Fallout Equestria: Soldier, Seeker, Eagle

☢★★ One Year, Five Months Later ★★☢

Zebrica: a mighty empire born of the many voyages of merchant companies in the Golden Age of Sail. Older than Celestia herself, though younger than Equestria, yet while Equestria slowly grew from tiny kingdom to Empire over a thousand years, Zebrica’s globe spanning network of colonies came to be in mere centuries.

Patches of coastline all across the world flew the Zebrican flag. An ancient sailor’s joke was to refer to the seas themselves as “Zebrica”. Three Zebrican colonies had borders with Equestria when the war began. They flew Equestria’s flag now.

The Zebrican retaliation had been swift. Zebrican forces pushed through the Badlands to the southern edge of the Macintosh Hills, and even managed to capture a few of the southernmost Equestrian towns, and later on, one of her minor cities. This southern front was often regarded as the single worst place to be in the war.

Endless miles of trenches. Temporary fortresses turned permanent. Walls of tanks and artillery stations. Casualties unseen before in modern warfare, especially given just how often ponies and zebras would clash hoof to hoof.

Princess Luna’s plan to retake the territory involved two prongs. One would hold the Zebras where they were with sustained direct engagement, the other would force them to redirect troops and supplies back to the Zebrican homeland with a counter-invasion.

The Equestrian fortification on Oneighda Beach came to be during the course of one of the bloodiest battles the world had ever seen. Fort Spearpoint sat atop the ancient cliffs Equestrian troops had climbed during the battle, right on the edge of the El Mokattam jungle. It served its purpose well, attracting the attention of Ceazar’s legions, and diverting troops and resources away from the Equestrian home front.

Spearpoint was large, expansive, much like the training forts back in Equestria. It had to be. It was a symbol of Equestrian tenacity, meant to intimidate a warrior people.

Spearpoint was composed exclusively of modern buildings, asphalt roads, and the latest in E.U.P. military assets. It was a little defiant slice of Equestira built right on Zebrican soil, as pristine as could be. The ground, sea, and skies around it were fortified with hardened cloud structures, mounted guns, and even mounting guns. If a pony woke up in Spearpoint, they might believe they were still in Equestria. At least, until they noticed that the fortified walls around the base were engraved with tens of thousands of names, and the stubby remnants of countless votive candles.

The Zebrican Front claimed countless lives. War Golems, Shamen, Warlocks, and worse lurked in the trees. Platoons were torn apart by the jungles beyond Spearpoint’s walls. The survivors were stitched together into new squads, which in turn were sent back out into the jungle to be torn apart again.

Except for Stampede. Stampede squad had endured.

It was a small squad, just seven ponies. All veterans, though that meant nothing at Spearpoint. Anypony who came in on the cloudships at sunrise was guaranteed to be a veteran by sundown. Spearpoint ponies were survivors. Or they were dead.

Stampede was made up of the few unlucky sods to survive more than a dozen deployments.

Their original squads had been butchered in various skirmishes over the last two years, leading to a Lieutenant to order the members to form a new squad which had been randomly assigned the code name of Stampede. Stampede proceeded to take three dozen missions deep in the jungle without losing more than two or three ponies per operation. The ponies they lost were never from Stampede itself, rather they were ancillary troops assigned to them for the mission, or new recruits being given to the squad.

Naturally this made Red, Blue, Haybale, Mint, Stethoscope, Assault, and Battery legends to the other soldiers at Spearpoint. Everypony knew them by sight and name after their first week. Even more telling, everypony knew by the end of their second day at Spearpoint that being assigned to assist or supplement Stampede in the field in any way was a death sentence.

On the other hoof, Spearpoint’s officers were all told if something had to be done no matter what, you sent Stampede.

The moon was setting behind the sea. Exotic birds sang the last songs of the evening. The gentle breeze rustled leaves and jostled vines. A quiet and peaceful scene, aside from the thrumming of turbines, crackle of spark batteries, and thumping of bots on the tarmac around Spearpoint’s airfield.

Stampede’s core members sat in a small tent next to the vertibuck pads. They wore the look of seasoned veteran soldiers who had to be up at O-Dark-30 to listen to some officer’s request; extreme disinterest and irritation. Each and every last pony in the squad sat in the tent’s supplied folding chairs, aside from Red.

Sargent Red, the squad’s de facto leader, was a bright blue pegasus stallion with an even bluer mane. Nopony knew why he went by Red. It might have been an ironic nickname, or it could have held some real significance. Nopony knew. Nopony asked.

Red had the kind of stick up his ass one got by truly believing the only reason they were alive was that their actions were all directly front he book and executed through skill with a dash of luck. But even he looked tired, annoyed, and like he’d rather be doing anything but waiting for the lieutenant to arrive.

He stood silently while his soldiers talked amongst themselves.

Haybale and Stethoscope, the squad’s Combat Engineer and Field Medic, sat side by side as always. The unicorns had been childhood friends and were separated when their parents had moved. Ironically enough both wound up in Stampede years later.

The pair were quietly talking about their old missions. Specifically, the quiet moments of terror between fighting. Hay was convinced there was a pattern to be seen in the chaos. A way to predict when exactly the enemy would strike. Steth on the other hoof was a pony of science and the arcane. He knew Chaos was impossible to predict.

Haybale was a very plain looking unicorn. Tan fur, silver mane. The fact he, a unicorn, had grown up in an Earth pony community with adoptive earth pony parents on their farm, made him the butt of all the squad’s jokes. They were well meaning jokes. After all, nopony would dare make fun of a unicorn who could surgically remove their legs using only det cord… and leave them alive to experience all the wonders of being paraplegic.

Steth was the opposite. He had a golden shimmery coat, sapphire hair, and dull, tired, bitter gray-green eyes. He’d be the one who would reattached those blown off limbs, make them work like new again, and then get some whiskey knowing that the same poor bastard would be in tomorrow to get some zebra bullets picked out of their femur. Everypony fighting on the front lines knew that war was hell. Killing and dying is a hard and traumatic process.

Being a doctor in such times and places was far, far worse than simply traumatic. It’s jading. The hundred-odd ponies who died while joining or supplementing Stampede, he’d patched them all up at least five times. He’d held the guts inside stallions screaming for their mothers, carried wounded back through the jungle for days on end only to discover they’d bled out from a tiny shrapnel wound thanks to exotic tropical diseases bucking up their blood’s clotting factor.

He was one hundred and ten percent done with war. That didn’t matter. His contract was for eight years. Or it would be, if it weren't wartime. Fortunately, Hay was there to keep him sane as a field medic could be.

Of course, not all of Stampede was a bitter jaded soul-wreck of a pony. Mint Juniper was quite the opposite. As the Squad’s heavy weapons expert, the farm raised earth pony mare had a way of staying upbeat and happy even while under fire. While the others bickered, complained, and joked, she sat down calmly repainting her helmet doodles.

Specifically the one of the Ministry Mares wielding absurd and impossible guns while Miss Twilight proclaimed “We’ll beat you with the power of friendship and these guns we found!”

A lot of ponies at Spearpoint thought Mint was one of the ones the propaganda worked on. Just another crusader fighting for a righteous and holy cause. The truth was, she just really liked to blast people endangering her friends into as many separate pieces as possible.

Sitting next to Mint and constantly “correcting” her doodle’s artistic integrity was Blue. Blue was a tall red haired pegasus who took the name Blue since his sarge went by Red, so the obvious name was already taken. Blue was the kind of asshole who insisted on sharing their opinion on everything, including the lack of authenticity to the Kirby Krackle making up the background of his friend’s wartime helmet doodles.

Fortunately for everypony, in spite of everything else about him he was a good soldier, and would make sure you got out of the field alive or die trying. He did die once in the process, too. Fortunately Steth had been able to revive him before too much brain damage set in. Not that anypony could tell he’d lost any brain cells to oxygen deprivation, given the less than stellar showing of those brain cells when they’d been alive.

The squad’s last two members were clustered near the tent flaps trying to get an MRE’s flameless ration heater to activate so they could split a pouch of refried hay. Assault and Battery always ate together. They swore it brought them good luck. Especially when a defective heater meant they had to spend half an hour trying to get the stupid thing to work.

Assault and Battery were twins. Or so the squad thought. The pegasus and unicorn were practically identical, tribe aside. Both gray, same face shape, same eye color. The two acted as one half the time, which was actually very bad since they were respectively a sniper and spotter. Fortunately when Battery wasn’t spotting for Assault he was generally putting mortar shells onto anything resembling bullet resistant cover, so Red never minded when he slacked off on his recon duties.

Stampede’s quiet conversations fell silent as the tent flap was pushed aside by a dull green light. An officer trotted into the tent. Her uniform was quite simple and under decorated, bearing only the twin bars a captain, the basic commendation ribbons for passing officer’s school, and a name tag reading Capt. Hardened Shell.

Captain. A few too many stripes on the sleeve to be giving orders directly to the grunts.

The Captain was a short mare with an oddly nondescript appearance. Everypony could see she had tan fur and a black mane, but nothing else about her stood out. Red raised an eyebrow and cast an eye over her uniform, checking for the latest spy-resistant markings. Her collar had the triple stitched seams. The rear leg cuffs had 2 buttons, and the rear left leg had one horizontally attached button and one dianognaly attached button.

Red looked into the Captains eyes, cleared his throat and said, “Pumpernickel, pancake, yogurt.”

The Captain blinked, raised her head to look Red in the eyes and asked, “What?”

Red leaned forwards in his seat, ready to get up. The rest of his squad followed suit, with Mint even drawing her combat knife.

“Pumpernickel pancake yogurt, ma’am.” Red said coldly.

The Captain frowned more, then groaned and facehooved. “Oh, yes. Sorry. Authentication,” she cleared her throat and announced. “January, Suborbital, Domination.”

Red nodded to his squad. “She’s clean.”

Everypony relaxed. Except Mint, who sheathed her knife in frustration and crossed her forelegs across her barrel with a quiet muttered “Dang it…”

The Captain frowned then laughed quietly. “Is spying really that much of a problem here? I’m fresh from officer’s school.”

Red nodded once. “Yes, ma’am. Specialist Mint killed one herself just last week. Zebra shapeshifting potions do a good job of disguising their spies.

The Captain sighed and shook her head. “Shame… I know what goes into full body alteration potions. As if I needed another reason to despise them.”

She trotted to the front of the tent, tracked the whole way by Stampede’s eyes. She may have passed the spy check, but something was still very wrong. This couldn’t be an assignment, Lutienants issued orders to sargents, not Captains.

The Captain reached the tent’s small stage, set her attache case on the ground, then cleared her throat. “Soldiers, I’m Captain Hardened Shell. I know it’s not standard operating procedure for a Captain to deliver your orders personally, but in this case I wanted to see the ponies I was sending out into the field… It’s my first time issuing an assignment.”

Hay nodded to himself, content with that answer but keeping silent as the rest of his squad. Stampede were professionals.

“We don’t have time to split hairs or go over everything in detail. You’re being assigned to a time sensitive operation which is, sadly, low priority. We can’t afford to send more than a single squad, that is to say you, one supplemental trooper, and an M113,” Captain Shell continued while opening her case with her telekinesis to hold up a large black and white reconnaissance photograph.

The picture showed the conical slope of what could only be an active volcano, viewed from the tree canopy at its base. A few small fortified AA gun emplacements could be seen dotting the volcano’s faces, and a small road wound its way up to the summit with checkpoints every so often along the quarried switchback path.

“This is a photo of Mount Kifo, a semi-dormant volcano which we’ve been aware is a Zebra base for quite some time,” the Captain said. “Three months ago a spy infiltrated the base and was only able to get word out four nights ago. We believe this message cost them their life. That’s where you come in.”

The Captain put away the photo and took out a half burnt note which had been sealed in a plastic bag to protect the damaged paper. “According to this document, which a zebra agent was captured trying to destroy after it arrived at one of our formerly secure drop points, our spy learned Mount Kifo is in fact a missile base, and Balefire manufacturing plant.”

The Captain took a moment to let the soldiers say anything if they chose. They stayed silent, attentive, professional.

Captain Shell cleared her throat. “We’re not talking about their standard buzz bombs, or SAMs. These are very large rockets, similar to what we’ve seen on Zebrican submersibles. Our agent claims the Zebras can use them to strike Equestria from here, and that the base contains a megaspell factory which is producing warheads capablable of mass destruction. We believe this base will be used to launch a strike against our major ports back home. It has to go…”

The Captain trailed off and sighed. “Unfortunately, our Princess has placed her faith in our missile defense systems and Celestia Prime. She believes any attack can be halted before it is successful, by those systems. Not with a pre-emptive strike. If the base was just a bit closer to the front lines, she might have let us take a proper crack at it, but instead she wants us to continue pushing for The Valley of Emperors. As such, we have been authorized only to confirm the existence of the missiles, and if they exist, to steal any information we can on them while disabling any launch systems they may use. For this task, I have been allotted a single squad. Don’t blame me, blame the Generals who couldn’t talk her into sending even a platoon.”

Stampede shared a grimace with one another before Red cleared his throat and spoke for himself and his soldiers. “Ma’am… I understand the common belief is a small group of soldiers can slip in and out of large installations while remaining unnoticed. It’s true sometimes. I’ve seen it done. By Steel Rangers. We’re just specialists in the E.U.P. You know, shock troopers. Lucky shock troopers, but nothing more than that. I’m not saying we refuse, ma’am… But this is a bad idea. A few Thunderheads could bombard the mountain and—”

Captain Shell nodded in agreement and turned her eyes downwards to sigh at the ground. “I know… I know… Please, I’ve already argued with my boss, who already argued with his boss. This is all we’re allowed to do, aside from choosing to do nothing. Do you want to do nothing? I can find another squad. Nopony would blame you.”

Red shook his head. “No, ma’am. We’ll go. If one squad is all you can send, we’re the best shot at pulling this off. I can’t promise you we’ll be back with the plans, but we can go. Celestia willing, we’ll get to plant a bomb for you. Isn’t that right, guys?”

The other members of Stampede nodded once in unison. No words, just the nod.

The Captain gulped and shuffled one hoof against the loose dirt beneath her. She was a little unnerved by their willingness to go to their deaths, but determined to see this briefing through to the end, she cleared her throat and put on a fake smile. “I did manage to pull one string for you that might even the odds just a little. I was able to convince a certain Captain to lend you one of her Rangers for the mission. You’ll be joined by a Steel Ranger specializing in close quarters combat.”

Red blinked once. “Excuse me?” He said while standing up.

The Captain tilted her head and frowned. “Are you upset? I didn’t mean that as an insult, I—”

Red held up his hooves. “No, ma’am!” He said almost frantically. “I— Ranger tactics are classified. Sure, we see them on the field from time to time but they almost never mix with other units. Are we going to have to sign anything before we can fight with this guy?”

“Yeah,” Mint added with a half-worried half-nervous chuckle. “I remember I had to sign an NDA when I was ordered to help some Rangers fix a broken rocket pod. It was just a standard M93 with an adapter for a battle saddle instead of a vehicle mount. They’re kinda picky about their stuff being known about.”

“Oh,” The Captain smiled and shook her head. “No, you won't have to sign anything… Because depending on your performance during this mission, you may be reassigned to the Rangers. Your service records are exemplary and on par with post-recruitment Ranger applicants. Think of this Ranger as a talent scout.”

Steth rolled his eyes. “In other words, if we don’t die we get to do even more reckless horseapples more often while sweating in a tin can.”

“Air conditioned Luna Titanium can,” Captain Shell corrected reflexively.

Mint looked to her squadmates. “Air conditioning? Bucking hay, Captain. Why didn’t you say so? Come on Red, let’s go!” Mind said as she jumped to her hooves and began to trot for the tentflap.

Red rolled his eyes. “Sit down, Specialist. We’re not done yet. Captain, if you wouldn’t mind providing the details?”

Captain Shell nodded, closed her attache case and floated it over to Red with her telekinesis. “Here you are. Maps. Documentation. Photographs. Flight plan for the pilot, everything. You’ve got thirty minutes to get to vertibuck pad 5. You’ll have to brief yourselves on the flight over, there will be time, the flight is nearly three hours. All mission equipment is being loaded into an M113 which will be carried to the mission area by vertibuck, along with you.”

Red frowned. “Come again?”

“I know. It’s not standard operating procedure, but…” Captain Shell leaned in towards Red slightly and lowered her voice. “There’s a rumor amongst the brass that the Zebras are planning a major offensive for later this week. If these missiles can hit Equestria, they can probably also slip past our defences. They’re also probably targeted at Canterlot. We don’t have time to spend a day going over the maps. We need this place gone now and Her Highness has screwed us over with her insistence on her Classical Era based focus on capturing enemy cities.”

The Captain winced and cleared her throat. “Not to sound like a traitor there… but… Well, it’s no secret the Princess’ strategic genius is a millenium out of date.”

Red snorted and nodded. “You’ll get no objections from us, Captain. Heh, you’d think by now she’d be up to speed, or at least leave things to the generals.” He sighed and tucked the attache case under his left wing. “But, orders are orders. We’ll give it our best, ma’am. Stampede… Move out.”

☢★★◯★★☢

The Vertibuck was a very new aircraft. Since time immemorial Equestrian aircraft relied on Pegasi. Most often directly in that the craft was pulled by one or more pegasi, but sometimes the vehicle was made using enchanted clouds formed and shaped by pegasi.

Vertibucks were different.

Most of their pilots saw them as new-fangled technology stolen from an enemy to serve no other purpose than to laugh at the Stripes and tell them they knew their secret to heavier than air flight.

They were wrong.

The Vertibuck was something Equestria desperately needed. An aircraft that could be flown, maintained, and built without a single Pegasus involved. The Great War had done many things to Equestria, but one of the worst was the pegasus shortage. The flying ponies had almost all been drafted into the Enclave, a special branch of the Air Force which served as a sky based infantry.

The Enclave needed numbers. The other branches needed aircraft. The Vertibuck was the answer.

It was a boxy thing. Almost entirely unlike anything Equestrians had ever built before. Low on elegance, high on ease of manufacture, and little more than a shipping crate with a cockpit, wings with a stubby tail at the rear. The Vertibuck in a nutshell.

There was more to the new aircraft, naturally. Engine pods on the wingtips rotated to allow the aircraft to take off and land vertically while also allowing it to fly at greater speeds once in the air. The three gun turrets for multi-vector protection, including the unique nose-mounted cannon which was enchanted to always aim where the pilot was looking.

While the nose-gun had made a name for itself, the aircraft as a whole was not well suited to combat. The E.U.P. hoped that one day soon there would be a mission which would prove the Vertibuck’s worth to the troops as something other than a battle bus, but none of them held onto much hope of that ever happening.

Especially since it was much too cramped inside for the troops to think of much else aside from how much they would like to get out of the tin can and just march instead.

Or, for this particular mission, just how much they wished they could ride the whole way there in the E.U.P.s more popular tin can. Especially since Stampede’s vertibuck was carrying one to the battlefield for their use anyways.

Hay grumbled to himself as he double checked one of the three cargo cables which linked their vertibuck to the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. “Stupid sky brick… These things barely fly and they want us to fly in one that’s dragging an even bigger brick along for the ride.”

Red rolled his eyes. “Corporal, you see these contraptions moving tanks around the base all day. It’s not going to be dragged out of the sky by something this small.”

Mint shivered and let go of the cable she’d been testing. “Sure, but it still looks like a breezie carrying a baseball. It’s just not right. It shouldn’t be able to fly with this on it, but it does.”

The M113 was another fighting vehicle the troops hated. The simple two tracked vehicles were designed to take a dozen soldiers anywhere they needed to go. No matter what was in the way.

The M113 would run through, over, or across damn near anything it could reach. Mines. Trenches. Barbed wire. Most buildings. Mud. Smaller trees. Water. Lawyers.

Red took a step back from the M113 and looked for Steth and Assault. The two ponies flashed him a quick hoof pump. Red nodded and called out “Mint, is yours secure?”

“Tight as mom’s wallet!”

“Alright, that leaves our Ranger friend as the last item on the list,” Red said to himself.

“You’d think a Ranger would be more punctual,” Battery said with a bemused smile. “They always seem to arrive just in time and we were supposed to leave three minutes ago.”

Red smirked. “True enough, but if they pulled a poor buck out of his bunk like they did us, I imagine it takes much longer to strap on their armor than it does to change into some fatigues and put on a flack vest.”

“Sure does! That’s why I never take mine off,” a cheerful modulated stallions' voice cried.

Stampede whirled around, more than a little terrified. They’d been around Steel Rangers long enough to know their armor was not stealthy. It clanked, hummed, whirred, and hissed with every little movement, and yet, here was a Ranger. A very unusual Ranger.

Everypony on the front lines had seen Rangers in and out of combat, the power armored troopers were almost ubiquitously attached to normal infantry regiments. Every soldier knew Steel Ranger armor on sight, so they knew when a set was not standard.

Steel Ranger armor was silvery-gray no matter what rank the soldier inside may have held. It served the same purpose as E.U.P. fatigues, making everypony look and feel the same to improve the bonds of teamwork. Ranger armor had the added issue of costing a small fortune to produce. They were recycled from Ranger to Ranger. A custom set would be added cost not once but twice as the modifications would need to be undone in order for the suit to be given to the next warrior to die in it.

Aside from ponies like Gale Force, who served as a model for propaganda posters, custom suits were unheard of. Unheard of aside from the hushed whispers of soldiers who served in Zebrica, far out into the depths of the front lines. The few who had assisted special forces in operations of a classified nature and saw something they were not supposed to.

Red knew all of the Mess Hall stories about such things. He’d dismissed them all. Stampede had served in the very types of missions where such Rangers would have appeared had they been real, and he’d never seen a Ranger with a custom set of armor. Until now.

The Ranger’s armor had a coat of emerald paint, and an amber visor criss crossed with a hexagrammic pattern which looked to Red like some sort of spell matrix. The Ranger’s weapons were also non-standard. The M-42 rocket pod on the suit’s left saddle slot was stock, but rather than the expected heavy machine gun or minigun in the right slot, the suit had another pod, one Red didn’t recognise but suspected was an ammo-plant for the rocket pod. Interesting as that was, the suit also had a supplementary weapon, a foreleg mounted short barreled SMG, most likely 12.7mm caliber.

Red cast an eye over the suit in more detail, searching for any other discrepancies. He noted the armor’s joints were a bit more exposed, leaving the black undersuit showing through much more than a standard set of power armor. The modification was definitely for more flexibility. The Ranger’s front boots were also not stock at all, but were clearly robotic, and had what he suspected were deployable talons. After all, with his mouth covered, the Ranger would need some way to wield the Minocian sword that was sheathed on his back.

All of this unique kit was standing a mere three meters in front of Red, and the Ranger wasn’t alone.

The Ranger was flanked by a pair of mares dressed in simple black business suits, aviator sunglasses, and thin ties. Officially the MoA didn’t exist anymore, but every soldier on the front lines knew that was horseapples. A cover for some reason or another. Mares in these unofficial black uniforms with matching sunglasses were how they knew.

“Sargent Blue Skies?” the agent on the left side said to Red with a cold and emotionless expression.

Red nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

The agent presented a clipboard to Red with an inkpen clipped to the top of the paperwork. “This is Special Operative ASX J-One-One-Seven. He has been assigned to you for the duration of this mission. Sign here.”

Red frowned, took the pen from the clipboard and looked at the page before looking back up at the agent. “Ma’am, why am I signing a munitions authorization release form?”

“It’s required in these circumstances,” the other agent said with an equal lack of emotion.

“But why though?” Mint asked in spite of all training, protocols, and unwritten rules behind squads interacting with “the Spooks”.

Assault cleared his throat and offered the agent a quick salute. “Beg your pardon, ma’am, but I think what my Sargent means is he’s confused as to why you’re presenting him with a form to authorise release of authority to use a tactical carpet bombing when you’re issuing our squad a supplemental infantry unit… and we’ve already signed the authorization forms for the bunker buster we’ve been issued.”

Red turned his head towards Assault. “Private, please refrain from addressing officers out of turn,” He turned back to the agent as Assault nodded. “He is correct, ma’am. Did you pick up the wrong form?”

“No,” the agent said with an irritated arching of her eyebrows behind her glasses. “Sign.”

Red bit his lip, nodded, and signed the page.

The other agent signed with her own pen. “Witnessed.” she said emotionlessly before turning to the Ranger and glaring at him over her glasses. “Remember, the Ministry Mare was being metaphorical when she said she wanted their heads on pikes. Do not bring back heads on pikes.”

Red felt his tail raise slightly. “Pardon?”

The other members of Stampede shared a quick confused look, one which turned to disgust and horror as they realized what kind of pony would need such a thing clarified.

The Ranger saluted his handler. “I understand.”

The two agents turned and left without another word. The Ranger walked up to Red and offered a salute. “Special Operative ASX J-One-Seventeen reporting for duty, sir! I specialize in CQC and anti-armor operations. I’m fully trained in all E.U.P. tactics, weaponry, and vehicles, and most Zzebrican arms, with some supplemental knowledge of Minocian weapons and strategy. Ready for orders.”

Red took a moment to process that statement then cleared his throat. “Did you say you’re equally proficient in all of our assets, soldier?”

The ranger shook his head. “No, sir. I can operate anything in our arsenal proficiently, but my level of skill is not uniform. I am approximately six percent more effective with close quarters weapons than ranged weapons, sir.”

Haybale snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m calling horseapples on any of us meeting Ranger standards if that’s even half true.”

The Ranger shooks his head. “Oh, no. You probably do. I’m special forces.”

Red raised an eyebrow, as did most of Stampede.

“The Steel Rangers are special forces…” Red protested, his head cocked to one side.

The Ranger rubbed a hoof against the back of his helmet. “Yeah, we… kind of have our own special forces unit now. The Rangers are setting up to become their own branch. It’s a preemptive part of that… May I ask what the mission is, exactly? I was pulled out of storage for this and told to kill whatever you pointed me at. All I know is that my boss’s boss was screaming about wanting the command staff of whatever we’re attacking’s heads on pikes.”

Red cleared his throat to try and hide a terrified whiny. It mostly worked.

The rumours relating to unique Rangers often mentioned “storage” in the context of cryostorage. If the legends were true, then this pony was kept on ice between missions due to his special talent being killing, having a rather psychopathic demeanor, or other unknown condition which meant the Ministries saw their time being awake as wasted if they were not at war. In other words, they were more weapons than people.

Suddenly that release form made a whole lot of sense.

Red pointed to the vertibuck. “Board that aircraft. We’re going to brief ourselves on the way. The mission is to blow up a Zebrican silo and steal intell on their missiles.”

The ranger nodded, walked up to the side of the M113 suspended beneath the vertibuck, and jumped the two meters up into the aircraft, only to then turn around and offer a hoof. “Who needs help up here?”

“Nopony,” Mint, the only member of Stampede who wasn't staring open mouthed at the feet of athletics they’d just witnessed.

Mint dipped her head towards a mobile gangway a few meters from the vertibuck. “That’s what that’s for.”

“Oh…” The Ranger paused and then took a seat on the closest bench.

Red shook his head once and waved his soldiers over. As soon as they’d huddled he began to speak in a low voice, just above a whisper. Like all good soldiers, he knew that whispers traveled further than normal speech.

“Everypony, we’ll be fine as soon as we make contact with the enemy. But before then, I want all of you to act as if all of the chow-hall stories about this kind of thing are true. That said, remember he’s on our side and presumably won't kill us if he gets bored.”

Steth rolled his eyes. “Please, if he was that psychologically unstable he wouldn’t have gotten in. Not even with the more lax recruiting standards they just published.”

Mint shrugged. “He seems nice enough to me. Come on guys, I have fun blowing Stripes to bits but you know I’m not a monster.”

“Yeah,” Blue snorted dismissively. “But you can’t make a two meter jump in an actual ton of armor and half a ton of kit.”

“I’ll bet she could,” the Ranger called down. “She’s got great leg definition.”

Everypony got really quiet for a couple moments. Red recovered first and cleared his throat to announce, “Stampede, move out!”

☢★★◯★★☢

The rhythmic thumping of vertibuck blades drowned out the screeching animal calls from the jungle below it. The unwieldy, recently developed, heavier-than-air troop transport slid just above the treetops. Its pilot only barely able to keep enough altitude to prevent the boxy M113 armored personnel carrier lashed to its ventral hull from smashing into a tree.

The Vertibuck hadn’t been designed to transport cargo via winch long distances, but the E.U.P was almost the same as a colt. If their toy looked like it could do something, they found a way to make it do it. In the case of transporting light vehicles hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines, the way was to take a good three years off the poor pilot’s life every time the wind kicked up and pulled at the underslung vehicle, and another five off every time the vertibuck hit a patch of turbulence.

This seemingly suicidal flight plan took the craft just beneath the Zebrican’s divination net, even if it made the poor pilot white as a sheet. The vertibuck was simply too new an aircraft for any pony to pilot with the same skill and grace as a cloudship or sky wagon. Unfortunately, such things were too easy for the Zebras to detect.

Ironic how a much louder aircraft could be so much more stealthy. At least, for the moment.

The vertibuck’s passenger bay was full up. Not a single spot left unoccupied by pony or mission specific kit. Everything necessary to punch a hole deep into the heart of a Zebrican fortress. Stampede had been in sardine tin levels of packed in before, but not while going to something they knew most of them probably wouldn’t come back from.

In spite of the close quarters, the squad gave their emerald hued power armor clad ally as much space as the vertibuck allowed. The poor soldiers were unnerved enough simply by wondering if they would be allowed to talk about this operation to anyone, ever, simply because the commando was present. Even worse, which other conspiracy theories floating about the barracks and mess halls were true?

What on Equus were they stepping into that needed a specialist with this kind of hardware from that kind of outfit?

Even more urgently, what kind of special Ministry commando was only describable as distressingly upbeat while riding along to their certain death as a part of a suicide mission?

“So, I don’t have to find a pike out here… Paint Thinner made that clear. Which is good because last time it took me three hours to find one. You don’t see many zebras armed with them anymore,” the Ranger said a few moments after the briefing and mission planning had come to a natural pause. “I did hear her quite clearly though. “If they can hit Equestria from over there, I want their heads on pikes.” Not sure how that’s unclear or up to interpretation… By Minos! I wish ponies would just say what they actually mean! Do you guys think she meant spears, or would some sharpened sticks and primal inspired decor be more in line with the request?”

Red looked up from the crude map spread out on what little of the vertibuck’s floor was available in front of him and blinked once. Over the course of the flight, it had become clear that this Ranger was a bit of a loon, but nice enough and had a sharp sense of humor.

“Mares never mean what they say when it comes to those kinds of things. You’re probably best off letting her know you took care of it and bringing her some flowers,” Red commented before turning his head to give Mint a playful smile. “Right?”

“Eh?” Mint shrugged once. “Depends on the mare. We know it’s a Ministry Mare, and I can think of one that would probably be quite serious…. And she’d think that the stakes were cooler. Probably.”

“Thanks! I’ll keep an eye out for some nice straight sticks on the way back,” the Ranger joked.

Or so everypony thought before he rummaged in his armor’s storage compartment and briefly removed a plastic trash bag. “Oh good! I thought I’d forgotten this back at HQ.”

Red blinked twice and cleared his throat. “Uh, we may not have cargo room for that coming back…”

“We can hang it from the bottom, or stash it in the M113, assuming it makes it back in one piece,” the Ranger pointed out to the horrified squad.

Red decided to change the subject. “Annnnways! About our approach vector. Assault, I think you’re right about their defences,” Red said around his pre-mission cigar as he squinted at a small detail on one of the clifftop riges the map highlighted. “There’s no way they haven’t hidden an AA emplacement there. If that’s the case, we’ll have to hoof it a good six kilometers through the jungle. Tell the pilot to set us down at Point Gamma and risk taking one or two hits.”

“Not to be rude,” the Ranger interrupted as he leaned forwards to point out another spot on the map with his hoof tip. “But if they have the other emplacement here, because we know they have three on this slope, and you’ve just spotted the second, then the Stripes have to know Gamma is the only point we could land troops. They’ll have ground forces on site.”

Blue nodded once. “Yes they will. Thing is, the only other landing sites we could reach without becoming a flying block of Prench cheese… They’re beyond this newfangled bucket of bolts PONR. I’d like to have the fuel to get home… Assuming we make it out alive.”

“That’s what I’d do too, if I were them,” Hay said analytically. “Their cannons won’t do too well against our ventral armor. We could land at Beta if we can manage it in less than fourty seconds and no more than three direct hits.”

Red took a long drag on his cigar and looked the ranger up and down. “Well?”

“Well, sir?” The Ranger replied, cocking his head to one side.

“You pointed out a problem with the gameplan,” Blue prompted with a wave of his hoof. “What’s your solution?”

Stampede all did their best to look disinterested in their ally’s response. Even basic Steel Ranger tactics were classified, yet invaluable. Everypony on board had been desperately looking forward to what Steel Ranger’s own special force division had in their playbook.

He shrugged. “I thought I could jump out and shoot our way out of this problem.”

Red smiled ever so faintly. “I appreciate the levity, Mr. ASX J-one-hundred-seventeen…” He frowned and shook his head. “Look, we’re in the field. That handle is too long. Do you have a nickname?”

The Ranger sat quietly for a moment, then nodded. “Go ahead and call me Ash.”

“Ash. Good, short, and nothing like any of my buck’s names,” Red said with a satisfied nod before leaning back into his seat’s crash harness. “As I was saying, Ash, I appreciate the levity, but we have four minutes to make a decision.”

The slit visored helmet creaked slightly as Ash turned his head and looked into Red’s eyes.

“I wasn’t joking, sir,” Ashen replied politely. “They attached me to this op because they thought you might need a close quarters specialist. Have the pilot make a pass over Gamma, I’ll jump out, and by the time you come back around, I’ll have the site secure.”

Stampede began to whisper to each other, mostly about how either terrifyingly competent or full of horseapples Ash had to be.

Blue gave Ash a blank look. “Come on, soldier. Give us a real plan.”

“Or put your money where your mouth is,” Mint added. “If you could pull off clearing a landing pad in thirty seconds… That would be pretty cool.”

Ashen opened his mouth to operate one of his helmet’s many tongue switches. The one he pressed turned off the external speaker, preventing the ponies around him from hearing anything at all. With his intercom muted, Ashen mimicked clearing his throat. A short “a-hem” being the que for a third party to be ready to advise him.

“What can I tell them?” Ashen’s question was picked up by his suit’s term-link relay, routed through the nearest layline to a MoA headquarters in Equestria, directly into a dedicated Operations Terminal where his support agent sat. The agent assigned to assist him was a short, plump, albino mare named Curtain Rod. One of the MoA’s many “random agents”. Individuals selected precisely because of how little they resembled or acted like an intelligence operative.

Curtain hummed and drummed her left hoof on the terminal’s keyboard. She shrugged, and carefully pressed her headset more firmly against her head to force the microphone into position so she could be heard clearly.

“Your service record is out of the question… But you can mention the time you did exactly what you’re proposing doing again here,” Curtain decided after thinking through the extensive layers of MoA protocols at play.

Ashen reactivated his armor’s intercom. “Worked just fine at Carthitch.”

The marines' quiet murmurs went dead quiet. The still quite recent and infamous Battle of Carthitch could be aptly described as a long chain of close calls. Until, that is, a cloudship of troops managed to touch down at a key position and force the zebras into a rout. A key position which had been occupied by two platoons of Zebra infantry, a war-golem, and if the rumors were true, a warlock.

Blue narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying you cleared the landing zone for the 501st?”

“My service record is classified,” Ashen said with a frustrated huff. “I’m just repeating historical facts. The strategy worked just fine in worse conditions.”

Curtain Rod frowned behind her terminal. “Hey, it’s okay. You can fancolt about how much fun you had back there with me later.”

Very few ponies understood Ashen better than Curtain Rod. Most simply couldn’t grok that a robot who was programmed to love combat, no matter how personlike they were, was going to find combat quite enjoyable. She also understood that Ashen couldn’t grok the stuff he loved to reminisce about would give most ponies PTSD in a heartbeat.

Like all Field Agent Assistants, Curtain had gotten her job for two reasons. First, she found the idea of being able to see everything through a soldier's eyes and help them remotely appealing. Second, she was one of the lucky 23% of ponies immune to post traumatic stress, and also one of the 4% who had no adverse reaction to gore. Everything Ash saw, everything he did, Curtain was there with him, almost as if she were in the suit herself.

If she had been able to pass physical fitness and health standards, she would have been a Ranger herself.

Ashen muted himself again. “But that’s no fun, you already know how it went! Besides, you were there with me. Think I could get Anvil Squad to listen to the play by play again?”

“Ha! Fat chance.” Curtain giggled.

Red finished considering his options, then turned to the marine next to him. “Blue, tell our pilot to make a pass over Gamma. Our Commando is going to clear a landing pad.”

“Yes, sir!” Blue replied before twisting to poke his head up into the cockpit.

The vertibuck adjusted course slightly, shifting east just a few hairs in order to pass over point Gamma. The maneuver was already risky. The trees provided little cover and just ahead a short mountain jutted out of the jungle. An ancient volcano, once the home of ancient Zebrican temples, and now the home of a launch site for what the E.U.P. feared were missiles capable of striking the Equestrian Heartland.

Point Gamma was a small clearing in the jungle next to a river which ran down the mountain. As an open spot wherein aerial troops could land, it was obviously covered by the Zebrican AA grid. What made it a safe site was in theory, just one gun had an angle on it, since the more probable approach for an assault lay on the mountah’s western slope.

The vertibuck was spotted moments before reaching Gamma. Zebra troops scrambled to bring the clifftop quad barreled AA cannon to bear on the small craft. A moment of confusion washed over the soldiers. They’d never seen this kind of aircraft before. The Zebra’s lack of pegasus magic meant they had been using heavier than air craft for decades. The gunners began to question if this was a Zebrican aircraft.

Perhaps a lost contractor or mercenary with radio problems? The front was over a hundred kilometers away…

The vertibuck began to bank, clearly turning around. This added to the confusion, but only for a moment. The soldier manning the gun saw a pony shaped blur fall from the unidentified aircraft and with a cry of “Askari wa parachuti!”, the gun opened fire.

Ash plunged through the air towards the mist covered clearing below the vertibuck. A quick glance below showed he had jumped clear of the vertibuck’s cable-bound payload. There was no need to waste energy pushing himself further out from the aircraft.

The rapid pulsating thud of Zebrican flack cannons shook the jungle. Thick black clouds of flack began to erupt around him, shrapnel pinged off his armor, sending flecks of paint blasting out across the jungle. Ash remained focused on the ground below, and activated his helmet’s E.F.S. spell matrix.

Time seemed to slow. The zebras below were highlighted red through the fog. Targeting solutions were computed and displayed near each and every one below. Ashen used his suit’s systems to select his secondary weapon, a rocket pod, and fired at the largest clusters of enemies.

The pod’s four barrels belched fire as their payloads left the barrels. The pod’s talisman began to create new rockets from stored materials, another volley would be ready in thirty-six seconds.

The rockets began to twist in the air, each seeking their own targets. Ash activated his telekinesis talisman, aimed it at a large tree to his right, and pushed hard. The burst of telekinetic force couldn’t move the tree, and so it made Ash shoot to the left just in time to avoid the volley of flaming bullets fired by the terrified soldiers below.

It also brought Ash directly above one of the zebras.

The rockets reached their targets and exploded midair as their flame-bolt matrices activated, and conjured bubbling masses of burning oil. Pained shrieks filled the clearing as several burning zebras stumbled out from behind rocks and logs, desperately slapping at the flames searing their flesh to the bone.

Ash slammed hooves first into the zebra he’d positioned himself above, shattering his spine and punching a hole through one flank. Ash dropped and rolled off the splattered corpse immediately, using his telekinesis to boost himself up and over his battle saddle’s mounted weapons just in time to avoid the second volley fired his way.

Ash raised his right foreleg and flexed his hoof to fire his leg-mounted SMG. 12.7mm rounds ripped through an old rotten log, slicing the three zebra soldiers behind it to bloody ribbons in an instant.

Ash checked his E.F.S. for the seven enemies that remained. They had positional advantage. Bringing his gun to bear on their positions before they could fire wasn’t possible. Experience reminded Ash that a mere six shots from their enchanted weapons would down his shields. And one through his armor would mean weeks of hanging from a garage’s ceiling and complaining to technicians about the quality of their welds.

Or death, if they hit his head.

“Sword time,” Ash said to Curtain.

Curtain sputtered into her terminal’s tactical display. “Do not do that!”

“Already doing it,” Ash said as he reared up.

A simple subroutine flipped Ash’s sense of balance to biped mode, and activated the Minos Gauntlets built into his forehoove’s boots. The change in stance bought him just time to reach up and draw the xiphos from his back and activate its blazing enchantment.

The first Zebra fired. Ash’s shields took the hit, sparking gold and making the fog around him glow. Ash began to sprint towards the only two targets who stood next to each other. One popped up from behind cover, whipping their rifle into position to fire. Ash pushed at the ground to his right with his telekinesis, forcing himself into the air a good meter and a half. The rifle cracked. The bullet split the fog, leaving a blazing streak in Ash’s optics.

Ash landed atop a mossy rock, jumped before he could slip, twisted in the air, fired another telekinetic pulse to change trajectory, and landed rear hooves first on the other zebra’s face.

The zebra’s neck snapped under the force of half a ton of armor and robot. His squadmate screamed something. Another bullet skipped off Ash’s shield. Ash flicked his blade, slicing through the zebra’s rifle barrel, shoulder, and neck.

A third bullet skipped off Ash’s shields.

“Roketi! Rusha roketi!” a zebra ordered.

A rocket launcher thumped in response. Ash ducked instinctively. The terrified soldier’s aim made this pointless, a large boulder on the cliffside across the river exploded into hoof sized shards and slid down the cliff into the water.

Ash scooped up the intact zebra rifle with his magic and fired half the mag into the Zebrican rocketeer. The Zebra collapsed, dropping his second rocket into the muddy riverbank.

A fourth bullet pingged off Ash’s shield. His helmet flashed a warning of low shield integrity. Then a second stating his telekinesis talisman needed a moment to recharge.

Ash’s helmet flashed a third alert. This one is good. His rocket pod was ready.

Ash fired immediately, sending all four rockets towards three of the remaining soldiers, with the fourth slicing through the air towards the nearby AA gun.

The last zebra in this squad, the one that ordered the rocket strike, that one would get a more personal touch.

Ash’s E.F.S. showed the squad’s leader as standing just behind a large root arch at the edge of the jungle. The silhouette was distinct enough to tell this was a centurion. The plumed helmet’s crest being key to Ash’s analysis.

Ash turned on one leg and began to sprint for the centurion’s root-arch. His rockets met their targets and exploded, lighting a good chunk of the clearing on fire both from the explosions themselves, and from the random panicked sprinting of the doomed and ablaze soldiers. A bolt of lightning joined Ash’s fireballs as three of Stampede's pegasi troopers made sure the AA gun was neutralized.

The centurion popped up from behind cover and fired a burst of rounds. Two missed. One struck Ash’s shield. The golden barrier sparked, fizzled, and collapsed like ball lightning bursting. The centurion grit his teeth, knowing he had just one chance to kill the armored warrior before he was atop him.

He fired. His rifle’s barrel belched flames, coating the bullet with arcane fire as it flew from the barrel. It burned a hole through the mist, barreling towards Ash, then past him.

The centurion missed.

Ash reached the root-arch and jumped atop it, squatting down to seize the centurion by the neck. The Zebra gurgled, thrashed as Ash lifted him up, then stabbed him through the belly.

“Exploding!” Ash growled, extracted his blade, then stabbed again. “Really!” Once more the blade flicked out to be thrust home. “Hurts!” A fourth stab, this one angled upwards, sliced through the centurion’s lung then heart.

Ash dropped the corpse, waited a moment for his blade to burn the blood off, then sheathed his blade and returned to all fours while retracting his gauntlets.

“That was incredibly reckless, Ash!” Curtain scolded through the Term-Link. “What if you’d missed any of those rockets?”

Ash smiled behind his helmet. “Yes. The person made of math with an intuitive knowledge of physics might buck up firing a seeking projectile.”

“One of these days you’re going to be blown limb from limb again,” She huffed, crossing her forelegs over her barrel indignantly.

“Come on, Curtain. It’s just war. If you ask me a better use of your time would be advising me at those team building get togethers,” Ash mumbled awkwardly. “I still don’t know how the buck you’re supposed to execute smalltalk properly.”

Curtain coughed into her hoof. “Uh, yeah… I could totally help you with that.”

“You could? Great! When’s the next one? I’ll get you my internal Term-Link code before then.” Ash asked, completely unaware of the significance of his assistant’s cough.

Curtain grimaced and couldn’t help but feel just a little bad for the combat robot. She’d seen his file. She knew Ash was designed for non-combat and social purposes in addition to war. Unfortunately, the gods seemed to have hit him with the same “buck you” stick of social ineptitude they’d baseball batted her around with.

She began to think of how she could explain sarcasm to Ash, but her terminal beeped. “Cut the chatter, Ash. The vertibuck is landing.”

“Oh, good,” Ash commented as he looked up to watch the aircraft land. “The fourth rocket hit the AA gun. I was a little worried about it.”

“Why?” Curtain asked, her voice beginning to be drowned out by the vertibuck’s rotors.

“I had to make that shot from memory. Of the map,” Ash replied.

Curtain flinched. “Uh, social pro-tip. Do not tell those ponies you eyeballed the AA gun.”

“Noted,” Ash frowned and dedicated a few dozen milliseconds moments to calculating the logic on display.

What was there to dislike about making an impressive shot due to uncertain data about the location of a target? Nothing at all as far as he could see. In fact, they really should be impressed. Then again, Curtain was correct about these things a surprisingly large amount of the time…

“Curtain? When I get back can I take a look at your user manual?”

The mare smiled and shook her head. “If you can find one, sure. Ah, there we go. Your armor’s picking up their tactical circle. Let’s take a crack at these wards.”

Curtain had almost breached the Zebrican base’s wards. In addition to seeing what Ashen saw, the hexagrams in his helmet acted as a transceiver for magic. MoA Ranger’s Agents could cast certain spells through them as if they were there. The spell link was mostly suited to divination, as such, the agent became an extension of the Ranger’s EFS system, guiding them through the battlefield using the enemy’s own arcana.

Naturally, the Zebras could and did do the same thing to the ponies.

“Good,” Ash said as the Vertibuck-hauled M113 touched down with a surprisingly soft crunch of grass, underbrush, and zebra bones.

Stampede repelled from the vertibuck’s crew doors, covering the six meters to the ground in short order. Four of the soldiers immediately went to the M113’s carry hooks on each corner and unclipped the APC from the vertibuck. At the same time, the fifth hopped through the vehicle's top hatch, fired it up, and after a brief roar from the turbine as it spun up, drove the APC out from under the vertibuck.

The vertibuck itself then touched down and shut off its engines while the four who had unhooked the APC quickly deployed the door guns for the co-pilot and gunner.

“Keep her safe for us while we’re out, alright?” Blue called to the co-pilot playfully as they took control of the door gun.

“For you? Buck that. I’m keeping her safe for me,” the Co-pilot cracked back.

Blue smiled. “Personal reasons? Even better!”

“Enough chit chat, Stripe’s know we’re here!” Red called from the M113’s rear as the boarding ramp opened up. “Everypony, pile in!”

Ash took a few steps towards the APC, took one look at the cramped troop-bay with its two metal slab benches, and winced as he pictured the mission’s cargo, everypony in the squad, and their kit, all crammed into the relatively small space.

“Uh, sir? Maybe I should ride up on the roof,” Ash suggested. “Then I can use my rockets on anything the fifty-cal can’t take down.”

Red didn’t even think for a second.

“Hop on up.” He ordered as he slipped into the APC on the tail of the last member of Stamped.

Ash trotted up to the back of the APC and jumped, pushing down at the ground with his telekinesis to boost him the rest of the way up. His hooves thunked down on the armored roof just as one of the earth pony mares who he hadn’t been introduced to poked her head up through the roof hatch to man the M113’s gun.

She smiled. Ash simply jumped up to the vehicle’s roof 2.4 meters and landed it like it was nothing.

“You really think I could make a jump like that?” Mint asked hopefully.

“Yeah! You’ve got the legs for it. The trick is to jump with all four at once and all with the same force. Don't do the rear leg 75% front legs 25% thing they show you in basic. Sure that saves energy, but you don't go anywhere near as high.”

“I’ll remember that, thanks!” Mint said with a genuine smile.

“Well, damn!” she shook her head and checked the gun’s belt. “Your buckball coach must have been pissed off when you enlisted.”

Ash activated his boot magnets and dipped his barrel to “shrug”.

“I didn’t know I had one of those,” Ash said as he searched his memories for anypony with such a relationship to him.

There was none.

The M113 lurched as it started to roll forwards, crushing plant and zebra alike beneath its treads as it moved towards the river, aiming for a large gap between the rocks and trees.

“Are you kidding me?” she sputtered, looking up from her weapon check. “Legs like that and you didn’t play buckball?”

“I never got to do any sports as a foal,” Ash answered honestly, after all his personal life wasn’t classified.

“Damn… That’s a waste,” she shook her head and extended a hoof to shake. “Juniper Mint.”

“I’d shake your hoof, but I can’t selectively magnetize my boots,” Ash said with a chuckle.

“Oh…” Mint put her hoof back on the gun’s control arm. “Well, anyway… If you make it out of the war, with legs like that you could go pro. Where’d you build that kind of skill up if not on the court?”

“Oh, my parents built that, not me,” Ash corrected idly before scanning the clifftop ahead with his E.F.S. and highlighting eight targets. “But enough about me, there are eight Stripes up there. Put a few rounds left of that pointy nose-shaped rock would you?”

“On it,” Mint fired, sending half a dozen rounds whistling past the rock.

Ash watched as the zebras bunched up, backing away from the rock. One step, then two, three.

“There we go,” Ash fired his rocket pod, sending four rockets arcing up and over the clifftop to detonate and splash the clustered troops with their incendiary payloads.

“Did you just—” Mint’s comment was interrupted as one of the zebra’s who hadn’t clustered fired a shot over the cliff edge which plunged off the roof a hoof’s breath from Mint’s chest.

Mint swore under her breath and sent two dozen rounds screaming into the clifftop, forcing the zebra to back up.

“Keep him pinned, I’ll get the other two,” Ash ordered calmly as he drew Mint’s sidearm with his telekinesis and brought it to aim.

“My principality for an E.F.S. chip,” Mint growled between machinegun bursts, not noticing her pistol was being borrowed.

“Right?” Ash asked just as one of the remaining soldiers peeked over the cliff edge to fire.

Ash shot instantly, trusting his E.F.S. to have plotted the correct firing solution. The .45 round tore through the zebra’s frontal lobe, showering his surviving friend with brains and sending the zebra into a panic.

Ash shook his head and kept an eye on the cowering outline. “You’d think they’d issue everypony a pipbuck, not just the sarges.”

“Or at least—” Mint ducked down as another round bounced off the hatch behind her. “Buck! Could install one in the bucking turrets, you cheep-plot-motherbuckers!”

The panicked zebra continued to unload his rifle into the APC’s roof. His shots were wild, threatening nopony in particular. Mint yelped as a ricochet cut across the side of her neck. Ash’s shields sparked as two bounced off the golden barrier.

Ash fired again, the APC hit the riverbank just as he pulled the trigger, and his hot hit the cliff instead. The zebra stood up, reaching for a grenade on his belt. Ash grit his teeth. The APC plunged into the river, leveling out. The Zebra raised his hoof to throw. Ash fired.

His shot hit the zebra in the chest, forcing him to drop his grenade. Ash squinted at his E.F.S. display. The Zebra was still alive. But holding still, putting a hoof over the wound. The grenade would take care of him in a moment.

Ash stooped to get a look at Mint’s neck. “How bad is it?”

“Flesh wound,” she grumbled. “It’s fine. Just burns like when Haybale pees.”

“Oh, buck you!” a stallion yelled from inside the APC.

“No thanks! I don’t want what you got,” Mint called with a grin.

“She’s fine,” The squad’s medic, Stethoscope, called out in a professional tone. “As for you, Hay… I have pills for that. You just have to ask.”

“For the last time, I did not sleep with that zebra hooker!” Hay snapped.

“I’ll always find it weird how normal ponies sound on the battlefield,” Curtain Rod said in Ash’s ear.

Ash muted himself. “Oh! I know this one! It’s because it helps them pretend they are not likely to die at any moment. They’re all actually terrified, but if they act normal it helps everypony be less scared because their team seems calm and casual.”

“Yes, I know,” Curtain said politely. “It just always sounds so wrong to me.”

Not knowing how to reply, Ash unmuted himself and tapped Mint on the shoulder with the but of her pistol. “Here, I had to use three rounds. Sorry about that.”

Mint grabbed the pistol with her mouth, transferred it to a hoof, holstered it, put her hooves back on the gun’s control arm, then snapped her head back around to Ash. “Wait, you’re a unicorn?!”

“No. I’ve got a telekinesis talisman,” Ash corrected.

Mint huffed. “No fair… Rangers get all the fun toys.”

“We’ve got some openings. I can put in a good word for you if you do something awesome,” Ash promised.

The APC hit the other side of the river and began to climb up the bank, which was also the base of the cliff. The vehicle’s turbine groaned, hummed, then roared as the spark batteries began to drain more and more power. Small bolts of purple lightning crackled along the APC’s underside as the flux regulator provided just enough lift to let the transport crawl up the 84-degree slope.

It was truly a shame that the E.U.P. refused to let its inventors make its official name the “Mountain Goat”.

Rocks cracked. Chips of stone flew up from the tracks, loosened by the magics at play and hurtled away by the treads. Everypony hung onto the APC as it lurched up the cliffside, slid over the top, then slammed roughly down onto the road which had been quarried into the side of the volcano. Assault handled the angle change expertly, turning the APC even as the treads still fell towards the ground. It was time to head up the road towards the main gate. Or so the enemy would think.

The animalistic roar of alchemical engines echoed across the mountain the very instant Equestrian treads hit the clifftop. A pair of Zebrican Basilisks were on their way.

Stampede winced as the distinct engine noise pierced the relative quiet of their vehicle’s mana-reactive drive. All Zebrican vehicles roared as alchemical fires burned and detonated within their mechanical hearts, but the Basilisk's unnatural shriek was as unique as a monster’s cry.

The pair of tanks crested the bend in the road ahead. Sleek, windswept, rounded MEW resistant hull geometry covered in camouflage paint which made them appear to be obsidian deposits. They hadn’t appeared in the surveillance photos.

Basilisks were cloud tank hunting weapons. Fast. Agile. Well-armed.

They had twin turrets, one above the other, with the front turret limited to the tanks’ forward-facing ark, but the upper turret free to fire in any direction, which is why the SRM pods were mounted to the upper pods. The turrets themselves were armed with short-barreled auto-loading 18cm repeating cannons and a series of short-range machine guns for point defense. Main battle tanks, ones designed for fighting in close quarters.

“Buck me…” Mint groaned under her breath before squeezing off a burst of rounds towards the gunner’s view slit on the left-most Basilisk as the vehicles turned sideways to form a roadblock while bringing their missile pod equipped turrets to bear down on the APC.

Her rounds skipped off the tanks’ armor, with a few finding their way through the slit, but hitting nothing critical, nor anypony. The tank roared along unhindered.

“Evasive action!” Red barked.

Assault threw the left tread’s emergency brake on, bringing the M113 into a jerky, sliding, left hoof turn towards the cliffside. “Going up and over!” he announced over the boom of the Basilisk's first salvo.

The two shells blasted past the M113, the sudden turn being all that saved it. Zebrican gunners always lead their shots, but the split-second bought by dodging one rarely gave time to dodge a second.

Ashen locked his EFS onto the leftmost Basilisk's upper turret and fired a salvo of rockets. They left from his pod on a column of smoke and fire thick enough to obscure him as he disengaged the magnets and jumped from the M113’s roof.

The rockets burst on the Basilisk's hull, covering it in flames. The tank’s commander hit the fire suppression system, spraying the outside of the tank with thickened foam from recessed nozzles. Fire wouldn’t burn through the tank, but it would de-temper the armor given enough time. The foam hissed and sizzled, sending up more smoke until the crew couldn't’ see out of their foam covered metal shell while they choked on the chemical fumes.

Ashen ran directly for the other Basilisk. His shield popped and sparked as light machinegun rounds plinked off the arcane barrier. The shield held just long enough for him to jump up onto the tank’s lower turret before bursting in a shower of golden sparks as he landed in front of one gun port. Ashen reared up, drew his sword amidst a blaze of green light, and stabbed it through the gunport and through the gunner’s skull.

A panicked cry echoed from the tank’s hull as the remaining gunner, driver, and commander began to panic. Umbral Iron shouldn’t have been possible for a simple flaming melee tool to pierce, and yet with one thrust…

Their panic deepened as Ashen slashed the bolts holding the tanks’ hatch shut in two, ripped the hatch from the tank, flung it aside, then stabbed the commander through the chest. The commander thrashed as Ashen gripped his dying from by the throat with one robotic talon and flung him from the tank before jumping inside.

Mint stared on, jaw agape. Never in her life had she seen anypony decide to take on any tank in melee, let alone appear to win.

The smoldering Basilisk's smoke-filled view cleared just in time to see their partner’s turret swivel to face them, then fire. Ashen’s round hit the other Basilisk point-blank at the seam between the turret and the body. Right where his EFS reported the magazine. The tanks’ ammo cooked off instantly, blasting the turret from the other tank and sending a fireball screaming through its hull.

Mint’s jaw stayed dropped. The other members of Stampede had no clue what was going on. Their limited view from inside the APC meant they only heard the deafening blast followed by their hull shake.

“Are we hit?” Assault called as he began to drive along the cliff wall, the spark batteries screaming in protest of the power-draining maneuver.

Mint shook herself back to reality, only to find she’d been there all along. “Ashen hijacked one of them! Blew the other to Tartarus!”

“What?” Red asked, his eyes widening in shock.

Ashen popped his head out of the remaining Basilisk to throw the driver’s corpse out of the cut-open hatch. He offered Mint a friendly wave. “I can drive these! Want to upgrade?”

Mint felt a sensation she had only felt once before when the lead singer of a colt band she loved as a teen had smiled directly at her during a concert.

Her lips parted in a grin. Her eyes fluttered beneath heavy lids. “Oh, buck the hay yes~”

Red, Hay, and Steth winced at Mint’s tone of voice.

“Here we go again,” Steth groaned, pushing several flashbacks aside.

“Mint?” Red asked through clenched teeth.

“Permission to switch vehicles, sir?” Mint called down the M113’s hatch as professionally as she could manage.

Red tilted his head and frowned. "For what purpose?"

"Uh..." Mint shrugged. "To give the Stripes their tank rounds back? Our Ranger said he can drive a Basilisk, and I think I remember how they said you shoot their guns."

“He can drive those?! Do it!” Red smiled as some of the mission-worry was lifted from his back.

Mint nodded and climbed up out of the hatch fully, then jumped to the Basilisk's turret top as the M113 passed.

Battery slid up through the hatch, taking Mint’s place on the APC’s gun while Mint slid down through the hatch and into the blood-stained gunner’s seat. “How do I shoot this thing?”

Ashen grunted as he squeezed his bulky power-armored frame into the slim-fit zebra-intended driver’s seat. “Floor pedals rotate the turret. The lever on your left elevates the gun. Button on your right fires. It’s auto-loading and can do four-round bursts if you hold the trigger down. Should be an ammo counter next to the sight.”

Mint checked the turret, found the controls Ashen mentioned, then nodded. “Forty-six shots.”

“Make them count!” Ashen called up through the cramped interior cheerfully before spinning the Basilisk around in place and driving up the road, using the fact the M113 was still crawling along the cliff face to pass it and take point.

After all, the Basilisk could handle a few more hits than the APC could…

The two vehicles crawled up the mountain. By now the entire base was on alert. The sheer audacity of the Equestrian plan had the command staff in chaos. There was no way this single APC could be the whole assault. This had to be a distraction. Minimal forces were dispatched to the main road. The bulk of the Zebrican soldiers were sent to the hidden pillboxes along the volcano’s other slopes. The AA guns which could have turned down to blast the tanks aimed upwards, their operators scanning the sky for inbound Thunderheads.

The Basilisk's engine redlined the entire way to the base’s outermost checkpoint. Its engine smoked, its exhaust pipes glowed a dim red. Fast as they were, they had never been intended to keep up with an M113, let alone run point for one of the comparatively speedy APCs.

The Zebras were ready for the Equestrians, but not one of their own tanks. The checkpoint had set up a few vehicle barricades, and a platoon armed with RPGs had dug in to supplement the heavy machine gun turrets. The sight of one of their own Basilisks drifting around the corner bought Mint just enough time to blast a hole in the barricade.

The Zebras opened fire as the concrete and iron shrapnel that had been their roadblock whizzed through the air. Two rockets detonated against the Basilisk's left flank, shredding its armor and blowing a hole into the auxiliary hydraulic tank.

“Good thing we’re not using the front turret,” Ashen commented with just a bit too much clam for Mint’s liking.

Mint swiveled the main gun and put three rounds into one of the machine gun nests. Battery fired into the Zebrican rocketeers, forcing them to keep their heads down.

The two vehicles blew past the blockade, each firing as they passed, and putting a few rounds behind them until they turned the next corner on the switchback.

Mint took a moment to take stock of the M113. It had taken a hit to the front armor, and a good-sized crater had been blown into it, but the armor didn’t appear to have been breached.

“They took a good hit. Think we can get through the second checkpoint?” Mint asked as she swiveled the turret back to face the front.

Ashen shrugged. “No idea. This plan depends on the Zebra’s reaction time. If they have more tanks or realize it’s just us a bit faster than we hope… It’s over.”

Mint bit her lip and slumped in her seat. “Great. Even the super-soldier thinks this is a suicide mission…”

Ashen frowned and switched off his helmet’s intercom. “Curtain? Anything I can do to keep her morale up?”

Curtain thought for a moment, nodded, then typed a few commands into the mission terminal. “Tell her that there’s support she doesn't know about. It’s classified, but it's there.”

“I’m almost in,” Curtain added a moment later, wishing that talking didn't disrupt her spellcasting as much as it did.

Concentration was, after all, key.

Ashen unmuted himself. “It’s okay. We do have some backup. It’s almost ready… Cant’ say more. Classified.”

Mint raised an eyebrow. “Wait, what?”

“In a few more minutes, the Zebra’s wards will be down and a friend can start playing with some of their toys, guiding us through their base, maybe even get us a fresh tank,” Ashen elaborated, disregarding security protocols entirely.

Mint frowned, shook her head, then smiled. “Okay. I get it. I won't press… But your friend had better deliv—”

Something screamed as it fell from the sky.

The Basilisk shook as rubble fell down around it, nearly sweeping the tank off the road and down the cliffside. A mortar shell had detonated just above the Basilisk. Ashen swore and fought the controls, managing to ride atop the wave and find their way to safe traction before the tank tumbled off the volcano.

“Eyes on that mortar!” Ashen barked.

“On it,” Curtain said in place of her usual deep-voiced proclamation of: “I’m in.”

Mint swiveled the turret, scanning for anywhere a zebra could have set up a portable motor launcher without exposing themselves too much. The rest of Stampede followed suit, beginning what little evasive maneuvers the narrow road would allow.

A second shell exploded off target, hitting behind the two vehicles, ironically making the road impassable for the Zebrican transport trying to bring the remains of the rocketeers up to attack the Equestrian flank.

Back at MoA Headquarters, Curtain flicked through the Zberican tactical systems, using their own sensor net and targeting talismans against them. The entire battlefield began to appear on her screen, taking the shape of a vector map with colored dots to designate different threats.

Her eyes scanned over the image until… There! A small pillbox above and ahead of the Basilisk by about two hundred meters.

“Found it!” Curtain said as she uploaded the mortar’s position to the tank just in time for the third mortar shell to detonate on the Basilisk's nose.

The tank sputtered, groaned, nearly died from the shock, but continued on, creaking and groaning, its front internals now completely exposed and burning.

“Buck,” Ashen swore quietly. “We’ve got about five minutes before that reaches the fuel tanks.”

Curtain hit her transmission circuit, using Ashen’s armor as a relay to upload tactical data to the Basilisk. Mint’s question relating to the fire was pushed aside as the tanks’ targeting talisman highlighted the mortar next for her. She fired seven shells without a word, smattering them across the pillbox and turning it to little more than smoking dust.

“I like your friend,” Mint said with a satisfied smile.

“Me too,” Ash said as the fire began to burn a pale green. “Oh no! Bail!”

Ash’s estimate had been for an entirely different model of Basilisk. This one’s fuel tank was further forward.

Mint needed no prompting. She stood up, pulled her self out of the turret, and dropped off the side, hitting the ground with a roll to hurt herself as little as possible.

Ash turned the tank away from the volcano, threw the throttle wide open, did his best to ignore the shriek of his shields collapsing rapidly amid the flames licking his hooves, and began to pull himself through the tight quarters to the hatch. His armor scraped the sides of the crew compartment, wedging and pinching with every movement. The tank roared towards the cliff.

Ashen gripped the base of the gunner’s seat. The Basilisk's treads began to dip down as more of the tank was over the air than on the road. The tank tipped forwards. Ashen pulled himself into the gunner’s seat.

It began to fall. Ashen heaved himself out of the hatch, onto the turret, ran forwards, and stumbled as the tank pitched completely off the cliff. Ashen looked up, started to calculate his odds of surviving the 80-meter fall, only to be pulled up onto the road by a silvery-blue light as Battery caught him with his unicorn magic as the APC slid to a stop.

Battery levitated Ashen up onto the road and smiled. “That’s one cider you owe me, Ranger!” He called down from the turret.

“Understood. Thank you!” Ashen called back as he jumped back onto the M113’s roof.

“Could you have made that?” Curtain asked, knowing Ashen’s fondness for abusing his telekinesis talisman and Neighton’s third law of motion.

“I don’t think so,” Ashen answered honestly, forgetting to mute himself. “I was trying to find a way to survive the drop.”

Battery blinked then turned to levitate Mint onto the roof. “Uh… You okay in that shell, sir?” he asked while lifting.

Ashen frowned in distress. “Oh… Sorry. Forgot to mute myself when talking to my Mare-in-a-Chair.”

“Huh?” Battery frowned.

“He’s got an MoA mage feeding him tactical data. But that’s classified,” Mint explained before gesturing for Battery to get off the gun so she could take over once more.

Battery dropped into the APC's interior with a big grin and winked at Red. “Don’t tell no pony, but our Ranger friend comes with a classified MoA Mage on tactical overwatch duty.”

Red sighed in relief. “Good! This op might just be survivable after all. Assault, this is as good a spot as any to head off-road.”

Assault nodded and spun the APC to face up the cliff. “Spark batteries have recharged… Let’s do it!”

The APC lurched, titled, and groaned as it climbed up the slope once more. They cut a curving path westwards, dipping into a blindspot between the Zebrican pillboxes to make their way around the slope to the west side. Where the zebras had built a small auxiliary airship dock.

As the M113 went offroad, the Zebra command staff had figured out they’d been had. No bigger assault was coming, and now a commando squad with armored support was loose behind their main defensive line. What’s worse, their mage had put dozens of false sensor echoes into their wards. The M113 seemed to be heading in a dozen different directions.

There were legionaries enough to chase the Equestrians down, but this was after the siege of Per-Atum. Not a single Zebrican commander was willing to believe any of the dots in their scrying mirror were real. Certainly, the ponies had wiped the real signature from the sensor grid. At the very least, there was no way the real APC was the one heading for the fighter launch bay on the western slope. There was simply no way for a terrestrial vehicle other than a Titan to enter the base that way.

Assault had pushed the poor M113 to its very last spark of magic. The vehicles had never been intended to use their climbing spell for more than two minutes, and here he was pushing the five-minute mark. The spark batteries were so dry Stampede’s Unicorns were feeding their own magic into the system just to keep it running.

“Thirty more seconds!” Assault called out as he twisted the control sticks to angle the APC down the slope.

“We have twelve!” Blue corrected as he gave the engine another blast from the fire extinguisher.

The flames flickered out, but the oily smoke continued to rise.

“Make the time or we’ll roll this thing down to the bottom and burn,” Assault growled, jerking the sticks as the APC fought every last input he gave.

The APC crept towards the sharp cliff edge it had been crawling towards for the last few minutes. The cabin’s air shimmered with waste heat, the poor engine’s cooling system had been maxed out for the last five minutes.

“We’re gonna die…” Hay murmured quietly to himself.

“Probably,” Steth agreed as the doctor quickly checked his shotgun.

Fully loaded.

Hay reached into his shirt pocket, pulled a small holotape from his uniform’s pocket, and slapped it into the APC’s PA system. “Might as well go out to some tunes worth a buck.”

Assault nodded in agreement and hit the play button. The eerie wail of an electric guitar split the air. A type of music the Ministry of Image banned years ago for being “not Equestrian”. Naturally, this meant every single soldier had a tape or two.

“From Unique’s Straw Hat. Good choice, Hay. Everypony, brace for drop!” Red ordered before slipping his mouth guard in place.

Every M113 came with a set of twelve mouthguards. Nopony wanted to lose their teeth during what the manual referred to as a “gravity facilitated aerial insertion.”

Everypony grabbed onto the nearest handle, rollbar, and seat edge.

Assault pulled the throttle wide open, forcing the APC to sail off the cliff at the highest speed the burning vehicle could manage. The tracks sailed across the volcanic rock, staying mostly horizontal as the vehicle sailed off the edge.

There would be no nose-first dive today.

Zebra technicians in the airship hanger looked up at the sound of an abused engine’s pained screaming just in time to see an Equestrian APC fall from the sky and plow into the reinforced landing ramp jutting out of the mountain treads first like a tool chest falling off a skyscraper.

Wrenches, hammers, and screwdrivers clattered to the floor as dozens of techs scrambled to draw their sidearms. Somezeeb began to scream “Wasiliana!”, desperately hoping actual soldiers would hear and come running to help. Their more level headed friend hit the alarm, filling the hanger with the eerie wail of klaxons echoing off the rows of airships and interceptors.

The vehicle’s shocks screeched and burst under the stress, spraying hydraulic fluid across the launch ramp. The shocks were fail-safe, and took most of the impact out of the drop... but everypony’s head still hit the roof.

Everypony, save Mint and Ash. Ash’s magboots kept him solidly in place though the impact still shook his circuits, making his vision flicker and pop. Meanwhile, Mint had a gunner’s seat punch her right in the marehood. Being the sane and rational mare she was, Mint decided the best course of action was to have a well-deserved whimper and cry while learning on the M113’s gun.

"Ooowhowhowhowhwiee...." She sobbed over the roar of small arms fire.

For a moment the APC was filled with quiet swearing, groans, and loving affection for Equestrian combat helmets. Then the terrified fighter ground crews opened fire with their sidearms and began to coat the APC’s armor with a fresh layer of lead.

Ash released his mag boots, stepped in front of Mint, and hunkered down, letting her benefit from his shield while he returned fire with rockets and his SMG.

Stampede was shaken but had no time to get things together. The APC’s ramp began to drop.

“Come on! We gotta cover them!” Ash shouted over the sounds of gunfire.

“Bruised… entire… marehood…” Mint whimpered into the gun.

Ash winced. “Ow. Sit tight, I’ll cover your shift,” he said before jumping off the APC.

Ash looked around the hanger. Dozens of tool chests, parts carts, and ammunition crates were scattered around the hanger, providing cover for at least fifty technicians. Six rows of airships sat between them and the doors leading into the base.

The closed doors. With an orange hazard light and siren above them.

“Yeah, those are locked… Curtain?” Ash prompted as he lifted his foreleg and put six rounds through one of the techs.

Curtain punched a few commands into the mission terminal then cast a probing spell. The third airship on the right blinked green on her screen. “I have something. Forty seconds to penetrate the wards.”

Ash nodded and got to work. Ash sprinted through the hanger on a seemingly random course, leaping over one obstacle only to slide behind the next. Every shot he had while running, he took. Ash’s SMG barked almost non-stop, silencing only when Ash had to load a fresh magazine. Most of his shots missed, but forced the zebras into cover.

The zebra techs shifted their fire to the Ranger barreling at them, but their pistols were nothing compared to legionnaires rifles. Their mundane bullets plinked off Ash’s shields, draining minimal power with each hit… what few connected in the first place.

Mint took a deep breath and forced her aching groin into the back of her mind. She swiveled the M113’s gun around and added the 50 cal’s furry to Ash’s hit and run harassment. More than a few bullets flew her way, only to slam into the turret’s steel shield.

The rest of Stampede poured out of the now very much on fire APC, taking what shots they could. Assault rifle cracks, shotgun blasts, and submachine gunfire. The hymn of modern warfare, punctuated by the occasional thump of Red’s underslung 20mm grenade launcher.

Haybale was the only pony not firing. The drop trashed the APC’s shocks, and also its cooling system. The engine fire was beginning to blaze out of control… and they had several bombs aboard. The stallion ran in and out of the APC, removing mission equipment while his squadmates covered him, taking shots at the zebras Ash pushed out of cover with his mad-dash.

Amidst the chaos, a 20mm grenade round caught the ground crew’s sergeant in the barrel. The Zebra disappeared in a gore-saturated fireball, emerging a moment later splattered across the side of a Zebrican interceptor.

The techs broke instantly, turning and running for the side exits or the nearest hiding place.

“Advance!” Red barked around his battle saddle's bit, waving the squad towards the hanger’s main doors.

Mint pulled the retaining pin off the M113’s turret mount and locked the weapon to her own battle saddle. The APC’s burning engine crackled beneath her, something Mint had not noticed until this moment as she looked down to grab the spare ammo boxes.

“Buck!” Mint yelped, abandoning the two ammo crates in favor of diving off the APC’s roof.

She landed just as the two crates began to cook off, adding thumps and pops to the endless cracking of gunfire.

Blue thrust one hoof towards the hanger doors. “Sir! Those look pretty locked down to me.”

“We’ve got three breaching charges… We’ll go around,” Red decided, waving his squad to take the hanger's secondary exit on the left where a small knot of zebras was still falling back.

Mint caught up to the group and put a short burst of machinegun fire through the smaller doors, hoping to scare the zebras into forgetting to close them. Her rounds caught one of the fleeing technicians, resulting in their friend stopping and emptying their pistols’ magazine at Stampede.

One of the rounds caught Hay’s helmet, ringing it like a bell. Hay staggered back, shaking his head from the hit. Then a second round caught him in the throat, ripping out his voicebox, and bronchial artery. The stallion gurgled, stumbled to the left, then fell over dead.

“Hay!” Steth shrieked, followed by a wordless cry of rage.

“Buck down!” Red bellowed, hoping to get Ash’s attention.

The Doctor raised his weapon and fired, filling the doorway with buckshot until his weapon clicked empty.

Ash looked back at the cry and swore under his breath. He’d been doing his best to track down the technicians busy hiding in crates and behind tool chests. Nopony liked being shot at from behind.

“Curtain, we need to get out of here,” he said as he ran back towards Stampede in the hopes of providing a better target for the fleeing techs.

Curtain grit her teeth in concentration, then a moment later finished her spell. “Done. Doors will be open in three…” the agent focused her magic, directing it to the particular subsystem she’d been targeting.

“Two…” One of the zebrican airship’s dorsal turrets hummed to life.

Red swore under his breath and dove for cover as the twin 30mm cannons swung across Stamped’s position… then aimed squarely at the hanger’s main doors.

“One…” Curtain murmured, doing her best to split her attention between the dim, misty, grayscale image of the gun in her mind with Ash’s E.F.S. data to aim properly.

The airship’s cannons thundered. Dozens of shells struck the main doors, shredding them in moments, then blasting chunks out of the stone walls behind the doors, severing power lines, and plunging the hanger into darkness.

“Door’s open,” Curtain sighed as she let her spell go and wiped the sweat from her brow. “And I need a few minutes… and something to eat. That thing was warded but good.”

Ash nodded and slid to a halt next to the soldiers, lighting his helmet’s headlamp as he came to a stop. “Who did we lose?”

“We lost Haybale,” Blue said grimly. “I don’t know how to arm a satchel charge. Does anypony else?”

“I can do it,” Mint said while giving Ash a glare. “What were you doing?!”

“Outflanking, suppressing, forcing the enemy out of cover, buying time for my Mare-in-a-Chair to blow the doors open,” Ash answered.

“It’s not his fault, Mint,” Red said as he put a hoof on her shoulder. “He doesn't know our strategies, we don’t know his.”

Mint closed her eyes for a moment. “I— I know…”

Red looked out across the jungle through the hangar bay’s open doors. “We’ll be extracted here… Leave him for now. We’ll take him on the way out. Mint, take the bomb. Ash, you’re going to stick closer to us. Use that armor and shield of yours as mobile cover, got it?”

Ash thought for a moment, then nodded. “Understood… I can do better than that. Just a second.”

Ash turned and searched the hanger for a moment, his eyes landed on an abandoned tool cart next to one of the zebrican interceptors. A group of techs had been busy welding new armor onto the aircraft.

Ash moved to the cart, picked a large plate up from the stack, levitated the welder’s nozzle over, and began to weld a clamp onto the back of the plate to serve as a handle.

“Wait,” Blue asked through a half frown. “You’re a unicorn? How does your horn fit in that helmet?”

“It doesn't,” Ash reapplied without looking up from his work.

Thus, he missed everypony’s horrified wince. The squad went through a rapid flurry of tactical sign language to try and quietly debate if anypony should say anything at all in regards to their ally’s apparent mandated by law disfigurement. Ash, completely ignorant of the panic he’d caused with an attempted joke, simply continued to weld.

“What are you doing?” Battery asked just in time for Ash to rear up and activate his talons.

Ash hefted the improvised tower shield with his left foreleg and drew his blade. “I’ll take point. Mint, your gun’s got a shield too. Stick to my left, we’ll cover more of the squad that way.”

Mint nodded wordlessly and moved to position.

Assault shivered and looked over to Steth. “How the buck is he standing like that? It ain't natural.”

“Some ponies can do that,” Steth muttered bitterly as he lay a hoof on his dead friend's shoulder. “It’s like rolling your tongue into a "u" shape... There's nothing I can do for Hay. He's gone...”

Ash looked over his shoulder to Blue. “I had a minotaur lady yell at me until I got it right. If you’re interested, I can find her next of kin to do the same for you. Unfortunately, she’s passed… At least her blade wasn’t put to rest with her.”

Seth's eyes narrowed as he whipped his head around to glare at Ash. "A good pony just died!"

Ash nodded. "Yes. That's the purpose of soldiers like us. To kill as is needed and to die as She demands."

Stampede stared at Ash, silently judging his apparent callousness.

Ash gave his sword in his right talon a quick spin to activate the enchantments on it, sending a blaze of green light flickering through the quiet hanger bay.

"The purpose of the enemy, on the other hoof, is to die as we demand. I say Hay costs them about, oh... sixty. Sounds right?"

Mint's hateful look faded. "Yeah. That does sound right. We'll make it sixty-nine. Hay would have liked that."

Red took a quick breath and pointed to the now open doors. “Let's move. We have half a klick to cover.”

The squad began to jog towards the inner doors. Their hooves clattered against the stone floor and echoed off the now silent hanger’s walls. They all remembered what little the crudely sketched base map had shown. A straight shot through the main tunnel to the heart of the volcano. Where the balefire munitions plant lay waiting.