Chapter 4

"ETA: Now." The pilot of the Vertibuck said over the radio

"Affirmative." The CO replied. The fly has been very quiet, the only time something was said was by a status update. As we finally landed and walked outside soldiers already stood outside at attention, ready to lead us to the makeshift court room. We entered the room and 4 ponies already waited, they weren't in the room though it was rather over a big screen. We saluted and then the others saluted

"General, Colonels." Rainbow and the Major said

"General, Major." They replied "Princess Luna should be here any second now." One of the Colonels added and not even a second later Luna too appeared on the screen, everypony saluted and she even saluted back

"So how is it possible that our south_east front is now even more forward then before?" The General asked, the Major nudged Rainbow Dash who then cleared her throat

"That would be my 'fault'" She answered

"Explain why you pushed." One of the two Colonels replied

"We have been attacked the 8th time then, artillery every time blowing some of us up, and every time the Zebras fellback we just had to sit there and watch them, instead of charging after them and getting back our land. Every day we pushed them back, we lost ponypower, ammo, and even a bit of morale, so I finally had enough and pushed." Rainbow explained, the 3 officers nodded and scribbled something on their papers

"Then how did it happen that the whole battalion followed you instead of holding their positions?" The princess asked

"I can explain that, ma'am. When I saw that she pushed forward I let everypony push too, I couldn't just let a symbolic and important mare die." The major cut in, once again the officers nodded and scribbled something down

"Well, I think this is already enough." The general started and looked at the officers by his sides who nodded "Even though both of you disobeyed a direct, I'm going to look over it by all the ground we got again. If this should happen again though, I'm going to throw that ponies ass into jail, am I clear?" The general asked, as Rainbow and the major nodded he once again continued "Good, then I'd say we're done here. Dismi-"

"General" Rainbow cut in, the officer looked at her confused "Since we're talking about the front here... we really need more ponies and supplies and equipment up there." she said

"How bad is it?" The general asked

"Well I've seen two ponies eat out of one MRE, we can't transmit beyond 200 miles, it's getting skatchy by 150 miles already. And someponies have to hold their fire until the enemy is right in their face so they won't miss... I've even seen some using Zebra weapons. So pretty bad I'd say." She answered

"Fine, I'll get you some more troops, equipment and supplies together. Wait until tomorrow so I can tell you when they'll arrive, Dismissed." The general replied, everypony saluted and then silence

"Hey radio operator." Rainbow said to a pony who started to change frequency

"Yes, ma'am?" He asked holding the headset away from his ear with one hoof

"Change the frequency to 300.60000." She answered as she slowly walked over to him

"Copy, ma'am." The operator replied and started to switch and turn things, he nodded after a few seconds and hoofed Rainbow a headset

"Lighting Dust, can you hear me? How copy? Over" Rainbow asked

"Copy Rainbow Dash, reading you 5 by 5, go on. Over" she replied a second later

"How long till the rookies are ready for war. Over" Rainbow explained

"Soonest tomorrow. Over." Lighting Dust answered

"Roger that, I want you to send them against the griffins. break, and I want one squadron of them to move to the south-east flank, break, also the elite shadowbolts need to re-supply at Ponyville, break, and then meet up with a supply convoy to the south-east flank. Over." Rainbow replied

"10-4, I'll send the rookies against the griffins, break, send one squadron to the south-east flank, break, and let the elites re-supply at Ponyville, break, and then send them with a supply convoy to the south-east flank. Over" Lighting Dust confirmed

"Copy that, Break, one last thing, break, We need a few Raptors over here, over." Rainbow replied

"Copy that, I'll look what I can do, break, might take a day or two to get some Raptors together, over." Lighting Dust answered

"Affirmative, over and out." Rainbow answered and gave the headset back to the radio operator, nodded and walked out the building. "So... what now?" She thought and a yawn seemed to answer her question and before she could do something, her eyes closed.

The next day, Time: 0900 hours (9 a.m)

"Rainbow." A voice said, the mares eyes slowly opened and simply answered with a yawn and looked at the source of the voice, it was the Major "Reinforcements are coming they will be here in a day, same as the Shadowbolt elite. They moved out together with the supply convoy 1 hour ago." He informed, Rainbow nodded

"So we can get back to the front?" She asked, this time the Major nodded "Finally." She replied and made her way to the Vertibuck... and another 3 hour sleep, at least Rainbow hoped for, she was still pretty tired

About one and a half hour later, Time: 1027 hours (10:27 a.m)

Rainbow shot up as she heard a firefight

"What's going on?" The mare asked over the vehicle radio

"Seems like we got overrun at the front, it also seems like they've fallenback, from what little I could see they are now fighting back, but I don't think they will hold much longer" The Major answered

"Pilot, bring me in." Rainbow ordered

"Not possible, no place to land... and even if, it's too hot." He replied

"Fine, fly over. I'm jumping." Rainbow replied

"Roger, ma'am." The pilot answered and opened the hatch

"Good thing you got them wings." The Major said

"Yeah, even though they won't soften the fall in this armor." The mare replied and jumped, the fall was about 50 meters in which she grabbed her weapons from her holsters and made them ready. When she landed she threw dust, dirt and even wood splinters everywhere, a couple of seconds later she walked out the dust cloud and looked around the battlefield. Her drop in seemed to have stopped the battle in it's tracks, since there was no more shooting. Rainbow looked around the battlefield and as soon she spotted the Zebras she started to shred them apart. It felt like a deja vu... which didn't surprise her since she already fought over this land a couple of weeks back. Once again Rainbow started to advance on the Zebra who as soon they saw her focused fire on her, which was good because then her allies could take great aimed shots at them. Before they knew it they once again could see their own fortified trenches... which of course the Zebras used to their advantage. Bullets where flying everywhere, same as explosions... which weren't flying but you know what I mean... A grenade exploded in front of Rainbow, which wasn't anything new, but this grenade was different. As the grenade exploded it crashed some systems, and another and another. After the 3rd grenade many systems where offline but most such as E.F.S and, weapons and the magical shield same as for the weight reduction spell... thankfully or even with the strength Rainbow had, even she would get crushed under it. After the 5th grenade and another 15 dead Zebras the armor HUD gave out a warning that Rainbow should leave it immediately. So she opened the armor but kept firing until another of those strange grenades flew at her, then was the time she jumped out and as the grenade exploded the armor fell to the ground, energy mostly drained. She made a Dash for cover (no pun intended) and grabbed a gun off a dead soldier with her mouth and started to return fire, and since she's out the power armor now, she can push forward and relocate very quickly.

"Where's Thunder Spark? I need to know what we're up against." Rainbow said to a soldier to her left

"No idea ma'am, haven't seen him since the attack, ma'am." The soldier replied and started to return fire, Rainbow nodded and started to push forward until she finally was up by the trenches and started to kill the Zebras inside of them, but no matter how hard they pushed even with Rainbow inside the trenches, they zebras wouldn't give them up. The loses where high and finally after about half the pony attack force was taken out, they fellback. Rainbow stopped by her armor for a few seconds, which would just needed some energy and the Zebras then could use it against them... so she grabbed several grenades pulled the pins threw them inside the armor and ran. Behind several second later her  armor blew up, shrapnel and several small armor parts flew past her... at least no worries that the zebras could use i now, but once again they had to build up a defensive line, while the Zebras where just laughing at them... once again beaten with their own defenses.