Pony Tankers: Snow and Steel

"Emerald, get on the radio," Flax ordered, her voice suddenly strained. "We oughta be close enough to HQ now. Ask 'em what's goin' on."

Emerald swallowed a lump in her throat before nodding her head, already channeling her magic to flip switches and turn knobs on her radio set. It took just a few seconds for her to find the correct frequency, and she didn't even get the chance to open her mouth before chatter started pouring through on the very crowded network.

"Two tanks, northwestern flank! Where the hell is that anti-tank gun?!"

"Northeast! They're pinned down and can't assist!"

"What about our armor?!"

"Occupied! You're gonna have to sort those tanks out yourself!"

And the stream of shouted questions and answers continued to bounce back and forth, a small cast of officers desperately trying to coordinate a defense against - at least what it sounded like to Emerald - a superior force. Emerald quickly swapped back to the intercom channel, grateful for the sudden silence in her headset, before looking over her shoulder to meet Flax's gaze. "They're already in the thick of it, ma'am. It sounds like the Shinies came in behind us and launched an attack on the town. It's... not sounding pretty, at the moment."

Silence hung in the air for a long moment, and Emerald was just about to repeat her conclusion when Flax finally spoke. "Get back on our net and tell 'em they've got help comin', and to watch their fire. We're gonna hit the Crystal troops from behind and pen them in - with any luck, they ain't gonna realize it's just two tanks hittin' 'em from back here."

Emerald fidgeted in her seat, already feeling uneasy about the hastily assembled plan that Flax seemed to be running with, but nodded once again. "Understood, ma'am. I'll pass it along. Shall I tell Amber the gameplan as well?"

"She'll need to know. Tell her to follow our lead, and to make sure she don't stray too far away from us unless we start takin' direct fire. Ain't much cover out here..."

Emerald nodded again, then turned to her radio set and got to work. Her hooves were shaking too much to manipulate the controls with any degree of accuracy, so Emerald continued to use her telekinesis instead. Her horn was bright compared to the dimly lit fighting compartment, its green glow casting long shadows behind the protruding levers and boxes all around. After tuning into the platoon frequency again, Emerald keyed her microphone and spoke. "Platoon lead to tank twelve, how copy?"

"Tank twelve, loud and clear. Orders?"

"Follow us as closely as you can, and separate once we start taking direct fire. We are going to attempt to encircle the Crystal units attacking headquarters and take some of the heat off of ours. Hold fire until we give the signal."

"Roger-dodger, relaying to Amber now." And with a quiet pop of static, Emerald heard the stallion on the other end swap his radio back to the intercom. He seemed like an agreeable pony, if a little unprofessional. Assuming they all came out of this engagement in one piece, Emerald supposed she might even owe him some gratitude for being such a good radio operator to work with.

Then, Emerald remembered she still had one more radio call to make. She hastily tuned her radio, finding the company frequency again and preparing her ears for the onslaught of voices again. They were just as loud as last time, just barely avoiding talking over each other, and it took several seconds for Emerald to find an opening to force herself through. "All units, this is company lead - suspend radio traffic to receive new orders!"

There were a few more hasty calls back and forth before every voice went silent, save for the muffled sounds of gunfire leaking into several microphones. Emerald gulped again when she heard yells for help through her headset, so far away and yet so close. It felt like an eternity had passed before she finally found the words she needed. "Tank twenty-one has assumed control of the company after the loss of tank eleven and First Lieutenant Apple Blossom. New orders are as follows: adjust fire to avoid hitting friendlies approaching the enemy from the rear, prepare an opening in the defensive line to allow two tanks to rejoin the rest of the force after a breakthrough is made."

Another moment passed in tense silence before a mare shouted back. "An opening?! The rockheads are gonna make an opening of their own in a few minutes! We can't hold this damn line much longer, and if they get through the perimeter they'll get right to the wounded. We don't have anywhere to move them!"

Emerald took a breath and steeled herself, weighing her options. She could relay the concerns to Flax, or she could shut them down herself. The former was likely the right idea, but the latter was something else. A chance to prove herself, at the very least. Eventually, Emerald made up her mind. "The orders stand. Company lead, out." With a flip of a switch, Emerald had switched back to the intercom. "Orders are out, ma'am. Everyone knows the plan now."

"Good work," Flax praised, before looking up and making sure her hatch was securely locked shut. "Now keep an ear out for Amber needin' our help. Whatever's happenin' inside the defensive perimeter is their problem, we'll worry about it once we make sure they'll be alive when we get there. Sage, make sure we have high-explosive loaded."

"Already on it, lass," Sage responded, speaking up for the first time in over an hour. "Emerald, how's your ammo looking? Need another box for the hull gun?"

Emerald glanced down, checking her ammunition supply for... come to think of it, the very first time. She'd barely done any shooting so far, and it showed. The spare box in the rack by her left hindleg was full, and the belt currently loaded into the gun was still more than half full. The pile of shell casings on her right was small, and it had mostly spread out with all the rattling and shaking the tank did on the road. Momentarily distracted, Emerald found her eyes drawn to the floor of the vehicle. Shell casings were spread out like a carpet, albeit one with more holes than anything else, and they all noisily slid around as the machine rolled along. There were small puddles of oil here and there, leaking out of the more exposed components, and... was that a slip of paper jammed under the turret basket?

"Are your ears just painted on, lass? I asked about your ammo, not the damned floor," Sage repeated, sounding just the slightest bit impatient. Emerald flinched, nearly slamming her horn into the hull roof again, and looked up at Sage.

"I'm fine on ammo, thank you!" Emerald finally shouted back, making sure her eye roll went unnoticed. Settling into her seat again, she double-checked her machine gun and made sure a round was chambered. Then, for the first time since hearing the sounds of battle in the distance, Emerald put her eyes up to her viewport and took a look.

The first thing she noticed were several pillars of black, oily smoke trailing into the sky. The base of each pillar was glowing a fiery orange, marking the spot of a roaring flame. On the ground, each of those fires was feeding off of the blasted hulk of a disabled tank. More Crystal tanks than Equestrian, so far, but Emerald could already see the unmistakable grey, boxy silhouette of one recon tank knocked out of action. It was in a hull-down position, buried up to its turret in sandbags and snow, but that hadn't been enough to save it from an anti-tank shell. The sun was on its way down now, leaving the world in a state of twilight, and the dim was illuminated by tracer bullets flying back and forth like bolts of magic. Yellow bolts were from Crystal soldiers, and red ones were from Equestrians, flying back and forth and targeting each other's points of origin whenever they could.

The pops and bangs of rifles were mostly drowned out by the cacophony of machine gun fire from both sides, the bright muzzle flashes giving away the position of the automatic guns and necessitating frequent repositioning. Emerald watched as her fellow Equestrians scrambled to keep their guns on the move, soldiers just barely visible as silhouettes against the large, dark shapes of houses and other buildings in Riverpool. Most of the light for the battle was supplied by a burning building, its red and orange flames licking at the sky and rather unhelpfully illuminating a portion of the Equestrian line. As her machine rumbled closer, Emerald could also make out more of the Crystal Empire's line as it bowed around the front of the Equestrian defenses. Tanks were spread out and surrounded by infantry, and there was an occasional field gun or mortar in the mix being hauled around by weapons teams seeking an opening to lend their firepower to. Emerald was just beginning to wonder how close they would get before Flax gave the order to open fire.

"Girls, let loose!" Flax shouted, ignoring the intercom to keep her hooves free. No sooner than the order left her mouth, Flax fired her first shot with the cannon. A thud echoed right over Emerald's head and the tank rocked on its treads, the bright flash from the cannon barrel visible even from Emerald's viewport. A split second later, she saw another flash where the explosive shell found its mark among a group of Crystal ponies. After that, Amber fired a shell of her own and had similar success.

Emerald gripped the handles of her machine gun, wrestling control of it in its stiff mount, and started lining up her sights on any exposed troops. It occurred to her then that she had only made use of this gun a couple of times by now. That creeping guilt found its way into her mind again while she prepared to shoot yet more ponies who couldn't defend themselves - even if, logically, she knew they could. They just had their backs to her this time, instead of being wounded. The muffled chattering of a machine gun nearby told Emerald that Amber's radio pony was already shooting, bright red tracers zipping past Emerald's machine on the left and finding their mark. Finally, Emerald decided she'd hesitated long enough and squeezed the trigger paddle in her hooves.

Her gun barked out a five-round burst, spilling casings on the floor haphazardly while the bullets went wildly into the darkness ahead. One tracer bullet told Emerald that she was aiming high, her shots going right over the shinies' heads and into the walls behind her fellow Equestrians a few hundred meters away. Cursing under her breath for the close call, Emerald adjusted her aim and tried again. The group of five ponies she'd taken aim for were only just realizing they were being targeted from behind when Emerald fired again, and she felt a rush of ice-cold adrenaline as she watched their silhouettes crumple and fall into the snow.

"Good work, lass! Takin' 'em faster than I can find 'em!" Sage praised, almost yelling despite using the intercom. A second later, the tank rocked again when Flax fired the cannon.

"Scratch three more. Sage, load solid shot. Cream, swing a right and take us around their flank, we need to start prioritizing their tanks," Flax ordered, her voice almost unnervingly steady.

"Any orders for Amber and her crew, ma'am?! They've got to be almost blind just like we are!" Emerald asked, taking her hooves away from her gun for the moment.

Before Flax could answer, the inside of her machine was rung like a bell. Emerald swore under her breath again, clutching her hooves over her ears. Without even seeing the source of the sound, she knew what it had to be - a non-penetrating hit on the armor. She couldn't even tell where it was, with the fighting compartment being as dark as it was. Finally, Flax found her voice again. "Cream, keep us moving! That was either a bad shot from our own or the shinies are already onto us!"

Emerald tuned out the hasty shouts back and forth, once again switching over to the platoon frequency and turning on her radio. "Platoon lead to tank twelve, how copy?" She asked, before continuing without waiting for a response. "Begin evasive maneuvers, split away from platoon lead and take the enemy's left flank. Enemy armor is priority target, infantry and guns are secondary. Over and out."

Emerald could only hope that her orders were received, let alone followed. They didn't have Flax's blessing, but she was more than a little busy right now. Tuning out any thoughts of what might happen if Amber ran into trouble while alone on her side of the battlefield, Emerald picked up the grips of her machine gun again and took a deep breath to steady herself. The tank rocked again as Flax fired the main gun, sending an armor-piercing shell through the back of a Crystal tank's turret. The fire that ignited soon after revealed the design of the vehicle, another one of those squat, long-barreled menaces like the one in the train yard. Emerald didn't feel quite so bad for seeing one of those taken out of action.

Then, Emerald was abruptly tossed about like a ragdoll in her seat as her own machine roughly pitched forward and slammed into the ground. They weren't stationary for long, but Emerald got the gist of what happened just from the movement of the hull. They'd dropped into a ditch beside a road, and the whine of the engine hitting its highest rev gave away just how close they'd come to getting stuck. Nonetheless, they were still on the move, and Flax was still picking off targets with deadly efficiency. It wasn't until the enemy finally fired back again that Flax's rhythm broke, one of the Crystal tanks having noticed the demise of its comrade a few meters away. They'd swung the turret around and spotted their foe while Flax was busy with another target, Emerald guessed, and taken their sweet time lining up a shot. Had Cream not been giving all the throttle she had, they might've died right then and there. As it was, the Crystal tank only got a glancing blow over the back of their machine that was accompanied by the screech and roar of metal being torn apart.

Emerald reflexively cowered from the sound in her seat, hiding her head behind her forelegs for a second before she realized she was unharmed. Looking up into the turret, she saw that Flax and Sage were alright, too. What she also saw, though, and what Flax didn't, was a bright glow visible in the rear viewport of the cupola. Orange and red flickered violently, and Emerald knew right away what had happened. They were on fire, but the tank was still moving. With their machine highlighted like a beacon, the Crystal troops caught onto its position even easier than before - Flax only noticed when the pings and bumps of rifle bullets hitting the armor abruptly rose in intensity.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Flax shouted, after finally noticing the billowing flames attached to the engine deck of her machine. "We've got the spotlight now! Cream, get us the hell out of the line of fire, try to swing wide and get us back to our lines before the engine gives out! Floor it!"

"O-On it, ma'am!" Cream responded, her voice nearly breaking in her panic. She was already giving the engine everything she could, but she slammed her hoof on the throttle nonetheless. Emerald could only hold onto the machine gun in front of her, using the grips like handlebars to keep herself steady while their machine rumbled and rocked in its mad dash across an open field.

The battle raged on outside, but there weren't any Crystal ponies in Emerald's firing arc to aim for. All she could do was wait, listening to the staccato rhythm of Sage's machine gun in the turret and the jingling of spent brass raining down onto the hull floor. Flax wasn't firing the cannon at the moment, too busy keeping an eye on the inferno behind her and the darkness ahead of her to make sure Cream was going in the right direction. Peeking through her viewport, Emerald could see the square outline of houses rapidly approaching - that gap was made in the defenses after all, she noted with a hint of satisfaction, and it was ready for them to roll through to safety.

Equestrian troops fired around Emerald and her machine, picking off any Crystal ponies that tried to follow the fleeing tank while it was defenseless. Sage couldn't even fire the machine gun once Cream turned toward friendly lines, what with the fire on the rear of the vehicle blocking her line of sight once the turret was rotated.

"We're close, now! Cream, keep her rollin'," Flax ordered, her voice tense as a piano wire while she hunched down to look everypony in the eye. "Once we get into Riverpool proper we need to dismount this machine as fast as we can and get that fire out! If it burns too long it'll cook the engine and she'll be beyond repair. Emerald, you're no good with repairs, so I need you to hoof it to the town hall the second we come to a stop. Get in there and tell whoever's currently leadin' the defense that I'm takin' over command of the company and to wait for my orders before doin' anythin' else - even if the shinies break off the attack. Y'all got me?"

"Aye, ma'am," Sage responded first, still sounding impossibly calm.

"Got it! Here's hoping the fire extinguishers are still attached to the hull," Cream answered next, before leading their machine into a shallow left turn.

"I'll get it done, Lieutenant," Emerald finally said, looking Flax squarely in the eyes for a second or two before turning around. She looked through her viewport just in time to see that Cream had finally taken them onto the wide, paved road that was the main street in Riverpool. It was clogged with soldiers running to and fro, dodging around medics as they dragged wounded ponies away from the front and toward the makeshift hospital that had been set up on the opposite side of town.

Without anywhere better to park, Cream simply brought the machine to a stop once it was behind solid cover. A house or two was all that separated them from the battle raging on, but it felt like a world away when Emerald threw her hatch open before the tank had even stopped rolling. She squirmed her way out, unintentionally kicking her machine gun in the process, and stuck her head out into the frigid nighttime air. It burned her eyes after spending so long in a hot, humid box, but it felt like heaven on her fur for just a few precious seconds. Then, the smell of the fire hit her nose instead. It was a fuel fire, she could tell, and it was burning hot enough to curl her hair even from a couple of meters away.

Scrambling out of her hatch to make way for Cream to dismount next, Emerald dropped down onto the pavement and turned around to finally get a look at her machine. It was in a bad way, covered in fresh scars from bullet impacts, and the fire on the engine deck looked like it had already consumed all of the lighter equipment - like the bedroll strapped to the turret, or the wooden crate full of spare food and water. Flax and Sage were already climbing down, their forms silhouetted by the inferno behind them. Once again, Emerald met Flax's gaze for what felt like an eternity. Emerald couldn't will herself to speak, and Flax apparently couldn't either. All the latter mare did was nod her head, and Emerald got the message.

Turning in place, Emerald dashed off toward the town hall with her news and her orders in mind. She only hoped there would be somepony there to receive them.