Green Sun: Zone Troopers

Chapter 4 - Hard Armor, Hard Truths

Laser fire zipped past Apple Bloom’s visor as she galloped forward to a proper firing position. Her jets were inoperable but her armor was still working fine, and that meant she could still fight. The ambush was perfect, with the enemy catching the entire platoon completely off-guard. Luckily, their armor took the brunt of the attack and there were no initial casualties on GDI’s side.

That luck continued to hold as a glancing shot deflected off her shoulder and directly into a wall. Duke wasn’t so lucky as a stronger burst hit his front hooves and sent him visor-first into the dirt. Ace pulled him up off the ground and they both got back into cover while Jet Deck used the armor’s uplink to the orbital satellite relays to get a better view of the battlefield, specifically the ponies keeping them pinned down.

“Three up on the apartment roof, with another two squads-worth on the ground floor. Anypony still have any smokes?” Jet Deck asked, flinching slightly when a grenade went off near their cover. There was another anomaly on the overlay map on his HUD too, but with no solid intel on it, he put it in the back of his mind for now. They had more pressing matters to attend to.

“One screen coming right up.” Windy replied, getting a nod from the rest of the squad as they switched to thermal. While Nod stealth tech was second to none, their weapons lit up like fireworks whenever they discharged.

“Wait a tic. Fifth Squad, do you have any eyes on grid 29?” Jet Deck asked.

“Negative, we got tangled up with a Nod light armor unit, we’re still punching through.”

“Copy, over and out. Alright Windy, no intel on anything south of our hosts so pop smoke and pump lead.” he ordered.

The next few seconds were a blur for some, but for First Squad it felt like slow motion. Windy’s armor lobbed the grenade right onto the doorstep of the apartment that was pinning them down, detonating a mere two seconds after landing. Unlike earlier models of smoke grenade, this one was two-stage; one stage dispensed its first charge violently to put up a smoke screen immediately, while the second stage activated after to provide a continual screen for up to a minute for longer cover.

Once the initial screen was up, the five troopers burst from their cover and opened up with the twin-mounted .50 caliber machine guns their armor housed, with Duke and Windy aiming for the trio on the roof while the others mowed down the first floor’s hostiles. Before they could celebrate though, an artillery round landed just east of their position right on top of Fourth Squad, and sent Apple Bloom and the rest of her team sprawling into the dirt. Before they could recover, another round landed right on top of them and all that the five ponies of First Squad saw was white.

After a few seconds, their view changed and they were given the sight of red lettering reading “EXERCISE TERMINATED.”

“Not the best performance, but I’m not exactly playing fair today.” Night Light’s voice chimed in on everypony’s helmet speakers, “Everypony get your armor back to your bays and then we’ll get you lot properly debriefed.”

“Aye, sir.” Apple Bloom and the rest of the platoon answered, though First Squad was the only one to retract their helmets after getting their orders. All around them, the simulated battlefield began retracting and in some cases fading away. False buildings and landscapes, as well as dummies with simulation rifles, were all broken down by the training arena’s staff or simply disappeared as their projectors shut off while sore trainees moved out of the way. Manes were shook out and heads were cleared as they made their way back, electing not to talk too much about the exercise just yet.

That all changed once the trainees were back in just their fatigues. While most units would have been at each other’s throats blaming each other for what they perceived were the sins of their peers, Platoon Alpha-001 was more engrossed with how they had fared up until the moment of defeat. Ponies were sharing stories from parts of the simulation their friends on other squads may have missed, or were already trading ideas on how to enhance performance.

Two weeks of hell on top of the fact that they were in the middle of a war had suppressed most of their more self-centered tendencies, a fact that Night Light appreciated even if it was keeping him from doing his job at the moment. The trainees were so enamored with their own private debriefing that Captain Light actually had to call the platoon to attention once he entered the room just to get the bay quiet enough. Once things settled down and his trainees were once again paying attention, he had EVA bring up the telemetry from their most recent exercise, starting with five troopers engaging light Nod vehicles.

“Now then, let’s go over the obvious.” Night Light stated, “Fifth, your recon was necessary but you were unnecessarily held up by light armor, nothing more than buggies. As a result, artillery that you should have spotted for the rest of the platoon managed to hit the rest of the pinned down troopers. You stopped for light armor, why?”

“It was my call, sir.” Steel Flash, Fifth’s leader, answered, “They had seven MGs on our position, sir… and we don’t necessarily know the full extent of the armor’s durability. They may have been light guns but that many lasers all hitting us…”

“The schematics you’ve been studying should have outlined the estimated damage threshold your armor can withstand, trainee.”

“Schematics can be wrong, sir.” Steel answered, “How many times have Predators or Timber Wolves broken down in the field because the specs didn’t take into account that we’re not in garrison anymore?”

Night Light smiled at her in response, pulling up the replay of the other teams getting simulated artillery rounds dropped on them.

“A valid point, if this were a pre-War program under direct supervision by Princess Celestia.” the blue unicorn replied, “However, this armor, this entire project, is a war-time endeavor. When our technicians tell you the armor is expected to survive a specific amount of damage, as long as your armor isn’t going into the situation damaged, what they say should be considered gospel. You aren’t invincible in this armor, but you can take more punishment than any other infantrypony on the planet, Black Hand included.

“Let me be entirely clear, trainees; you are here to win a war, not to patrol a yellow zone or serve as a city garrison until you can use veteran’s benefits. The Zone Trooper initiative is not overseen by Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, or anyone other than General Shield and General Ironsides, and thus we are a rare immunity in regards to politics. Your success may determine if more troopers are trained, but until that day, committees have no place in making the material you work with, whether it’s a training manual or the armor you wear into battle.

“So, when your schematics tell you that you’re able to shrug off a mere half-dozen or so Nod buggies peppering you with the equivalent of small arms fire against a Mammoth tank, then you take the hit on the chin and you flatten every Noddie in your path, Troopers.”
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Punishment for failing the exercise soon followed and their instructors made sure that they would make up for any learning that was missed out in the simulation bay. Weighted training gear and inhibitor rings were once again donned by every trainee, only instead of heading for a few kilometers of running, their ‘reward’ for not passing that particular test was another one that had been introduced in this second week of training.

A massive obstacle course had been constructed near the one reserved for GDI’s Marine Corps’ boot camp stationed at Camp Reckless. Nearly twice the length with some of the obstacles being double the height, it was designed to require the trainees to work together in order to finish it, with a minimum of three having to work in tandem to get through roughly a third of the obstacles.

For normal days or mere conditioning, they simply used the Marines’ course, but today was about making a point rather than building muscle. Insurmountable walls were scaled, ditches were crawled through, barbed wire was brushed up against, and ropes were climbed, all for the teams who made it to the finish line to be told to run the course again, and again, and again.

In fact, Apple Bloom almost felt like she had been transported back to boot camp with how often the drill instructors told her squad or the others to start over from the beginning because they didn’t feel like the trainees were moving fast enough. Staff Sergeant Breeze in particular was pushing, sometimes literally, his ponies harsher than ever. No one ever considered the entire platoon failing an exercise to mean the same that it meant when individual squads were beaten by First Squad, but it was obvious that the shouting pegasus counted this as a mark on their record all the same.

First Squad, as well as the rest of the platoon, paid for that black mark with gallons of sweat before they were finally released back to the barracks for the evening. That night passed without incident as the ponies of Alpha-001 studied their pocket schematics, wrote letters home, and engaged in idle gossip as quietly as possible. Apple Bloom even managed to get a few more messages sent to her siblings before frantic scribbling caught her attention.

Steel Flash was working over her armor schematics and was engrossed in an impressive amount of calculations in her notebook. At first Apple Bloom thought this odd, but then she remembered that the grey unicorn was almost as smart in their math classes as Dr. Mobius.

“Everything ok over there, Flash?” she called over, causing her to look up from her work with a slight shrug.

“It’s… well, yeah, nothing’s wrong, but I keep going over what Captain Light said this afternoon and…”

“And?”

“I’ve been crunching some of the numbers, and it’s not making sense for me.” she said with a sigh as she beckoned her over, “I know you’re not the best at math, but if you’ll humor me?”

“Sure.” Bloom replied and quickly got off her rack and found her way over to her, “What’s up?”

“The armor is strong, that much I’ve managed to gather, but I keep running over the damage threshold that it should be able to take and it almost seems… invincible by infantry standards. That can’t be accurate, but that’s what I keep getting.”

“Well it is designed to be tough, we shouldn’t be surprised that it can take a beatin’.”

“But we can’t, Apple Bloom.” Steel told her, genuine concern making itself present in her orange eyes, “What good is armor that’s unstoppable if the pilot for it is dead after one hit too many?”
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That question burned in Apple Bloom’s mind for the rest of the night. It also burned in the minds of Wild Ace, Windy Leaf, Jet Deck, and Duke after she told them. As far as she knew, the entire platoon was having trouble sleeping despite their exhaustion after Steel Flash had made her revelation about the armor they had all gotten so attached to.

Their armor was supposed to be their bastion, the one stable thing in this chaotic world whether it was training or combat. Now, nearly three weeks in, that sneaky bastard by the name of Doubt was creeping into the minds of everypony in the squad bay. They had already tried to keep high spirits as they trained, with relatively little news from the front lines being allowed in other than what could be found on the news or letters from loved ones. Even Big Mac was surprisingly quiet in regards to just what his division was doing on the front, more so than the usual operational security the Apple Family maintained when trading correspondence.

Sleep eluded Apple Bloom for most of the night, to the point that she almost wished that Jet Deck would have another episode so she could have something to take her mind off of things. Fortunately for the stallion, his night was once again peaceful, something Apple Bloom attributed to him making it through an episode with her help just last night.

Morning PT afterwards was hell on them as their muscles hadn’t gotten the necessary time to recover from the obstacle course punishment. So sore in fact, that Apple Bloom was almost begging to be in a classroom even if it involved math. She got her wish, and day 14 of training got off to a rocky start as mathematics was once again pounded into their skulls. All the while though, one question continued to irk the entire platoon.

That question was a mental thorn in the side of all 50 trainees until it all finally came to a head during their training time with the armor in the main bay. Steel Flash, ever the confident mare, dared to ask Dr. Mobius directly about her findings. Apple Bloom couldn’t see or hear exactly how Steel had framed her question to the good doctor, but the way Sydney had reacted was more than enough to cause Apple Bloom to immediately regret her platoon mate’s decision.

Sydney called Night Light over and whispered into the ZOCOM officer’s ear. Night Light in turn called a ‘school yard’ formation where everypony sat in a horseshoe shape around the him and got to work filling in the ponies under his charge.

“It has come to my attention that some of your more mathematically inclined comrades have made a bit of a discovery in regards to your armor.” Night Light stated, gearing the trainees up for another one of his monologues, “So I’ll be frank, your armor can survive almost anything, and that is its biggest design flaw. We were going to introduce this to you once you managed to get comfortable with taking light fire directly to the armor, but it would appear we need to accelerate part of your training.”

“How can near invincibility be a flaw, sir?” somepony from Steel’s squad asked.

“EVA, decrypting sequence Tango Zeta Juliet, show telemetry from armor simulation number 97.” Night Light answered.

“Captain, they don’t need to see tha-”

“Dr. Mobius, we are not the Brotherhood. Some things may be on a need-to-know basis but the cat is out of the bag and there’s no reason to lie to my troopers.” Light snapped, “EVA, the simulation on the screen behind me, please.”

On the main screen at the front of the bay a recording of one of the prototype suits of armor appeared. Apple Bloom noted that it looked like a bulked up crash test dummy with a bit of amusement, both because of the paint and the fact that it was standing in a bunker. On the side, armor status updates were following in real time, as well as a smaller video of a Predator tank at the other end of the range from the armor.

Half the platoon jolted when the tank fired and obscured the armor with dust and dirt flowing around the impact site. When the makeshift smokescreen finally faded, the armor was miraculously intact, though the armor plating had buckled inward slightly, and Apple Bloom couldn’t help but notice that the visor which was clear before the test, was now bright red.

“You are not super-soldiers, trainees. If you were, this armor would be the most formidable thing on the face of the planet, capable of letting a team of Zone Trooper contend with a Princess if need be… the truth of the matter, however, is that the armor can survive almost anything, but you cannot. As that test, and many others have proven time and again, should one of you take a round from an Ursa tank to the chest, your armor will still be operational, but you will most likely be a pony paste inside of your armor.”

Gasps and guffaws reverberated off the vaulting ceiling from the trainees as some imagined the visual that their commanding officer had just painted for them, while others looked back at their armor. Tension quickly permeated the bay, with even Dr. Mobius looking uncomfortable with the situation and fidgeting slightly where she stood.

“You must learn to know how much punishment your armor can take without killing you.” Night Light finally added, “Your armor is no good to GDI or your team if the pony inside of it is dead, especially now with how few of you there are. In the future, we might be able to absorb losses to the Zone Trooper program and give repaired suits to new recruits, but for now, we need you to know just what you can and cannot take while inside your mobile bunkers.”

“Training was supposed to begin in the middle of next week, with simulation exercises testing your ability to know what will and will not kill you, yet preserve the armor… but it would appear that we have been reminded that we picked both best and brightest to serve as the test bed for this program.” Sydney added.

“What if something can take out the armor?” Duke asked.

“If it’s powerful enough to mission-kill, or Celestia-forbid actually destroy the armor, then you’ve been dead for a while, trainee.” Night Light deadpanned, “If it can pierce the armor without killing you, pray that it doesn’t hit something vital, and kill whatever shot you before it can take a second shot.”