It had been a house, once. Small, but cozy, perfect for the Earth pony farmer who’d built it. Just enough for his family. One could imagine the pale beige paint on its firm wooden walls, or the pretty trim insisted on by his loving wife. A sheet roof to keep the rain out, and big beautiful windows, left wide open so you could see the best view of his land, his fields filled with freshly sowed grain.
Now there was nothing but ash and the lingering smell of napalm.
The last ruins of the home, no more than a few stubborn planks trying to keep up the facade of a wall, collapsed as the forty-ton beast rolled over them. This had been a house once, now it was a grave.
The steel monster continued without so much as a bump, tracks, and bogie wheels clattering as it crushed all before them. The driver jostled with the controls as he fought to temper the destructive power of his machine. His name was Slim Fit, he had been a tailor once, but conscription made that nothing but a distant, fading memory.
The bow machine gun swept left to right and back again, checking for hikers. It paused briefly as its operator, a mare named Quick Fix, received a radio message. She turned back towards the loader, Cylinder.
“Pass it up to Glory, some foals from the 38th are being pinned by bug armor just south of Fairflanks, asking us for support.”
“The 38th, aren’t they Solaris? Amateurs!” Cylinder complained.
“Fuck if I know, just pass it up!” There was a grumble of assent and the loader popped out of his top hatch.
“Glory, looks like some militia fucks south of Fairflanks need us to bail ‘em out.” Tank commander Rising Glory referred to his map then looked to the loader and nodded. Fairflanks was situated in a wooded valley, but that could work to their advantage.
“Right, tell Slim to take us onto 13 North, we’ll come up behind them.”
“Just us? What about the rest of the division, this could be a big fight, boss.”
“The rest of the 4th is either busy with the mop-up or still unloading at Whitebell. It’s us or no one,” said Glory. The loader closed his hatch with a muttered curse.
Glory watched as his tank, a River Republic lend-lease model, churned up the ground in an effort to turn, righting itself onto the poorly paved road. He thought of his unit and the division. The 4th “Green” Royal Armoured Division, along with five other armoured divisions were formed under utmost secrecy with the codename Rainbow, eventually, some bureaucrat thought it’d be good for PR if every one of them was named after colours of the rainbow.
Now, “Green” was all that was left.
“Red” was destroyed during the battle of the frontiers near Acornage, “Orange” disappeared during the encirclement at Vanhoover, and “Yellow” died to a pony at the battle of the Solar Plains. Glory didn’t even want to remember what happened to the others, before the war, out East, lest he drew the ire of an Inquisitor. There was a light tap on his hind leg, he looked down at his gunner. Snap Shot had been with him longer than anypony else in the crew, and they trusted each other implicitly.
“We’re almost there, Glory, you should button up.” The woods around them were clearing up, soon he'd be exposed.
He shook his head. “No, I’ve got to see what’s going on, tell Slim to send us towards that low wall.” He said as he motioned with his hoof, not that his gunner would see where he was pointing.
“Alright, don’t let any hikers roast us.” His gunner said as he withdrew to pass on the instructions. A few seconds later, the tank shifted left as the driver repositioned and moved to where Glory had ordered. He could hear the battle over the engine thrum now. Booming of cannons, sporadic rifle fire, and the cloth tearing sound of machinegun bursts. He could tell by the sound that most of the fire was coming from bug guns.
They were rolling into a valley, the verdant fields smoking from the impacts of scattered artillery barrages and the engine whine of a low-flying plane droning out in the distance. The scattered buildings of what had once been a sleepy village were coming into view around him, most had suffered significant damage from a recent battle. He tried not to think about how many doors had been kicked open.
He lowered himself into the cupola so that only his head stuck out, then he reached towards his radio headset and placed it on his head. He took a deep breath and reached out towards the side of the turret, tapping the painted letters denoting the tank’s name, HEAD WEST.
“Punch it.” He ordered.
The engine roared to life as the driver gripped the tiller and slammed the accelerators forward. The front of the tank smashed through the low stone wall like it was made of paper. Clearing the obstruction, Glory got his first look at the battlefield.
Burnt-out friendly vehicles lined the dirt track ahead of him, infantry scattered around them, dead, dying, or desperately trying to avoid being hit. The banner of the regiment was being propped up by corpses. On all sides of the massacre, Changeling armor and assault teams poured in fire from well-prepared cover. It was a textbook ambush. It had one flaw though, it counted on speed. Get in, hit your target, and get away before the enemy could respond.
Changeling planners counted on captured wrecks and stolen blueprint designs for their intelligence, thus, they concluded that Equestrian armor moved at a top speed of fifteen miles per hour. This was true, Equestrian models moved at a blisteringly slow speed, engine designs marred by scandal and peacetime neglect. River Republic models did not.
They entered the fight at forty miles per hour and began firing.
The gyroscopic stabilizer groaned as it strained to keep the gun level. The gunner fired and shouted for a reload. Glory watched the shell scream through the air and slam into the back of a Changeling Mark Four, its engine burst into flames and the crew came tumbling out.
“Watch out for hikers!” He called. The bow machinegun opened up and stitched neat rows of bullets through the tank crew. One made it into nearby foliage and disappeared.
The gun banged again, a shell striking the side of another Mark Four as it tried in vain to turn towards him. The ammo detonated and the turret threw itself sixty feet into the air before crashing back down to the ground. Glory could hear the shout of defiance as the encircled 38th rallied at the sight. He put his mind towards the three remaining Changeling tanks.
Ignoring the ambushed infantry, the tanks turned to face their new opponent, no doubt intending to avenge their fallen brethren. Changeling assault teams removed tubular launchers from rucksacks. Glory gritted his teeth.
“Gunner, take one more shot then wait for my order to fire, Slim, put that house on the right between us and those bugs.” The bow machinegun opened up again, spraying rounds at an anti-tank team that seemed to have materialized right in front of them. The launcher operator fired and was cut down. The rocket streaked towards them and hit the turret cheek, glancing off the slope and into the clearing behind them. The Changeling loader barely had time to scream before forty tons of steel rolled over him.
The cannon fired again, and another Changeling tank brewed up with no survivors. The 38th was staging a counter-attack now, tactics were mostly lost on those fanatics and they closed to melee with the Changelings, rifle butts, and bayonets flashing. No quarter was given.
They were behind the building now, it was a small structure, but just enough to block the bug armor from seeing them. Slim let off the accelerator and began to slow down.
“Don’t stop, keep up the speed!” Glory screamed into the microphone. There was a split-second of hesitation, but they’d been together since the start of the war and trusted each other with their lives. Slowing down and taking cover is what the bugs expected them to do, they were ponies, prey animals that ran from a stand-up fight. Changelings were apex predators, they divided, and they conquered. They’d come around both sides of this prey’s hiding spot and tear it apart.
“Gunner, slew the turret left!” He shouted. Instantly, the gears in the turret ring began to grind, shifting left, electricity and magic sparked off the cabling as it struggled under the pressure.
They crashed through the house at top speed, blowing up a huge cloud of dust and debris. The sun shined through, and for that brief moment, even Glory thought he could feel the Princess-turned-God-Empress was watching over them.
The smoke cleared on their left as they rolled behind a Changeling tank, its commander gesturing frantically out of the cupola at them.
“Gunner, take them.” The gun fired and another Changeling tank was reduced to scrap. Its crew bailing out and running to cover. Glory ignored them as he swiveled, trying to find the other tank, one more and they’d have won.
It found them first.
He saw the barrel as it cleared the smoke, and cried out a futile warning as it fired. A shell slammed into the side of his tank. Armoured or not, there was a price for speed. The tank screeched to a halt, throwing up dirt as it did so. Already understanding the danger, the turret began swinging right, the power supply sputtering and stalling out as it did so.
“Glory, Slim’s fucked up bad, Fix is unconscious, and the turret power just gave out!” Snap Shot called out.
“Switch to manual crank then.” Glory said calmly, knowing it would never be fast enough. He glanced down, seeing both his gunner and loader cursing enough to make a sailor blush as they tried to force the primitive cranks to move. He smiled, he liked his crew.
He looked up at the Changeling tank and stood a little taller out of the cupola. He couldn’t count the number of kill rings it had on the barrel, but it looked like a lot. The bug commander was also out of his cupola, looking at Glory with a smirk of satisfaction. He saw the Changling take in a breath to give the order that would kill him.
Then he saw what was behind him.
The Changeling faltered as he felt a cold shadow wash over him, he turned and gasped in alarm as a towering pony pulled him from the cupola and tossed him over the side of the tank. He fell into the waiting hooves of dozens of Solaris Militia, eager to take their revenge, they didn’t bother with weapons.
The figure produced a small white grenade and dropped it through the hatch, a second later, it detonated. A cloud of off-white smoke poured from every crack and hatch of the bug tank. Glory could barely stand the chemical heat from where he was, a dozen feet away. Two Changelings pulled themselves out of the driver’s escape hatch, screaming as chitin and bone sloughed off their bodies like wet paint. The figure stepped out of the cloud and cut them down with a sword held in a magical grip. He walked jovially towards Glory’s tank and exhaled, toxic chemicals leaking out of his nose and throat with no signs of discomfort.
“Faith in our God-Empress has its benefits.” He stated matter-of-factly. His white coat gleamed with sweat, the heavy Inquisition jacket he wore no doubt exacerbating the heat tremendously.
Glory stayed silent.
“Of course,” The creature continued, “we would have been lost without your timely aid, I am Inquisitor Everlit, and I shall mention you in my dispatches, perhaps the God-Empress may even favour you with a medal.”
Glory took out a cigarette and lit it. “I don’t suppose you have any medical equipment to spare? My crew has been injured.”
The Inquisitor laughed. “I think we can part with some for your noble actions.” He continued talking after that, but Glory stopped listening, he was focused on the Solaris Militia behind the Inquisitor, who still hadn’t finished stomping the Changeling tank commander into the dirt beneath them.
