A surprisingly short time later, the entire company had grabbed what they were going to take, left the rest, and were away through the forest as fast as possible. No one bothered to try concealing the signs of their camp.

The tanks were on pathfinding duty, finding routes for the trucks through the trees. Assisting the tanks were the screen of infantry, who at the moment were acting as guides to the lumbering iron beasts, since the Major had forbidden the use of lights of any kind. It wasn’t really a situation Turnip liked.

And about situations Turnip didn’t like: inside the tank, she was squished uncomfortably against the hindquarters of the much larger stallion. While he was keeping a keen watch down that clamped rifle of his, Turnip, with nothing better to do, watched the goings-on outside through the narrow window of the loader’s hatch vision port. She was able to do this, because Minty had persuaded Summer to remove the bags of dirt from the turret to allow the turret crew better visibility and fast egress in the likely event they had to abandon the machine in a hurry.

It stank of unwashed pony, gun vapors, and old grease.

Turnip huffed and craned her head to look over the gun. Minty was sitting back in her chair, her almost imperceptibly shaking hooves resting loosely on the gun controls. One of her hooves tapped out a rapid rhythm on the floor. A green twig bent off an unfortunate sapling was in the process of being ground rapidly into pulp between her teeth, and from time to time her right eyelid twitched.

Summer was hidden from the neck up unless Turnip sat down, but since that would put her head behind Thrash’s tail, she stayed where she was and noted the tension the unicorn was holding herself with.

Other than her compatriots in the fighting compartment, Turnip could only really see the back of Supercharger’s navy-blue mane and that didn’t offer much. Turnip turned back to the hatch viewport in time to notice that she could no longer see the shadowy shapes of trees; they were free of the forest.

Turnip watched the hills start to go by through her vision slit. It was too dark to see, now, but she imagined she could see the dead-carts at the crowns. Probably the shadowy shapes she saw were only the barrier trees between fields.

The shapes were suddenly bathed in harsh red light, and Turnip saw she was right.

“Squad, turn seventy degrees right, on me,” Summer barked. Turnip heard the small switch being flipped on the microphone, and, “Driver, seventy degrees neutral turn and hold for tank no.18 on the left.”

Turnip shifted her hind leg against the sudden rotation as the tank swung around and took the opportunity to “accidentally” shoulder-check Thrash’s rump when it stopped. The stallion shot a glance over his shoulder, but shuffled forward a few centimeters.

All too soon, they were moving again, pitching down a grade and then up the next. Turnip heard the muffled pop of distant rifle fire begin. She slid an armor-piercing shell from the side rack, backing slightly under Summer’s chair, and set it point-up in the rear corner, where she leaned over it, waiting.

She tapped Summer on the leg, and the unicorn glanced down. “Six shells total,” Turnip informed her, speaking loud enough to be heard. “One is high-explosive.”

Summer nodded and turned her focus back to her ring of vision-slits. Out of the relatively small compliment of shells they had to begin with, Turnip was honestly just surprised they had anything left to fight with at all.

“Keep an eye out for those enemy tanks,” Summer clipped to the squad. “Tank no.18 and no.7, split and head south along the infantry’s left flank. I and tank no.9 shall remain and hold the center.”

A few bullets struck the frontal armor, some being caught by the sandbags laid over the transmission cover shelf in a curious mixture of deep pings and thuds. Turnip wondered why Summer hadn’t renamed or renumbered the tanks in her little squad; wouldn’t that make them easier to manage?

They crested the hill fully, and the bullets hitting the armor increased in frequency, like the first few drops of rain heralded a downpour.

“Rosebud, we hold them here,” Summer ordered. Who? Ah, the other commander. “Save your shells until the enemy armor shows up, if possible.” Summer then paused a moment, listening. “I am aware. When it comes to that, I expect you to do as my crew have done.”

A grinding crunch drew Turnip’s attention back to Minty for a brief instant. The green mare spat out the remaining splinters of her twig and shifted her shaking hooves on the gunnery controls with a grim set to her jaw. The wad landed in Supercharger’s mane, who quickly swept it off and returned both forehooves to the steering levers.

Turnip took stock of herself and found she was neither afraid nor anxious. It just was. Maybe she’d been close to the edge too much lately, or maybe getting shot in the head changed one’s perspective on life, but Turnip felt that tonight she was going to live or she was going to die, and she was fine with either one. Celestia only granted one second chance, she reckoned, and she’d used hers already.

With this revelation, she felt she ought to do something about the mood within the tank. “Lighten up, y’all. We’re gonna get through this.” She made the lie easily, and hoped her neutral delivery would give it its own degree of certainty to the others.

“Like Tartarus we will,” Thrash growled, as a bullet impacted a scant distance from the shell-hole on the turret face, denting the rim slightly with a shriek. “Commander, permission to turn off the light? This hole here’s a damned beacon to snipers.”

“Granted. Enlisted Metal, Enlisted Cashmere, return fire only when you are positive of a target. We haven’t the bullets to waste.”

“Affirmative, ma’am.”

“Got it, ma’am.”

The report of Thrash’s rifle banged around inside the compartment, silencing anything else as only noise could. Outside the tank, it was joined by the nearby popping sound of more rifle fire as the infantry moved up. The enemy’s fire on the tank slackened somewhat as more targets presented themselves.

“Driver, rotate us twenty degrees and take us back slowly. Gunner, turret to ten o’clock; there’s some trouble over there.”

It was done; Thrash started banging away at something; Turnip waited. Trying to get lower to his gun, Thrash backed well into Turnip’s space, and she hugged the wall, rearing up on her haunches to stay out of the way. When it was time for her job, she’d make the space she needed.

“Rosebud, reverse out of sight and take up position just behind the crest of that hill to the right of here.” Summer switched. “Radiopony, tell me the status of the trucks.”

“They’ve made it about a third of the way so far, ma’am,” Cashmere reported.

Turnip didn’t know how long they continued crawling back and forth over that hilltop, carving a crisscross of track gouges in the soil. What she did know was that it didn’t take long for the enemy’s warning flares to burn out, casting the battlefield in near-total darkness.

The only light came from the intermittent muzzle flashes, theirs and the enemy’s. Without being able to see each other, ponies only really shot to remind the other side they were still there, or in reply to try and hit one of the elusive sources of those flashes. Thrash was able to conserve his limited stores of ammunition.

“Rosebud, are you in position?” A pause. “Right. Load an armor-piercing shell and get ready to come up when I give the order.” Summer opened her hatch and looked around, ignoring the bullets that still cracked overhead. “Driver, follow my instructions…”

A series of short, jerky maneuvers later, Summer closed her hatch again and sat with her hooves crossed before her sternly.

“We are now right in the center of this hilltop,” she informed her crew. A bullet pinged off the cupola. “And we’ve been making quite a show of being up here. Enlisted Sprout?”

“Yes’m?”

“Load the shell, if you please. Gunner, turret to eleven o’clock and depress the gun as far as you can.”

Turnip tapped Thrash on the back with a forehoof; her hindlegs had almost fallen asleep by now. “My turn,” she said, and gave him a narrow-eyed grin. He nodded and bunched himself up against the turret face, and she slung the shell around and slammed it into the waiting gun breech. The extra depression of the gun and elevation of the breech didn’t give much room to sling it up and over the gun cradle, but Turnip was an expert.

On all fours again, she stretched out and shook her back legs one at a time, for once glad for her small stature. “Ya should jus’ lay down there,” she suggested helpfully, “Curl up a li’l.”

Thrash promptly curled up like a dog under the hanging coaxial rifle with his hooves over his head and stayed there.

And then it was light outside again.

“Gunner, adjust left a few degrees, base of the hill!”

The turret motor stuttered for an instant, the gun adjusted up a small amount, and the entire assembly rocketed back into the turret with an incredible boom. The noise and blast of the thing was something a pony felt in her bones, and Turnip’s ached enough already. The ejected shell hit the floor with a loud clang, striking the hanging canteens on the way down. Turnip kicked it under Minty’s seat.

“Driver, reverse at full speed!”

There was a sudden lurch as the tank dropped into gear and began powering backwards.

It was too late. A terrific ringing bang echoed around inside the compartment and sent a bone-rattling shockwave through everything, steel, pony, whatever lay between.

Just as Turnip cracked open her eye, as if to confirm she was not dead yet, A second hit made the turret almost jump out of its guides, throwing everypony inside up a few centimeters. Summer’s head hit the hatch and Minty almost lost hold of her controls with surprise. Thrash curled tighter and Turnip scrambled to get her hooves under her again as her leg almost collapsed.

A third hit only threw loose soil all over the tank, with a sound like hard rain. If there were any other big guns aimed their way, Turnip never heard the evidence.

“Driver, hard right turn but keep reversing!”

They had begun to back down the slope and the tilt was making itself felt in the floor.

“Armor-piercing! Gunner, rotate turret right! Two o’clock! Driver, ahead, second gear, go around the crown!”

Turnip obliged, yanking a red-banded shell out of the storage rack, arming it, and hucking it into the breech, despite the incredibly bumpy ride. She only stepped on Trash’s legs by accident twice. Their last shell had been a solid one, but this one had some filler to it.

“Rosebud, don’t move until I give the order!”

Summer switched modes. “Radiopony, tell Lieutenant Marinara to pull her ponies back to the first fallback point!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This is MY field now…” Summer muttered, and then she yelled, “STOP!” and the tank came to a skidding halt, kicking up clods of dirt on both sides. “There on the hill, 30 degrees, reversing slowly!”

Minty made the adjustments, fired the gun, and…

“Missed! Driver, hard reverse!”

Turnip had just grabbed another shell, a solid one again, when a horribly familiar screech filled her world, a noise to top everything else. Nothing was louder, nothing was more deadly, and nothing better reminded her of that first day under Summer’s command.

Minty suddenly screamed and batted at something between her legs. Thrash hissed. Turnip felt the deadly familiar stings in her right foreleg, wrapped around the shell, and her jaw. Cashmere’s shriek went unheard, but Turnip saw her jump in her seat.

“Driver, stop!” Summer ordered, and they stopped. Minty was hyperventilating and staring at her lap.

“Everypony, sound off!” Summer barked, as she slid down from her seat to squeeze in beside Minty.

“Here!” called Supercharger, twisting around in her seat with a look of concern.

“Present!” Cashmere squeaked.

“Alive,” Thrash said, from his awkward position on the floor.

“Ain’t dead yet,” Turnip reported. She ran her injured forehoof over her face and felt a warm trickle of blood. Only a trickle was good; it would keep for later.

Summer reached up and turned on the light. Minty’s breathing was already steadying out just from the touch of another pony.

“Corporal Twist, what happened?” Summer barked. “Do I need to have you replaced or are you well enough to fight?”

Minty stopped shaking so badly and held her hooves up before her like a supplicant. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, looking from one hoof to the other. The corner of one eye twitched.

“…I’ll be fine, sergeant. I just got a little burned is all.” She lowered her hooves and experimentally poked the inside of her right thigh and winced. “That… shell landed on me is all. It… Hey, would you look at that…”

Minty tapped the side of the turret, where the hinges of the hatch met the armor. The steel was caved like a pony had struck with a supernaturally strong hoofstrike, and the middle set of hinges had burst open. On the floor in front of her lay the slightly deformed enemy shell.

“Glad to hear that, corporal, because we are going back out there right now. Our troops are going to get chewed up if we don’t.”

Minty nodded. “I understand.” As Summer climbed back into her seat, Minty nodded again, apparently to herself, and stated, “I’ll make it through this.”

Turnip made to load the shell before Summer turned the light off and found one of the bars of the gun cradle cut right through and crushed into the gun’s recoil path.

“Anypony else have a problem?” Summer asked. She got back a chorus of ‘no, ma’am’s. “Good. Driver, full speed ahead and turn on the headlight. I want them to know we’re coming.”

The engine revved and the tank leapt forward. Turnip almost fell down as her injured foreleg was forced to again support her weight.

“Driver, hard right turn! Gunner, turret one o’clock! Thirty minutes! Fifteen past noon!” Summer yelled a series of rapid corrections at Minty.

The tank skidded around, throwing up even more dirt from the torn ground, and the turret turned opposite until it stopped nearly centered. Minty dipped the gun down and fired.

The gun recoiled with an odd wheezing quality from the right side. As expected, it smashed into the bent bars of the cradle and straightened one end of the break while smashing the other. The casing joined its siblings on the floor, and Turnip kicked them away when they rolled towards her.

“I think I hit, but…” Minty began, when another terrible bang struck the tank and another shock went through them all as they were hit again.

“Driver, hard left, NOW!” Summer yelled. The order was complied with sluggishly, and Turnip prayed to Celestia that Supercharger was not wounded. While they turned, Turnip heard a hideous whistling screech across the engine deck.

Then Supercharger hit the throttle, and they were accelerating away.

“Left by thirty degrees!” Summer ordered, in between gear shifts. “Right by fifty! Zigzag and make for the next hill!”

Turnip had already loaded another solid shell. By the slope of the floor, they were close to the bottom of the trough between hills. Then, the tank dipped horribly forward, throwing Turnip atop Thrash, and hit a new bottom with a jolt that made Turnip’s bruised bones ache. Supercharger paused the tank momentarily once they were level again, and Turnip heard her groaning in pain.

“It’s a streambed, ladies,” Summer brusquely informed them. She switched her microphone. “Rosebud, take position now. Make those shots count.”

Summer switched the microphone and sat still for a moment. Turnip extracted herself from the sweaty pile of limbs and exchanged a nervous glance with Thrash in the dim flare-lit tank.

“New plan. Driver, turn right and point us down this stream, then follow it until I say. leave the headlight on.”

They rotated forward and started moving, picking up speed. The tracks rattled over polished smooth river-rocks and patches of mud and underbrush.

“Now! Turn right eighty degrees!”

The tank surged out of the streambed and broke through the denser brush surrounding it to come nearly face-to-face with an enemy machine.

“Fire!”

Minty fired. Turnip had a front-row view through the shell-hole in the turret face as fire bloomed around their muzzle brake and a dark hole appeared in the front of the enemy tank with a shower of sparks.

A few dozen meters behind that tank was a second one. Its turret cranked slowly around from where it had been aiming, and it didn’t have much to travel to begin with. Turnip knew they were dead.

“Driver, charge!” Summer yelled, and the tank surged forward like a pouncing beast. The enemy tank fired, and their tank ate the shot without missing its stride. “Keep going! Pass them!” Summer urged, and Turnip caught a glimpse of the dark shape moving by them for an instant before it was gone. Behind them, she heard a muffled bang. After another few seconds of travel, Summer ordered, “Driver, U-turn!”

They came around in a tight, dirt-spitting circle. “I need a shell!” Minty shouted angrily. She must have dry-fired it.

“Which one?” Turnip yelled at her from beneath the gun. “We only have one AP and one HE!”

“Never mind, ladies,” Summer said smugly, crossing her hooves with satisfaction. Turnip crawled out from under the gun. “I do believe our problem is dealt with.”

Turnip peered out the shell-hole over Thrash’s back. The enemy tank they had just passed was broadside to them and burning, a fuel fire most likely, and had stopped moving mid-turn. As she watched, a hatch opened in the top of the turret and crystal ponies started spilling out.

“Enlisted Metal, shoot them,” Summer ordered.

It was Thrash’s turn to knock Turnip aside as he laid hoof on his rifle with obvious relish. He shot once, twice, thrice, then had to pause to load a new clip. Cashmere let them have it with a burst from her own gun, and there was no further need to shoot. Summer raised her microphone.

“My eternal thanks, Rosebud. Commendable work.” As she spoke, a few bullets pinged off the side armor. Turnip realized they had probably been doing that all along, and only now was it quiet enough for her to notice. “Follow our soldiers to the first fallback point. You remember? Good. I’m going to assist Selvage and see what kind of trouble they’ve gotten up to there. What? No, we’re all fine here. Superficial injuries, though we did take a few knocks. We’re still in the fight. Yes. See to it.”

Turnip grabbed one of the hanging canteens and wet her tongue as Summer ordered Supercharger to take them somewhere else. Thrash was squatting on his hindlegs against the front of the turret inspecting the rifle he had removed from its mount.

“Got a gun I can borrow?” he suddenly asked her.

Turnip squinted at Thrash in the fading flare-light. She couldn’t see why he had his hoof curled tenderly around the barrel of his rifle, but it wasn’t hard to think of a reason why.

“Mine’s a capture,” she grunted. “Take Minty’s.”

Before Thrash could even turn to ask, an Equestrian carbine slid across the floor under the gun with a clatter and bumped against his hoof. He picked it up and installed it in the mount without a word.

Meanwhile, Summer was checking in.

“Radiopony, what’s the status of the trucks?”

Cashmere relayed the request, waited, and answered back, “They’re nearly there, ma’am.”

“Splendid. We shall-”

Summer abruptly cut herself off and held a hoof to her headphones. After a moment of listening, she suddenly spat out an oath Turnip thought was reserved for common ponies and switched her microphone.

“Selvage, I’m on my way. Leave them and focus on assisting the infantry. They’re trying to draw you away from support.” A pause. “I know. Alert the Major of the situation and resume your post. We cannot afford to break too early.”

She switched to intercom. “Driver, back to full speed. Course corrections as I order them. Loader, give us that high-explosive shell, please.”

Turnip struggled to fit the armed shell in past the broken bars as the very bumpy ride turned into an extremely bumpy one. Dropping it now would risk detonation… but she managed it in the end. Thankfully there was only one shell left, because her right foreleg didn’t feel like she could force it through any more abuse.

The engine sounded fine, through the firewall, but the transmission was making a bad grinding noise. Turnip hoped it wouldn’t give out on them when they needed it.

Author's Note

Only one more chapter to go for this arc!