, armored units are with Charlie." The CO ordered and everypony saluted and started to march to their positions,

"Sierra 117." The Echo CO said and Rainbow holstered her weapons and walked over to him

"Yes, sir?" She asked while she saluted

"Nice shooting back there." He said with a small smile

"You saw that?" Rainbow asked a bit surprised

"Dumb question, of course I did, and I'm sure the rest of the companies did too." He said with a small chuckle "We were all like, the fuck now... we're pinned and suddenly all hell broke lose on those Zebras." He said once again with a small chuckle

"Thanks, sir." She answered with a small smile

"Now then, back to business. Dismissed." He answered and Rainbow saluted, as she turned she saw the aftermath of the battle for a first time in quiet some while, she saw how tons over tons of Zebra and pony bodies littered the streets, with the occasional hoof, horn or wing, while blood and brain parts hang on the walls and blood flows over the streets, bloody hoofprints leading to random directions, cartridges laying around everywhere, explosion holes and black circles everywhere, concrete and house parts laying around the streets and some parts on the dead bodies. Medics ran around trying to save wounded comrades.

"Hey, Big one! I need your help here!" One of the medics shouted, as he pointed at a soldier under some bigger wall parts, Rainbow walked over grabbed the parts with both hands and pulled them off the wounded unicorn with ease, the medic nodded and laid the wounded soldier on a stretcher and the 2 ponies started to run to the biggest building in the city. Rainbow took one last look around the city and then started to make her way around the streets and the fields, everywhere she looked death and destruction has been caused... an for what she doesn't even know. Ponies said that silence is the soldiers best friends, but some knew better. Silence let's soldier think and question his or her orders. It's been hours since the attack and no counter-attack from the Zebras, which was strange since they normally would attack at best an hour or two later while the enemy is weakened. Hours wen't into a day and a day into two until finally

"Okay everypony, Echo just transmitted that a Zebra battalion is on it's way here, 2 armored platoons, 5 infantry companies... grave news are they also got a couple of dragons. Now then, I'm sending Echo down to Alpha to support them. Bravo will remain back here with Charlie and secure the area. I'm also sending an element of attack Vertibucks with you, try to take the dragons out first and then call them in." The CO said looking around at the company officers around him, they all saluted and moved out.