Fallout Equestria: The Vanhoover Chronicles

The atmosphere was tense in the camp, everypony was on edge. According to the veterans it was always this was before a battle. And a battle it would be, it was obvious to even the cadets. The rangers had been travelling on half rations for over a month and now their exodus had been interrupted by an army of slavers that had built a fortress in the nexus between the Royal Mountain, New Pegasus and Vanhoover. It was the largest slaver operation this side of Canterlot, operating out of the ruins of Liberty City or Liberty's End as the scum called it. Raiders were beasts to be put down, slavers were worse. Parasites that ripped apart newly founded societies and fueled the cycle of violence and destruction. The elder would never let this stand, none of the rangers could tolerate it, and thus the slaver war had begun.

They had been fighting in the streets of the city for close to a week, and since Star Paladin Autumn Storm was present it had been an extremely one sided conflict until this point. The esteemed veteran had been fighting another slaver group in Fillydelphia for over a decade and it showed. Every trap, every ambush and every sniper had been met with overwhelming firepower. Moreover the criminals were utterly unprepared to face stealth operatives hunting their every patrol, by now they didn't dare leave their rubble walls. As he put it, they weren't facing an army but an infestation and it were to be rooted out like the vermin they were.

It was now the final phase of the operation, it was time to crack open their so called fortress and drive them out. Every ranger that were to take part of the assault had been informed of the plan and their role, they were going to start the assault at midnight from three directions. Star Paladin Autumn Storm would lead the southern strike force, Elder Stardust would handled the main group attacking from the east and Star Paladin Overdrive would lead the northern detachment. Cadet Raspberry Tart had been assigned to the northern group, and was preparing to leave camp. A scribe was helping her doing the maintenance check to make sure that the armour and the machine gun were operating properly. All the knights were doing it on their own but it was the first time she wore power armour into combat, and by all rights she shouldn't even be joining the fighting at all.

She was by far the youngest cadet to be assigned to assault duty, something she suspected her mother had something to do with. As the highest ranking officer among the Manehattan exiles, Paladin Steelheart had the respect and authority beyond her rank. Already during these last few months she had become a living legend for her valour and skill, she was an exemplar of what Steel Ranger should be. The perfect soldier, and as her daughter Cadet Tart had high expectations to live up to. She tried her best, always, but it was rarely enough. Despite training harder than any of her peers, studying all the lore they had brought with them, and understanding arcano-tech as well as any knight she hadn't gotten her cutie mark yet at 14 years age. In her mother's eyes that meant she wasn't trying hard enough.

So here she was, sitting with a lump in her throat and utterly terrified of every sound in the war camp. At least the armour would hide any nervousness on her part, so she stood up and entered the open suit. It closed around her and felt extremely claustrophobic, her movement was unnatural and she couldn't smell anything as the oxygen talisman did its work. The heads up display activated and the scribe connected her machine gun.

***

They were moving through the ruined side streets in groups of eight, with Cadet Tart being part of Crusader Silver Fury's squad. In her ears it sounded like a stampede as they marched onwards, crushing the rubble under their hooves of steel, yet to the slavers it was little more than the regular sounds of wasteland ruin at night. The helmet's audio receptors enhanced the lighter sounds while the sounds of gunfire were dampened. A precaution intended to counteract the stealth of the zebras back during the Great War. The Steel Ranger armour was filled with such little design features that no one outside the ranger corps knew of, another was the voice modulator. By default it was set to amplify and distort the voice of the ranger, mimicking the Royal Canterlot Voice of the royal guard, which ironically made the average pony think the rangers were all brute force. Nothing could be further from the truth, when the stealth features were activated the soldier's voice never left the helmet, while still being tuned to the military radio frequency.

"Deep breaths, Cadet."

The voice of her CO was calm and patient, but with an edge to it.

"Yes Sir! Sorry Sir!"

"Ensign, can you handle having only three in you team?"

Cadet Tart was red with embarrassment at the suggestion, she was a liability.

"Yes sir, weighted lances then?"

The Ensign's voice was neutral, as if she was used to it.

"That would be best. Cadet, stick close to me. We will handle the breach, the other lance will be on fire support."

"Yes sir, thank you sir!"

The squad had reached their position. They stationed on the right flank of this side, the side that would be most exposed if the slavers had any troops waiting to attack them from behind. All eight of them were waiting dutifully in the broken remains of an old cheese shop. She looked out towards the enemy positions.

A considerable wall constructed from rubbble and concrete, with an open field in front of it. The field was filled with torches to showcase any attempts at intrusion, this meant that they didn't have access to any searchlights. Probably didn't think they would need them anyways, expecting the rangers to have their headlights on and be walking targets. That wouldn't happen, the E.F.S. and the S.A.T.S. was more than enough to identify any enemy snipers.

Tart activated her S.A.T.S. and cycled through the targets, 23 guards on the wall. Looked like most were carrying rifles, some seemed to have heavier ordnance however.

"Crusader, they have rocket launchers."

"Recoilless rifles" He corrected. "It won't be a problem."

Didn't do much to help alleviate her worries. Then the whole group tensed up as the Star Paladin spoke.

"Rangers, this is it. We will breach the enemy fortifications on my command, while inside you will eliminate any hostiles in sight. Stay sharp, follow your CO's directions. And DO NOT mistake the hostages for slavers, civilian causalities will NOT be tolerated."

She was as ready as she would ever be. If the assault order was given then she would spring to action in a split second. But nothing happened. The eight of them sat quietly, waiting. And waiting. It seemed a miracle that nopony panicked and started firing just to relieve the stress. Yet nopony did.

BOOOM

The sky over the wall lit up with an orange light, and the sound was followed by a discordant chorus of gunfire and screams. Was this it then? No order came. She entered S.A.T.S. and cycled through the targets, only 14 of them were left. The defenses were weakening as they tried to respond to the chaos at the southern wall.

"Rangers, ready!"

Everyone got up to their hooves, the Crusader stepped forward and a trio of knights followed.

"Howitzer, FIRE!!"

BOOM

The wall in front of them exploded in a spectacular blast of fire and stone. The Cadet could feel the pieces peppering her armour with remarkable force, anyone caught without a full suit of body armour would be shredded by the splinters alone.

"CHARGE!!"

The rangers in front of her began galloping towards the large breach in the wall, and Tart was with them. They were first inside and found themselves on a street between a large concrete wartime building on one side and some reinforced barracks on the other. There were ponies everywhere, some running, some freezing up at the second explosion and some took cover behind a mishmash of carts, barrels and boxes. The last group opened fire, and were promptly mowed down by the knight to her left. A shot from above glanced off her armour, she looked up just in time to see the pony explode into bloody chunks. The group was moving, she hurried after them.

They took to the right, going through an alley and were met by a dozen rugged looking ponies armed with everything from sledges, to pistols to rifles to some energy cannon that looked like it might explode at any time. Their sudden appearance shocked her, and time grinded to a halt with them standing perfectly still in front of her. S.A.T.S. was active, enemies were in front of her. She locked on to the glowing cannon, and fired away.

The explosion was magnificent, a bright purple flash that would have blinded her if she looked at it with her bare eyes.

"Excellent, now hurry on!"

The Crusader began galloping westwards towards what served as the enemy's main keep. An explosion was heard in the east, the Elder's forces had joined the fighting. They ran into straggling groups of threes or fours, not one of them managed to fire back. As they galloped onwards, close to the wall and towards the old city hall with its pillars and gigantic windows that had been replaced with wooden outcroppings. Towers, with machine guns.

A missile sailed out towards one of them, two more were hit by autocannon fire and they can crumbling down.

Series of roars were heard through the gunfire and the equine screams of panic and pain.

"Manticores?" The Ensign asked over the radio

A serpentine shape twice the size of a pony was crawled out from the keep. Its face visible in the dark night as small flames sprout through its nostrils. Then two more behind it, and after those several more. Dragons, at least a dozen of them!

"FIRE!!"

The Crusader shouted the order, and two firing lines turned the spot where the dragons had been spotted into a cloud of smoke and blood. The first three were quick enough to have slithered to the side of the rubble and were on top of the first line of rangers before they noticed the attack.

Steel ranger armour is extremely resilient, even dedicated anti armour fire struggled with it. The claws of a dragon however, were sharper than any bullet and before she could react the Crusader and two knights fell to the ground with the sinister serpents glaring at her and the remaining knight.

She fired, and missed wildly.

The dragons were already moving and were promptly ripped apart by a series of explosions in front of her. Even with the armour's extreme weight she was lifted off her hooves and thrown backwards. Her head was spinning, the constant barrage of noise and the shaking of the ground was a monstrous nightmare. She couldn't even hear the Ensign shouting questions if she was alive. Even if she had heard her superior, then she wouldn't be able to answer.

By the time she was aware of her surroundings again, she found herself disoriented and looked around. There were still the sounds of gunfire and worse all around, but she was alone. In enemy territory. The squad had just left her there.

She lifted her head, struggled to her hooves. Trying to find her bearings and figure out what she should do. There was still a battle to be won, but a lone cadet in the chaos of battle is clearly more trouble than they were worth. The E.F.S. wasn't helpful, red and green bars everywhere. So she activated S.A.T.S. To make sure she wasn't threatened, and found one of the dragons crawling on the barrack behind of her.

Thanks to the time manipulation spell she could finally get a good look at the creature, and was confused. The dragon looked wrong. Its head resembled that of a pony, it even had a mane. And were those hooves on the hind legs? What was this abomination and what where they doing here!? Either way, it had to die. She queued two bursts.

Nothing happened, confused she activated the trigger again. And again.

She glanced to her right, and saw that the barrel was bent and broken. In another scenario she would have been glad that it didn't explode at her side... Right now, she was panicking. She could run, but she wouldn't outrun this creature. Her only chance was to beat it in hoof to hoof combat. Bad odds, but it was all she could think of as it jumped, claws outstretched.

The cadet utilized one of the ranger techniques that relied on S.A.T.S as she rose up on her hind hooves like a zebra. A simple thing, that relied on the armour for timing and force. The dragon creature landed with its talons grasping into the dirt, it maintained speed and opened its maw as it rose up towards her chest.

Crunch

Its skull shattered at the impact, covering forelegs with blood and grey matter. She breathed hard, still struggling to process what had just happened. A single line of thought cut through the chaos. Gun or no gun, knighthood or not, she was still a ranger. And as a ranger she wouldn't run. These monsters could be killed, and there was still a battle being fought.

"RANGER!"

She turned around and was faced with a lance of rangers. That armour, the Star Paladin!

"Ma'am!"

She saluted reflexively.

"We have a battle to win. With me, Ranger!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

***

The sun was rising, and had not yet crossed over the cloud cover. Bringing a rare warm and gentle light. The nightmare was over, and mercifully she had been spared of doing any of the clean up. That part is usually part of the cadet's duties, but since she took part of the fighting she was considered a knight in this case and given a few hours of rest.

So she sat among the remains of the carnage, with a bottle of water between her hooves and mostly stared at the scribes and other cadets who were busy categorizing the supplies looted from the slavers and making sure the former slaves were getting fed and whatever medical attention the rangers could spare. There was some argument between some of the officers, but Tart was too much in a daze to pay any attention.

One of the knights sat down next to her.

"You did good, ranger."

"Thanks." Was all that she could muster.

"It seems Crusader Fury will recover and be back in action soon enough."

Her worries settled a bit.

"The others?"

"Worse off, but they will survive. Don't beat yourself up over it, no one could have predicted that they had dragons. And out of everyone involved, you had the least responsibility. So, again: You did good, ranger."

Certainly didn't feel that way.

The other ranger put a hoof on her shoulder.

"Look at me."

The tone sounded like an order so she did so on reflex and realized that it was the Star Paladin herself. The officer had never talked to her before, none of the senior officers had. She was just a lowly cadet that had been thrown into combat due to a shortage of real soldiers. The grey mare had scarlet eyes that matched her mane, two scars over her left side. The look of concern in her eyes was mixed with pride.

"It was a tough fight, you held on despite the shell shock and rejoined as soon as you were able. Most ponies wouldn't be able to hold it together as well as you did. When you are feeling better, get in that armour and report to me for duty. Knight Raspberry Tart."

"..."

The cadet was in a state of surprise, awe and embarrassment as she realized how attractive her superior looked. The earlier feelings of disgust and self hate were forgotten, the memories of the night before pushed aside as she began comprehending what the Star Paladin was saying.

"That was an order, knight."

"Ah! Yes, ma'am!"

Her superior rose to her hoof, looked eastwards towards the rare rays of Celestia's light. In that moment she looked like a hero who had walked straight out of some wartime poster, and the young knight didn't realize that she was staring a bit more than was acceptable. Yet the Star Paladin ignored it and explained the situation.

"It seems the slavers had captured a whole stable population and the elder has been talking with the stable ponies. As they don't wish to go back to their old homes they requested to travel with us instead. The Elder agreed on the condition that they join our regiment. So I expect you to show the rookies how it is done in the coming months, knight."

She blinked as she realized that she was no longer a rookie, but considered a role model.

"You can count on me, ma'am!"

***

The evening was falling and she was utterly exhausted from the battle and socializing with all the stable ponies. The foals were in awe at their heroics and utterly ecstatic when they learned that they were going to become steel rangers. The emotional roller coaster ended in a sense of pride and confidence. There was still hope for Equestria. As long as the rangers held to their discipline and their virtues, they would revive the slumbering nation.

As the young knight was getting ready to sleep she saw her cutie mark for the first time. Two wings holding a purple heart aloft, the Winged Heart. The ancient medal given to soldiers who fought on despite overwhelming odds and despite painful losses. Now, she knew, she would never waiver in her duty to Equestria and its citizens.