December 6, 1277 - Mission Day 58

Deep under the waters of the Bay of Fortune, a trail of Ranger-Marines casually strode through the silt and sand of the ocean floor.

All infantry-pattern power armor models had some waterproofing, as they needed to be able to keep a pressure seal. However, in most models long-term submersion would result in trickles leaking in through the joints and mechanisms eventually, drowning the occupant. This was not the case for Marine armor, which refused to allow the ocean and carefully controlled the buoyancy of the suit to prevent bogging or floating.

The water's surfaced glistened in the distance as they climbed the long, steep slope leading up towards the beach. Strange, bloated fish swam nearby, illuminated by the low light vision modes in their helmets. The undersea world was almost completely void of plant life or coral... though this was not unsurprising for a busy industrial harbor like Las Pegasus's.

It did beg the question in Lieutenant Full Clip's mind, as he strode onwards ahead of the assault squad, as to what exactly the fish were eating. Was there sea life farther offshore and this was some sort of breeding ground for them? Were they eating radiation or something? Apparently those zombies they kept in the lockup and the one going around masquerading as Captain Star Strider ate radiation, but he couldn't imagine them being too healthy to eat.

Then, he realized he was actively eating fish. As another one of the sea creatures crossed inside the range of his grainy vision, his stomach seized at its disgusting appearance combined with the memory of eating one of its brethren for breakfast.

"Surface near," he commented idly as their depth reached just twenty meters, the waves, surface, and beach appearing in the distance. Water sloughed off his team's armor moments later as they emerged, stomping deep potholes into the trash-covered sandy beaches of Las Pegasus.

Quickly - or as quick as heavy infantry power armor could move - they galloped across the beach and to the cover of the ruined buildings on the other side. Following the guidance of their automap, they walked through broken streets and alleys, slowly getting into a flanking position just to the north side of Sunset Town.

They chose an old schoolhouse as the staging area for their attack. The entirety of the central-city facing wall was destroyed, but the remaining walls and half-collapsed roof still provided cover from the enemy occupying the city. Full Clip himself stuck near a window, slowly scoping out targets in the wasteland settlement as his crew unpacked a mortar kit from a waterproof bag.

CS gas was loaded into the mortars, before being quickly and professionally zeroed in on the city. And then, they waited.

"Freaky," Shot Stack commented, watching as they were escorted deep into the refurbished ruins of the Blueblood Army Academy. His face peered through a door as they passed, showing a pony in priestly robes patrolling between tables of aging technology.

Two bulky Rangers in the standard T-51 Heavy Infantry Patterns walked with them, pistons wheezing and clunking with every movement and battle saddles in their safe positions. They'd, at first, been regarded with some suspicion an alarm - not completely surprising as they arrived under the cover of radio silence and stealth. However, once they explained they were from the Indefatigable, the Rangers didn't delay in taking them to their leader.

It had become almost immediately apparent to Ice Slushee and the rest of her squad that these were Survivor Rangers, not a squad from the ship that had set up an outpost. The scruffy ponies drilling on the fields, described as 'initiates', and the fact there wasn't a single star, chevron, or Equestrian flag in sight had clued them into that. She was also fairly sure that if any Rangers drill sergeant saw the state of their power armor, she'd probably faint on the spot.

A robed unicorn stepped out into the corridor out ahead of them, her mouth suddenly dropping in shock, "Are those MK II Advanced Pegasus!?" she gasped.

"Sure is..." Spear Bash muttered through her speakers, mechanized tail flicking nervously.

"Out of the way, Scribe," one of the Rangers escorting them growled through their, slightly crackly speakers. The unicorn hopped to it, clearing the hallway completely as the armored Pegasi and Rangers' bulk took up the entirety of the corridor.

"The phantoms continue to amaze me..." Ice heard the unicorn mutter to another robed pony, the two of them watching them as they walked away.

They walked into what seemed to be a computer room, with the mainframe control panel desk being converted into what seemed to be a command station for an elderly, earth pony mare. The room, however, was the first time Ice saw something familiar. A unicorn examined one of the computer CPU cards, a hoof to her chin as she conversed with other robed priest ponies. The symbol of the MAS was mounted on a patch on her shoulder.

Her eyes turned towards the new entrants to the room, "Oh! What're you doing here?"

"Carrying a message from Command," Crystal Trail informed as they walked by her, being lead by the armored ponies to the elder. The unicorn nodded at that, watching them go by.

Looking between their escorts and the unicorn, Ice let herself lag behind as she turned to the MAS tech, "What're you guys doing here?"

"Helping fix their stuff," the technician answered, levitating up a circuit solderer next to her, "We think if we can restore the rest of these computer banks we might be able to query the Single Pony Project."

"Didn't we try that from the ship already? Why would this help?" Ice furrowed her brow behind her faceplate and visor, a few meter's distance now growing between her and her comrades.

The technician simply shrugged, "I-"

One of the robed ponies interrupted, "Perhaps they have sealed this network connection to pre-war Navy computers, but not Army ones. Let's get back to work, Scribe Chip," the unicorn then urged, gesturing towards the circuit board.

"I dunno, but we've been helping them restore a lot of technology," 'Chip' explained, giving a slightly annoyed look towards the priestly unicorn, "We've even been working on a tank they have in the garage upstairs."

"A tank?" Ice frowned. Tanks were a very early war concept. A vehicle with enough armor to resist anything sort of specialized weapons. They were great, but got outmoded by the deployment of Power Armor. The Zebras stuck with the idea, though... the 51st had seen their fair share of striped tanks.

"Yeah," Chip turned around at another urge from the priest. She continued to talk over her shoulder, though, "It's kinda cool working with these guys go. I'm just an undergrad, but they treat me like I'm a sage fucking goddess here. It's great! The meals could be better, but it's great!"

Ice's ear flicked towards the sounds of conversation between Crystal Trail and the elderly mare sitting at the mainframe desk. After giving one more look up and down the computer bank, she hesitantly turned to join back up with her fellows.

The apparent leader of the survivor Rangers was rather resplendently dressed. Once again, it seemed to be some sort of religious robe, colored green and yellow after the primary colours of the MoWT. While it was well-decorated and looked nothing like the uniform of an Equestrian general or high officer, it definitely put off an air of authority and class. The mare within it, though, looked like classic Canterlot brass. Old, eyes crinkling at the sides... yep. Looked like she belonged at a podium making an inspiration speech about how next Hearth's Warming would be the big one.

"You are being besieged by the Syndicate Raiders?" the elder raised her eyebrow.

"Yes. Command believes a feint assault with your forces on their headquarters will force them to split their forces. We are already preparing a surprise attack on Sunset Town to take out any possible SAM sites. Once Sunset Town has been secured, we plan on reinforcing your side of the attack in order to capture Gun Rush Casino. You have the override codes for the Stable Doors there, yes?" Crystal Trail asked, reading almost word for word off of the text file Lightning Bringer had sent before they cut radio contact.

The elder nodded, though her face remained suspicious, "A seemingly sound strategy... and yes we do have Stable override codes, they won't be able to hold out inside the Gun Rush. The only part I'm still confused on is how precisely these raiders are threatening your ship. You have mounted weaponry and mortars, correct?"

"They've taken hostages, and there's civilians in the splash zone," Crystal Trail simply said.

Her eyes remained on Crystal's for the longest time, before she eventually muttered, "...Civilians and hostages, right. You know they're just trying to play with you, those tribals are in league with the Syndicate raiders, right?"

"What's a tribal?" Radio Whistle suddenly asked, despite an annoyed turn of the head from Crystal Trail.

"Others call them Wastelanders," the elder said, almost dismissively as she leaned back in her chair, "They are a savage bunch. As you can clearly see, they only respect the power of the strong and take advantage of the weak. They constantly fight and wear themselves out to the point where they can hardly maintain a community. They have no respect for authority, command, and order. I'm sure you can understand, you raided their outpost at Stable 83."

Pounce Chaser's ear flicked upwards at that, "They raped a bunch of captives and sent one of their parents to be sold as slaves."

"A just slaughter indeed!" the elder said, in a voice that almost sounded pleasant, "My word may not mean much to you, but I must personally commend you on that action. Were you ordered to do so by your superiors?"

"Why does this matter to the operation?" Crystal Trail said, her voice laced only very thinly with a veil of patience.

"Oh it doesn't at all. Either way, it was a most noble slaughter. You apparently didn't leave any prisoners, too," the elder straightened up, "We will mobilize all that we can. Did your commanders suggest a battle strategy?"

Ice narrowed her eyes at the mare. Did she not know about the rescued captives and the prisoner they took? Likely not...

"We suggest attacking the Harbor Bridge. From what our maps indicate, there is no safe crossing that will give us a fast enough route to reach the casino, not without an airlift, anyway," Crystal Trail suggested, once again from the transferred text file, "The threat of us taking an accessway to their headquarters is equally as threatening as attacking it directly, while being faster than going around the river and safer than fording it."

"We will bring mortar equipment to shell their compound. The bridge will be heavily guarded, but you're quite right. We don't need to take it," the elder nodded, "Will your team be supporting us?"

Crystal Trail gave a simple nod, before adding, "We may have to reposition at some point to establish secure contact with the ship, but we will help lead the first attack."

"Then may it be written in the chronicles of the Steel Rangers that on this day, the Ministry fights alongside its sister in battle once again!"

The whistle of shells landing on the compound of the Gun Rush Casino raised the alarm. Explosions shattered the already pock-marked plaza and guests of the casino and guards alike dove for cover as the detonations rang ears and filled the air with shrapnel. The first blood of the battle, a random gambler sitting just barely too close to a window, fell to the floor as a piece of mortar shell casing shot right through his skull.

Guards rushed to sandbag fortifications, quickly loading the exceedingly expensive boxes of machinegun ammo into their respective turrets in the nest. From across the river, on the other side of the bridge, fire was quickly returned. The rattle of heavy machine guns filled the air as long streams of tracer ammunition volleyed back and forth across the river.

To a gun commander's immense surprise, a flash of a laser weapon followed one of the rattles of gunfire. His head exploded into ash as the rest of his body quickly followed suit, leaving just a smoking hole in a helmet and an empty set of makeshift leather armor. More precision laser shots followed, firing from unseen positions in the ruins across the river, dusting more and more exposed heads. Faced with sniper fire, ponies quickly ducked further behind the sandbags. Machineguns moved to canvas the hostile positions, but isolated examples of fire continued to blast from all across the river bank.

There was no attempt by the enemy to actually attempt to cross the bridge connecting their sides of the river, yet local commanders were uninterested in that fact. They were more concerned that they, isolated from the rest of their forces, were being pitted against a full scale assault by the Steel Rangers.

The 5-inch turrets, usually used to stop illicit river traffic, rotated slowly by the use of manual cranks. A crew loaded a single shell before hauling the trigger, eardrums bursting as a hostile position disappeared in an equally loud detonation. Its sister gun fired shortly after, though its recoil arm decided to promptly crack in half and fall out the back of the turret shortly after its shell found its target.

Across the river, Ice winced as her automatic sound dampeners activated, numbing the sound of the blast just a few doors down from her position. Spreading her wings, she scooted out of her position as return fire laced her building, punching giant 50 cal-shaped holes in the concrete where she was hiding a few moments ago.

The Rangers, as usual, were standing stalwart as bullets ricocheted off their helmets and chestplates, filling the air with the whirr of miniguns and the distant rattle of rapid-fired grenades. Ice, for her part, was satisfied with alighting on a nearby tree, camly zeroing on a target as hostile fire impacted all around her, shooting, then scooting once again. Pink light blasted from her twin rifles as another unlucky soul with an assault rifle lost her life. She spread wings and moved again.

Their squadlink, paired with the Steel Ranger's channel, was all professionalism, though understandably crowded. The enemy heavy guns seemed to be being used extremely sparingly, which the Rangers reasoned was due to a lack of ammunition. They, equally, lacked enough mortar shells to destroy the enemy defenses and risk a push. As long as the enemy stayed entrenched, there was very little they were doing aside from wasting ammunition.

A hole was suddenly punched in the helmet of a Knight down on the road beneath Ice. Blood spilt from the hole as the Ranger, power armor still stiff, stood mid-stride. Following the shot, Ice's eyes immediately caught sight of several hostiles in the fortifications across the river, armed with A-M rifles.

She lined one of the easier to hit snipers up, blasting her in the exposed part of her head just after the other mare managed a shot. Taking a shot of Dash, she leapt off the branch she alighted on just as an anti-machine bullet split the air behind her. Sweeping down, she frowned as the Rangers slowly took casualties.

A lucky mortar strike on a hostile nest, an unknown amount of dead. Three strikes on power armored ponies. One limped away, hole clean through their leg and leg armor, two standing stock still with holes in their chest.

Still, no complaints from the Rangers. Just callouts, orders, and chatter- only occasionally punctuated by a grunt of pain.

Lead Syringe's ping on her compass flashed blue as he radioed in, "Ice, need your help here."

Swooping down from a destroyed window, machinegun fire lacing the air behind her, Ice ducked into a building to find the medic tending to a wounded Ranger. A foreleg had been lopped off, jagged metal marking the joint where the foreleg had joined with the main chassis. Only a few hoses and wires hung onto the other side of the hoof, which was lying on the floor, oozing blood.

"Hold the severed leg to the joint, I'm going to try and stimulate regeneration," Syringe ordered, one of his namesakes into a healing potion and tapping the needle. Ice did as she was told, looking up at the three other Rangers blasting heavy, deafening weapons through a nearby window at those on the opposite bank. The medic began to inject the regenerative solution, reuniting the hoof with its body as the bleeding stemmed.

A hole formed in the wall. The 5 inch shell soon afterwards exploded.

The shockwave carried Ice head over flank into the wall. Even the sound dampeners in her helmet could not fully mute the vibrations of the blast, squeezing the air out of her lung and causing her heart to skip a beat. Her head smashed hard into concrete, only saved from a fatal wound by the layer of alloy that dented instead. Alarms immediately rung in her suit as she lay on the floor.

WARN: Concussed

WARN: Crippled

WARN: Blood loss

WARN: Health State Critical

Fortunately, her suit automatically issued several healing potions. Coughing, her lungs failed to fill properly itself as Ice righted herself. Her organs screamed in pain, a rib firmly impacting something as she tried to right herself. Her blood vessels knitted themselves together, yet the regeneration was not quite enough to right broken bones and a concussion. Instead, she simply switched over to the bottle of Hydra she had in her personal medkit, ordering her suit to give it to her. There was a brief warning, issued by the Ministry, about the addictive qualities of the drug. Regardless, she was finally able to breathe as her bones knitted themselves back together.

Her respirator hung down around her neck, blood dripped down from a rapidly sealing gash in her forehead towards one of her eyes. There were shrapnel-sized holes in her armor, slowly being knitted together by the repair talisman in her saddle. As the concussion was cleared by the hyper-regenerative qualities of the medicine, Ice realized she was lying on the silty dirt of the outside.

Before her was a hole leading into a collapsed building.

"Ice! You good!?" Pounce Chaser shouted, coming up behind her comrade and placing a hoof on her shoulder, "We got an LOS from you."

"Must've taken out my comms. I'm good, I'm good! Got Hydra in my system," Ice waved away the helping hoof, looking up to the still-armored senior pegasus, "...Shit, Syringe was in there!"

"Also got an LOS from him," Pounce said, urgently moving away from towards the hole in the wall. Moving up behind the Dash groupie, the searing heat of the flames was only made vaguely bearable by the insulation of her armor.

A dark suit of power armor laid on the floor. It did not register as a dot on her EFS... neither did the Ranger beside them. Pounce Chaser still checked both corpses anyway, the corpse of Syringe being mangled by the blast. As the moment replayed in Ice's head, she slowly realized he was between her and the explosion.

Once again, she was the lucky one.

"Syringe is KIA," Pounce Chaser announced, shouting over the sounds of the fire. Removing the medic's respirator, a chunk of his muzzle falling off with it, she reached down the neck of his suit and retrieved his dog tags.

As holes were sealed in Ice's armor, a loading bar appeared on the side of her HUD as the repair talisman finally restored functionality to her communications systems. Her status appeared beneath the other... eight of her squad members. A grayed-out box was all that remained where Syringe's readout used to be.

"This is Beach," Sugar Beach reported over the comms. She had been sent to watch their western flank, watching for the expected reinforcements from down the road, "We have contact. Looks like a lot of them too. More than a hundred, I can say for sure."

"Affirmative, Beach. Radio, contact command and tell 'em that the mission's complete. We're falling back, ponies!" Crystal Trail announced, before saying on a direct channel to Pouncer and Ice, "Get Lead's body out of the fire if you can! If you can't, some of 'im will still be left when we get back, don't risk getting pincered by those reinforcements!"

"You heard our sister, all units fall back!" came the voice of one of the Ranger's officers.

Pounce gestured Ice over. She took Syringe's left shoulder while Ice took the other. He was dragged from the inferno and safely out onto the dirt. As Rangers moved past them, finally abandoning their firing positions and firing potshots over their shoulders at the enemy fortifications, Ice and Pounce took one more look towards their fallen comrade before taking off with them.

What seemed like a thousand images flashed through Ice's mind as she retreated with the rest of the allied forces. Like every time before, there would be time to grieve later.

"Tango. Alpha. Hotel. Golf."

As soon as the order was given over the radio, Full Clip moved his squad into action. From their hiding place, they moved at full tilt towards the gates of Sunset Town. Overhead, their mortar team fired away, shells of CS gas whistling towards the town. Big, white clouds of gas exploded on the high rises of the naval dockyard.

As opposed to the reaction to the high-explosive variants at the Gun Rush Casino, these shells immediately irritated the eyes and noses of those caught in or near the clouds. Civilians and raiders alike caught a first whiff - almost sweet smelling. Almost immediately after, though, they were caught with a horrid wrench of their respiratory systems. It was hard to even breathe in enough to wind up for a cough. Mucus spilled from noses and eyes immediately became swollen shut. Some, disoriented in the gas, collapsed. Others barreled out, desperate for fresh air as additional shells burst all around them.

Many were not caught in the blast. The Raiders amongst them called out the obvious fact that it was an attack, however as many were paralyzed by intense pain it was hard to coordinate. Many simply stayed inside, the houses giving at least some shelter from the gas as it blew through the town, gas shells continually emitting the noxious air.

A shell exploded right outside the gate as the Rangers approached. With thermal vision and airtight seals, they held no fear of the gas. A minigun buzzed as it blasted through the guard towers on either side of the town's main gate, instantly eliminating the four red pips atop the towers. A simple volley from a machinegun grenade launcher obliterated the combination of scrap iron and rebar that was the main gate, the attackers storming through soon after.

"SURRENDER AND YOU WILL NOT BE ANNIHILATED!" Full Clip boomed over his suit's loudspeakers, "DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND REMAIN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR FOREHOOVES OVER YOUR HEAD. GRAB YOUR HORN WITH BOTH HOOVES IF YOU ARE A UNICORN!"

A rattle of fire sparked off the armor of one of his subordinates as Raiders with submachineguns opened fire. They were swiftly turned into a rain of red with the whizz of a minigun. The crack of an autocannon was punctuated shortly after by the explosion of a refurbished boat house, another red blip - and two yellow blips - disappearing shortly after.

"Watch your fire!" Full Clip scolded, "Civilians in our splash zones!"

The environment was heavily urban. The streets were crowded with barrel fires, clotheslines, tools, and trash. Fairy lights gave illumination, not that it mattered to the Marines as their world was covered in a rainbow of cold to warm colors. The tear gas had done its work, many had fled to concentrated areas away from the mortars, coughing their lungs out and blinded. The secondary problem, however, made itself known as they delayed heavily to properly disarm enemy insurgents. Quickly, the gas canisters ran out of steam. Another volley was launched from the mortar position, though that too would not last long; they hadn't brought a third.

They made their way forward across the pier. A hostile with an anti-machine rifle gave Full Clip just a moment of fear, though the shot went wide as he tried to peek from cover too quickly. He was answered with the rev of a minigun and a thousand holes punched through the wall he hid behind.

CRACK!

A KIA warning beeped through his squadlink as a soldier to his right obtained a new hole, his armor immediately shutting down. The building the hostile sniper had fired from was bathed in a volley of explosions from one of his squadmates' grenade machinegun, levelling the poor makeshift building on the spot. Four yellow blips disappeared, for one red one.

"They're fucking hiding behind the civvies," Full Clip growled. There weren't too many compliments the old stallion could give the trenches of the front lines... except that at the very least, there hadn't been any foals for the Zebras to use as cover.

The sound of a rocket's motor firing up drew his attention as a rocket flew across the water, exploding on the side of the Indefatigable's hull, just above the waterline. Minigun fire shredded the nest soon afterwards, civilians fleeing from the sounds of gunfire. The rocketeer fell, and another thermal signature behind him fell prone and shuffled behind a row of sandbags.

Cantering over, Full Clip's hooves punched straight through the wooden deck the rocket crew had been firing from. Walking forward still towards the red target, splinters and broken boards following every raised leg, Full Clip cornered the thermal signature. The mare, wearing spiked barding and a buckball helmet, literally shit herself as she drew a sidearm and blasted a few rounds of 9mm into the helmet of the Ranger-Marine.

Unimpressed, he swatted the sidearm away. With the same hoof, he grabbed her by the mane and pushed her through the deck and onto the concrete ground below. Screaming in pain, she flailed as he gingerly placed a hoof on her chest.

"Where are the other rocket positions? Where are the hostages?" Full Clip asked, taking great care not to engage the pistons on his foreleg.

The raider struggled to breathe against the pressure of the power armored hoof, wheezing out the words, "We-We were the only ones! Honest! The hostages are all around, w-we were supposed to use them as shields!"

The sound of another rocket firing reminded Full Clip of the futility of torture. He traced the thermally active trail of smoke back from its impact site on the side of the ship's hull towards somewhere down in the docks below, behind a set of buildings. A good choice, considering the ship's turrets were unlikely to be able to depress that far to hit it. With a sigh, he simply rolled her over, giving the quick order of, "Restrain her."

With the upper docks secured, a force of MAs wearing gas masks and kevlar vests ran across the bridge from the Indefatigable. Navy ponies, with assault rifles that they clearly had never held outside of basic training. What could possibly go wrong.

"Sir!" one of them shouted as they came up to the power armored Lieutenant, "Sergeant Race Track, reporting for duty!"

"Follow us. We'll soak up the fire, disarm and arrest anypony who surrenders," Full Clip ordered, before waving his squad down the sets of concrete stairs leading down to the rest of the settlement.

The CS gas had almost completely dissipated by now, the mortar team having repacked their equipment and moved up to join the rest of the Ranger-Marines. Many were still suffering the effects, slumped by roadsides and trying to recover their senses as those less effected tended to them. As the gas dissipated, the raiders grew more organized. Sheltering by quivering civilians, at one point Full Clip was forced to resort to a sidearm to take out one of the raiders, heavier weapons being too much of a risk.

Twenty five more yellow blips fell by the time they reached the rocket nest.

They'd fired off three more shots at the Indefatigable's hull. All they had accomplished was leave a scratch on the hull, as clearly their weapons were not made to pierce armor... let alone the multi-levelled construction of the carrier. The Ranger-Marines caught the rocketeers, out of ammunition, trying to escape on a wooden boat.

They even managed to shove off from the docks, spraying fire behind them. The roar of twin machineguns gave them a sinking feeling. One of them was spared from the carnage of the heavy weapon spray and managed to swim back to shore despite their armor and gear in order to surrender.

"Five Rangers KIA. Twelve dead in total," Full Clip reported. Despite being unarmored the MAs had simply not been priority targets for the enemy anti-machine snipers, and thus had suffered few casualties relative to their equipment, "Settlement secured. We are commencing a sweep now, but those should be all the rocket sites we know about... we got about fifty civilian casualties here too. In total there must've only been about thirty or so insurgents in the town."

"Roger that, assault team. MAs will secure the area, get back to the ship via the bridge for immediate redeployment," Bugle's voice said over the radio.

As they made their way back up to the ship, the non-power armored Masters at Arms sweeping the rest of the town, the signature whine of jet engines signalled the flight of the Indefatigable's air wing. Full Clip wondered, for a moment, if the primitive launchers they possessed were capable of even stopping the sortie.

Out of range of the Gun Rush Casino's defenses, the Rangers and 51st had turned to fight. Hunkered in buildings in a planned fallback area, reinforcements waiting as well, they delayed the enemy. Some had come surprisingly well equipped with makeshift steel plate, anti-machine rifles, grenade launchers, and even a minigun of their own. Still, both sides fought conservatively, the Syndicate forces once again slowly winning from attrition as highly equipped Rangers dropped off the EFS compass from lucky shots.

"51, this is Harmony-1, back in the air at last! D'ya miss us?"

"Hell yeah we do!" Shot Stack shouted in return, his laser rifles blasting before he quickly ducked under cover, bullets streaking off of his helmet and shoulder pads.

"Harmony-1, this is 51. We are at Alpha-twenty-two," Crystal Trail reported, crouched under cover next to Shot Stack and looking at her foreleg-mounted screen, "Enemy is half a klick to our southeast! Do you got our EFS info?"

"Yep. ETA two minutes. Wave hi to us as we pass over!"

"This is Warsprite-1, entering combat zone. We are tracking your IFF signatures and several hostile pips."

The 51 almost all mutually took full cover, avoiding any last minute casualties from the hostile forces. Rangers, still singleminded in their cause, remained at their posts, aggressively suppressing the enemy. Not even the slow, building whine of jet engines behind them could distract them from the roar of their heavy weapons.

"Unleashing the friendship!"

A flash of five multirole fighters glanced overhead before airburst rockets rained down on the enemy positions down the road. The whistle of their engines and the ground-shaking explosions of their rockets came along with the disappearance of tens of red dots from their compasses. Dust and particulate covered the area, causing the Rangers to cease fire as they lost tracking on their targets. As the smoke was slowly blown away by the breeze, the entire city block of ruins that the enemy had been hunkered in was thoroughly perforated with giant holes for shrapnel.

"Warsprite, 51. We are reading several tangos moving south from your position. It appears we've scared them into a rout."

"Harmony-1, bleed off that speed and strafe them. Rangers! The enemy has broken! Let's move back to the bridge!" Crystal Trail ordered, standing up from cover as the smoke cleared.

"Roger that. Be advised the Indy is deploying Harmony-2. They have orders to level that enemy compound by the Harbor Bridge."

Guards ushered the Syndicate's councilponies through the closing doors of Stables 84-86. Many still manned the machineguns, expecting a follow-up attack any moment. Things were looking dire. From down the river, they had seen large gouts of white smoke fountain into the air, shortly after losing contact with the Broken Ridge Gang stationed there. Then, the barely visible phantom ship had launched flying machines.

Many that day didn't even know what a flying machine was. There were some books about it, but the average guard - recruited from the ranks of the raider gangs - was not precisely known for their reading comprehension.

There was a strange whine in the air. Only some got a view of the aircraft as they approached their target, though they were unable to even bring their weapons to bear before the fighters were upon them. The rest got a front row seat to the destruction wrought by a single pass.

General purpose bombs rained down upon the fortifications of the plaza. Without a single anti-air system in sight, each shot hit its mark almost perfectly under the fine control of SATS-supported guidance. Towers of pulverized concrete shot into the air, punctuating each explosion. There was not a single shot fired in response - the enemy simply moved too fast. Then, the smoke cleared, revealing the concrete and sandbag defenses shoring up the riverbank - all turned into craters in the cracked tiling of the plaza. That same, haunting scream filled the air as the planes moved in for another pass.

Brass Bugle leaned out and viewed the battlefield through the doors of the troop Vertibuck. In the distance, Harmony-2 made its second pass on the hostile defenses. Fortunately, the wide plaza between the riverside defenses and the building had kept the latter mostly free from damage. The devastation wrought to the fortifications was not to be understated as the area had been reduced to a hellscape of craters, smoke, and fire. There nearly no bodies, because the bombs had left no bodies intact.

"Team Two entering the pipe," the Vertibuck pilot reported, "Thanks for flying Navy, Marines."

The Vertibucks carrying the rest of the Ranger-Marines soon crossed the river, engines turning as they entered VTOL. Smoke and ash was whipped away by the oscillation of the Vertibuck's rotors, the aircraft touching down. Marines piled out of the Vertibuck, moving to secure the compound... though there was very little resistance left.

"Whoowhee, ain't left nothin' for us!" one of Bugle's subordinates cheered, moving up to secure the entrances to the building.

The flap of wings came from behind Bugle as new, blue allied pings appeared on her compass. Turning around, she saw the jet black armor of nine MoA recons flying across the river to join them.

"Late to the party, Bugle, as always," Crystal Trail said through her speakers.

"What's the situation?" Bugle responded, having no time for petty rivalry.

"Suffered a bunch of casualties, but a good seventy percent of the Rangers survived," Trail reported, gesturing down the Harbor Bridge behind them. The Survivor Steel Rangers were moving up through the bridge.

Roaring Thunder, standing beside Brass Bugle with his two subordinates, gave a hearty chuckle through his speakers, "A most acceptable number, when victory is so close at hoof!"

Crystal Trail's head, covered by the insect-like eyes of her power armor, panned towards the Star Paladin for a moment, before she looked back to Bugle, "Lost one of ours too."

"Damn," Bugle admitted, "At least it ain't three."

"What's next?" Trail asked, looking around the area.

"Your friends got the codes to the Stable Doors?" the Marine captain nodded towards one of the Stable Doors, down a ramped path that lead into the foundation of the casino.

"Star Paladin Blazing Arc will have been entrusted with the codes," Roaring Thunder responded, "The tribals will be forced to split their forces to try and defend each door equally. We may use this to our advantage."

Bugle looked around as the rest of the post-war Rangers arrived on her side of the bridge, considering for a moment, before turning back to Trail and Roaring, "We'll split. Have more than enough numbers for it. 51, help scout and clear any enemy positions still in the casino. We'll half-n-half the Rangers on doors 84 and 86. A few minutes after we breach 84, we'll breach 86."

Roaring Thunder nodded, before looking up towards the other Star Paladin, suit pock-marked with dents and scrapes from the recent fight, "Arc. Half our forces. We shall breach the door to Stable 84 first, then you shall move and upload the override to the doors of 86 as soon as you arrive there."

"It'll keep the tribals guessing," Blazing Arc said, voice laced with an almost giddy tone.

The 51st, along with twenty of the Rangers, moved to begin clearing the casino. The rest of the power armored forces split into groups of eighty each, made up of around twenty Ranger-Marines on either team. Brass Bugle stacked up next to the giant, cog-shaped Stable door with the rest of the team, bright white armor mixing with the misty chrome all around her. Sandbags and wooden platforms had been built around the Stable entrance, machinegun nests bereft of their machineguns as they had been abandoned. A console sitting on an obviously pre-war platform by the door had been smashed to pieces by repeated strikes with a blunt object.

"That gunna be a problem?" Bugle pointed out to Blazing Arc, who confidently walked up to it despite its condition.

She shook her head, digging around amongst the rubble of the console and extracting a wire, which she plugged into a data port on her suit. After a moment, a loud alarm sounded and loud mechanical noises came from behind the door. Blazing Arc cantered off, moving to join the other team on the other side of the ruined plaza to open the second door. Loud, mechanical grinding came from the other side of the Stable Door before it began to grind back.

Hundreds of tonnes of blast-proof steel moved before her in a display that made even Bugle gawk. Stable-Tec weren't kidding, their shelters were legitimate. She could see how a blastdoor like that could withstand a balefire strike now.

Her wonder was cut short as the door began to roll away and bullets immediately roared out of the gap left behind it. The high caliber machinegun rounds ate through the yellow railings guarding the sides of the walkways leading up to the door and shot up spires of earth on the ramp behind it. Revving up her grenade machinegun, she quickly entered a command to set a fuse timer on the ammunition.

"Weapons free!" she ordered, before letting loose on one of the visible corners behind the door. Grenades hit the wall, bouncing around inside before blowing up in a cacophony of flashes, bangs, and shrapnel.

The machinegun fire stopped.

Repositioning herself, she looked through the camera mounted on one of her guns and peeked the corner. On the other side, nothing but scarred steel, destroyed barriers, shattered fluorescent lamps, and blood staining the walls. A radio call informed them that the second door had been breached, the sounds of more gunshots coming from the distance.

"Alright! Move up! Go! Go! Go!" Bugle shouted, waving her hoof as Knights and Privates alike spilled through the cog-shaped gap. Yet, the first Ranger-Marine over the gap was drowned in a rain of high-caliber, armor piercing bullets from a machinegun turret down a long, tight corridor past the entrance hall.

Roaring Thunder aimed two, giant almost naval-size cannons down the hallway. Each one fired once, ejecting a smoking casing. The machinegun was torn up in a bloom of shrapnel and fire.

A part of Bugle's brain requested she look around, see the sights. Posters hung from the walls, the floor was almost as clean as a deck of the Indefatigable, and all manner of things attracted her attention. Yet, the forefront of her brain, tempered by what had now been decades of the Great War, kept her on task. Thundering down the hallways, they met with several checkpoints.

In a show of some tactical awareness, the enemy no longer depended on ambush. Instead, they kept fortified positions behind thick, steel automatic doors. The crowded environment choked many of the Rangers, stopping them from using the full force of their numbers against the enemy. Every choke was a bloody mess, with fifteen more casualties cluttering the halls as they moved forward.

Bugle noticed as they continued on, fewer and fewer ponies seemed to be wearing the studded leather and scrap steel armor of the Syndicate. Instead, they were wearing Stable-Tec jumpsuits and padded riot armor. Weapons walked back from high caliber assault rifles and shotguns to pistols and batons.

The last choke they arrived at surrendered before a single shot was fired. Twenty ponies in jumpsuits had laid down on the floor, guns tossed in front of them, with hooves over their head. Bugle's tactical mind scanned for an ambush quickly, though there was nothing obvious.

Yet, it seemed, the enemy was nearly exhausted. Many of them had been caught outside during the bombing run. It seemed this was just a token force, trying to make a last stand.

In that time, one of the post-war Rangers walked forward, revved his minigun, and filled each and every last combatant with lead. Their screams filled the corridor as their comrades were gunned down, until the last one was minced, half-way up off the ground.

"Celestia on a fucking bike!" Bugle shouted, "Cease fire!"

The ranger's miniguns spun down and he looked over towards her, his dark eyepieces making him to look like he was staring up at her like a confused dog.

"What the hell are you doing!? They'd surrendered!" Bugle's professional demeanour broke as she screamed, eyes passing quickly between the pools of blood and ground flesh covering the floor and the Ranger. She'd hoped this shit would've been left back in the days before the bombs, not now, not here...

The Ranger's gaze passed between the corpses on the ground, then back up to the Captain. All he could manage was a shrug. A shrug.

"Should've known better than to surrender to Rangers," Roaring Thunder commented, voice even as he kicked away one of the skulls of the Stable guards, the severed head still lodged inside of its riot helmet.

Bugle's heart thundered as her gaze turned on the Star Paladin. The cold, dead muzzle of the guard rotated towards her, mouth half-open in a scream. Her right foreleg tensed inside her armor, the pistons tightening in tandem.

In an instant, she raised it and slammed it down across the Star Paladin's face. A loud 'THONG!' echoed through the hall as his helmet dented underneath the power of the strike. The force was enough to cause him to stagger, despite his own armor helping to hold him up. Blue pips suddenly turned red as the atmosphere grew tense, reticles settling on Bugle as the reticles of her squad's settled on the Rangers standing just feet away from them.

Roaring Thunder, however, did not bring his weapons to bear - likely the only reason his comrades slowly eased on their triggers. He held up a placating hoof as he straightened up again, locking eyes with the blazingly furious Captain Bugle, "Captain, he was out of line, he will be disciplined-"

"Mah flank he was fucking out of line!" Bugle roared in response, fortunately managing to stay her foreleg, "Soldiers don't just fuckin' do that, Thunder! They were ponies! Equestrian citizens! I don't know what your fucked-up religious cult calls 'em, tribals er what-the-Luna-damn-ever, but we call them ponies Prisoners of War!"

"Please, Captain," Roaring Thunder, now fully straightened up, raised his hoof again in a pleading motion, "We've been fighting these ponies for years. They're slavers and rapists. You can't... you can't tell me that you haven't seen a soldier shoot a surrendering Zebra before."

Bugle's mouth opened, breath rushing in for another heated remark... yet it didn't come. Her jaw clenched as she looked back at the helmet.

"We have a mission. The more time we waste, the more of our lives we threaten. It won't happen again, Captain," Roaring Thunder turned, waving his previously raised hoof at his subordinates. Slowly, they disenaged their weapons from the Ranger-Marines, the Marines slowly doing the same.

"Steel Rangers protect ponies," Bugle hissed, eyes still boring into Roaring's as the latter turned his head back to her, "Protect. Ponies. Do I make myself clear?"

Roaring Thunder nodded slowly, before placing his hoof to his chest plate, his voice low and solemn through his speakers, "Captain, I promise on my honor that you shall witness the errant soldier disciplined. I can even defer the choice of punishment to you."

Bugle stared at him, heart still thumping deeply in her chest. She couldn't quite find the words, her mouth staying shut. With a single gesture, she signalled the squad to move up, walking over the bones and mince of the dead guards. This time, Bugle firmly took up the front. Roaring Thunder got the hint, keeping his own ponies trailing behind the white armor of the Ranger-Marines.

There was very little further resistance from the enemy. As they passed through a habitation section, she saw yellow pips cowering behind locked doors. Windows into said quarters showed nothing... likely civilians hiding as best as they could from the incursion. Eventually, a team was sent back to the entrance to apprehend anypony trying to escape.

Finally, they reached a huge, open space labelled the 'Atrium'. As soon as they were through the door, they were stepping through tilled, flourishing earth. Even through the armor, Bugle's earth pony senses could feel the tiredness of the plants, the busyness of the bacteria in the soil, and the life budding across a giant plantation throughout the interior of the atrium. An inwards-curved tunnel extended from either side of the atrium, with scrap metal signs above each tunnel pointing towards 'Stable 85' and 'Stable 86'.

A side hallway to the left of the entrance to the Atrium lead through a door labelled 'Overmare's Office'. Roaring Thunder instructed a team to check the office, before following the rest into the field.

Apples, wheat, alfalfa, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes... they didn't seem precisely healthy, but there was more life in here than anywhere they had seen so far in the Wasteland. Still, she was too mad to really appreciate it as she stomped through a path that had been left clear between the plants. The rest of the Rangers were smart enough not to trample the crops, sticking in the Captain's hoofsteps. After a while, they reached the entrance to the tunnel leading towards Stable 85.

Up ahead, it seemed the rest of their allies had pushed ahead. They had likely met with less resistance, Bugle believed, as their attack on the first door had probably attracted more of the enemy forces. Blazing Arc turned and met the rest of their allies.

"A successful takeover! Stable 86's Overmare's Office had its master controls locked out remotely. We believe the council evacuees are holed up in 85, near their Overmare's office," Blazing Arc reported, voice optimistic yet expression inscrutable behind her faceplate, "I see you're checking 84's computers now?"

Roaring Thunder nodded, stepping up past Bugle as he did so, "If they're holed up in 85, they've likely locked out all other systems across the Stables. If we can get to the terminal in there, we should be able to access the monitoring system and smoke out any remaining resistance."

Bugle sucked in a deep breath, before tilting her head towards Blazing Arc, "I don't suppose you've been slaughtering any surrendering insurgents, have you?"

Blazing Arc chuckled, "...Uhh, no. Nopony's been stupid enough to surrender to us," the Ranger-Marine officer standing behind Arc, Lieutenant Clip, turned around and mirrored Bugle's tilted head.

"Oh! Good! That's great, actually!" Roaring Thunder laughed, relieved. The Rangers sent to search Stable 84's Overmare's Office came back, reporting that the system had indeed been locked out.

"Where're them ponies holding out?" Bugle asked, stepping forward and pushing past Roaring Thunder again, gesturing for Full Clip to break off and follow.

"Overmare's Office... like I said... can't miss it," Blazing Arc muttered, vaguely pointing the way, giving her fellow Star Paladin an awkward look. It was indeed easy to find, as the hallway leading to the Overmare's Office was in the exact same place as it was in the previous Stable.

Rangers and Ranger-Marines were stacked up, weapons aimed towards the hallway. The entrance was firmly blocked by a heavy blastdoor, heavier than the normal variants of the sliding doors they'd encountered throughout the Stable so far. A Ranger and his pre-war counterpart were both crouched by the door, cutting at it with plasma torches... yet it was clearly slow work. Many, many yellow pips were crowded on the other side of the door. Bugle quickly dismissed the two technicians, before knocking firmly.

"This is Captain Bugle of the 3rd Ranger-Marines! Your forces have been depleted and we have gained control of all three stables and the Gun Rush Casino! You have done all that the honor of war demands of you, and we are ready to accept you as prisoners of war!" she said, setting her speakers to maximum.

There was a pause. Roaring Thunder and Blazing Arc caught up behind Bugle, muttering to each other in low tones.

"You're insane, right?" a muffled voice said from the other side, "You're Steel Rangers. You'll just kill us!"

"I can give you my assurance that, unlike my post-war comrades, I have no intentions of mercilessly slaughtering surrendering Equestrian citizens, despite your crimes," Bugle said, giving a glare over her shoulder.

"I'd honestly rather just let you cut open the door and gun down as many of you as we can before you kill us anyway!" the voice on the other side of the door shouted.

Bugle puffed out her cheeks and looked around the room, scanning her mind for her training on conflict resolution and surrender negotiation. Nodding, she raised her voice again, "Y'all must have sensors to see all across this here Stable, yeah?"

"...Yep!" the voice eventually answered.

Bugle turned around, waving away the nearby soldiers, "Leave this area."

The Ranger-Marines moved to comply, yet of course the post-war Rangers stayed. Blazing Arc shook her head, "Why are you negotiating with them?"

"I'm deescalating the situation so we can meet on common ground," The Marine captain explained in a clipped tone.

"You're moving support away from you so they can gun you down," Arc asserted instead.

The farm mare, however, disagreed, "I'm tryin' to save y'all a final bloodbath. They had time t' prepare, if y'all cut down that door they'd probably hit ya with a balefire egg with all we know," switching off her speaker and lowering her voice, Bugle added, "An' if this doesn't work out, we just use the ventilation to direct tranquilizer into their room. They gotta keep them ducts open to breathe."

"Why not nerve gas?" Blazing Arc said, exasperated as Thunder shimmied away from her a few inches, "Why are we negotiating with tribals at all?"

"I ain't got time t' argue to mah junior," Bugle said flatly, "Quite frankly, I am tuckered out convincing y'alls thick flanks today. I claim two-hundred-fucking-years of seniority on yer asses. Y'all take orders from my great grandaughter, so get back so I can negotiate a surrender."

Blazing Arc sounded like she was about to say something when Roaring Thunder interrupted, "Paladin Arc, if Captain Bugle wishes to risk her own life for this, then allow her."

The other Star Paladin said nothing, only staring between Roaring and Bugle each for a few seconds, before sighing and turning around, "This is... bordering on treasonous, Paladin Thunder."

Thunder lingered for a bit longer, before saying just loud enough for Bugle to hear, "Just doing what the Elder ordered."

Bugle's ear flicked towards him, but soon enough the other Rangers had evacuated the area. Now, all that was left was the buzzing of the lights and the smell of fertilizer. Turning back towards the door, she switched back on her speakers, "Alright. I'm vulnerable. Y'all could open that door right now and gun me down before they could come'n help. Both of our lives 're on the line. How about we chat?"

For several moments, Bugle's nerves tingled as she stared at the door, waiting for it to suddenly shoot open and a hail of gunfire to follow. She nearly flinched and backed away as the silence extended, the paranoid parts of her mind chewing on the words of the post-war Rangers. But, she was a stubborn old cow. She had been given something to prove now.

"...Okay," the voice eventually came, "Whaddya wanna talk about?"

"Surrenderin'," Bugle intoned, stepping forward a pace and leaning forward, "The way I see it, this'n could go several ways. Y'all refuse and gun down an entry team before getting turned inta chunks by high explosives. Or, we're smart and getcha while yer sleeping or on the edge of death from dehydratin'. Or, yer smart and get us back with an explosive trap 'er somethin'. In all of them situations, ya die. Sure, ya might get t' drag a few down t' hell with ya, but yer still dead."

A long pause, "...So you want us to, what, save us the fucking trouble of waiting a few more hours for you to kill us? If we were suicidal, we would've just done it by now!"

Bugle took a moment to process the thought, before eventually offering, "Maybe I can't get ya to trust me fully. All I can tell ya is that I ain't the same as them Rangers. Our soldiers shot at them raiders at Stable 83 cause they'd threatened to rape a foal. None of 'em surrendered, so we killed 'em all. Until then, we hadn't touched a hair on nopony's head. All we did was heal yer sick and fix yer power supply. We even got close enough so y'all could threaten us with them rockets. Didn't need t' do that, not unless we really thought we wanted t' help.

"I ain't askin' ya to trust me all the way, I'm askin' ya if y'all might think the slim chance of mah ponies not gunning you down and taking you as prisoners might be worth riskin' when opposed to certain death," Bugle concluded, before adding after a short pause: "And by prisoners, ah mean prisoners of war. Y'all would get a cell with a bed, toilet, food n' water. Just like the Ministry of Peace promises."

More silence from the other side of the door. Bugle looked over her shoulder, making sure the Rangers were still following her wishes. The room was still clear. The wait continued, the minutes growing painstaking.

"...If we accepted your offer, how exactly would this... work?" the voice asked.

Heart filling with a rare spark of hope, Bugle's head wrenched back towards the door, "Y'all come out, weapons holstered. Ya follow me to the surface, where you'll get disarmed and airlifted back t' the Indy."

"The what?"

She rolled her eyes, "...The ghost ship."

"Oh," another pause, "...Ahh fuck it, we really don't have any choice, do we?"

"Not if you want to live," she told them straight.

"Okay... okay, we're coming out," they admitted. A short pause, before the door slid open.

The ponies on the other side of the door, armed with assault rifles, braced as the shadow of Captain Bugle was cast before them. The Captain, for her part, knew that if with armor-piercing ammunition in that rifle was fired, there was a good chance it'd pierce a flat part of her armor plating and hit something critical. She was risking her life, just as much as they perceived they were risking theirs. Yet, the perception was just skin deep, she surmised. These ponies weren't hardened soldiers. Every last one of them wore Stable-Tec suits, they slung those weapons around like toys. Some of them even had fat clinging to their bones.

After a long minute of silence, no shots came. Eyes glanced around the room, waiting for some kind of trap or ambush. Yet, eventually Bugle, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible, explained, "I am going to turn to my right and lead you out of here. You'll all follow me, and nothing bad's going to happen to you."

The pony with the assault rifle nodded slowly, "...Okay."

Not minding the barrel aimed at her, the Captain turned and walked down the stairs back into the farmland of the atrium. She turned her head after a moment, watching as the Stable leadership hesitantly emerged from the Overmare's section. They marched back through the tunnel to Stable 84, then back through the hallways of slaughtered corpses.

Some of the civilians had emerged from their quarters, gazing around in a horrified daze at the carnage. One mare locked eyes with the assault-rifled pony, "...Did you win?" she asked as the trail of similarly dressed ponies followed behind Bugle.

"...No," AR Stable Pony admitted, "Stay inside."

The mare retreated back through her door, it sliding shut quickly behind her. Finally, they passed the destroyed machinegun and walked towards the exit. Out through the Stable Door and up the ramp, to the plaza beyond.

Masters At Arms, deployed from recently arrived Vertibucks, and the Rangers that had been assigned to rear security met them there. The Stable Dwellers, apparently consisting of the entirety of the party of the same name from the Syndicate council, surrendered their weapons at last as they were escorted to be detained. Bugle sighed a big sigh of relief as the Masters at Arms escorted them away.

The casino had been successfully secured and the last traces of resistance at Gun Rush quashed. The Syndicate had officially been decapitated, lines of armed naval ponies marched to occupy the area. The Syndicate banner was tossed from the top of the roof of the casino, with a cheer from both the military of the Indefatigable and the post-war Rangers.

At some point, Blazing Arc and Roaring Thunder emerged from the Stable. They said nothing to Bugle as they passed, the entirety of the post-war Rangers regrouping and debriefing on the cratered ruins of the plaza.

The cyan banner of Equestria was unfurled from the casino, minutes after the Syndicate banner was dropped. This time, only the Navy cheered as the Stars and Sisters billowed in the wind.

Author's Note

Another long one! At least this one has some action!