Pony Tankers: Snow and Steel

Emerald heaved a sigh as she fiddled with the various knobs on her radio set for the umpteenth time. She was sat in her combat position, of course, and everypony else was in theirs. They had been since just an hour or so after sunrise, the early morning sky still painted with gorgeous yellows and oranges, and Emerald got to spend that quiet time crammed into a tin can with a noisy engine while they rolled out of Riverpool. Flax had woken them before the sun came up, taking a considerable effort to rouse Cream Soda from her deep sleep. She must have come in late, Emerald guessed, and probably hadn't slept more than a couple of hours. Glancing over, the sight of the mare only further confirmed that theory.

Cream looked utterly miserable, and despite how much of an annoying greenhorn she'd been so far, Emerald had to admit she felt a little bad for her. There were bags under her eyes, and she was noticeably sluggish all morning. At least now, with the tank sitting still a few miles outside of town, Cream could rest for a moment. The mission today, as far as Emerald remembered it, was to wait in a treeline and keep an eye on a road that is supposedly being used by the Crystal Empire to rush troops to wherever they're needed and contain any breakthrough attempts.

This mission was a smaller one, and rather than sending Flax and her entire platoon Apple Blossom had deemed two tanks to be sufficient. With Whispering Wind still undergoing repair, that left only two options. Flax chose Vanadium and her crew, much to Emerald's disappointment, and they were now dragging into their third hour of no contact. Her radio set may as well have been useless so far - Vanadium had suggested they impose radio silence, just in case, and Flax had agreed. That meant she and the poor sap working the radio in the other tank got to sit on their hooves and do nothing. Of course, their job wasn't particularly exciting anyway, but it was nice to at least have the option of chatting on occasion.

The wind whistled through the bare trees all around, white and black trunks standing like the legs of some spindly creature, but even with her viewport opened all the way Emerald couldn't see much. She could see roughly eighty feet of road from one side of her port to the other, but she knew it stretched on for at least a mile in either direction before taking another turn. Both tanks were situated as far back from the road as they could be, grey hulls heavily coated with snow and tree limbs to make them slightly harder to spot. Emerald rolled her eyes as she remembered a comment Cream had made while they were digging in, comparing the work to building an exceptionally large snowmare. She knew that Cream was inexperienced, but her utter lack of care for the situation got under Emerald's hide more than she would've liked to admit. As it was, she tolerated her, but only because she had to. It wouldn't do any good to be hostile with the pony you had to sit almost shoulder to shoulder with for hours on end in a metal box.

Whilst idly adjusting the knobs on her radio, though, Emerald eventually picked up on something. With her headset still snug around her ears, she noticed slightly thicker static coming through, and after chasing the frequency for another moment or two... there it was! Emerald sat up straight in her chair, only to wince as her horn slammed into the hatch above her. Cursing under her breath and rubbing her sore head with one hoof, Emerald pressed one side of her headset against her ear with her free hoof. It was faint and hard to make out, but it was undeniable - voices! Hastily snatching up her tiny notepad and pen, Emerald scribbled the frequency down on the first page before turning around in her seat and shouting up into the turret. "Flax? Flax! You're going to want to hear this, commander! I think I found something big!"

Flax, with her head currently stuck out of the turret, had to drop all the way back inside before she could respond. She looked notably less enthusiastic, much to Emerald's annoyance. "What is it, Emerald? Unless you mean to tell me you saw somethin' through that viewport that I couldn't see up top."

Furrowing her brow, Emerald pointed at her radio set with one hoof. "A radio transmission! On a non-Equestrian frequency, that is. If we can pick it up, they've got to be close."

Flax suddenly seemed far more interested, her expression brightening as she pointed a hoof down at Emerald. "There ya go! That's the kinda smart thinkin' I like to see. Can ya figure out which way it's comin' from? And did ya note down what frequency they're usin'?"

Emerald nodded to both questions, feeling quite proud of herself. Puffing out her chest, she levitated up her notepad for Flax to see. "Yes ma'am, I did," she quipped, flashing her commander a grin before putting the notepad down. "And yes ma'am, I can. Can't do it while we're sitting still, though; the trick only works if we're moving, either toward the source or away." Pausing to listen to her headset again, Emerald frowned. "Or... or maybe they'll come to us. It's getting clearer, ma'am. Should we notify Vanadium?"

"I knew you were worth somethin' after all," Flax teased, chuckling quietly along with Sage. When Emerald relayed that the source was getting closer, though, Flax suddenly looked grim again. "How fast are they comin'? And do ya have any idea what we should expect? If it's an onboard radio, then... my only guess is tanks, or scouts."

After another few seconds of adjusting her radio, Emerald finally had a clear enough reception to make out words. They were heavily accented, barely comprehensible to her Canterlotian ears, but she could still pick out enough detail to answer Flax. "Uhh... if I'm hearing them right, we're listening to a scouting party. They're looking to find out who attacked their artillery yesterday, if I had to guess. No idea how close they are yet, or which direction they're coming from, but they're moving at a pretty good clip."

Flax nodded firmly, standing up again and poking her head out of her hatch. Judging by the shouting that came a moment later, Emerald guessed that Vanadium also happened to be turned out. When Flax dropped back down, all eyes were on her - even Cream, who looked like she'd been just about to nod off again. "Alright, y'all, here's the plan. We're gonna wait here and see if they pass us by. Assumin' they do, we'll launch our ambush and catch their scouts by surprise. With any luck, we'll have 'em out of commission before they can cry for help. Regardless, we're gonna have to scoot as soon as we're done. Cream, can we count on you to be ready?"

Cream nodded firmly, raising one forehoof for a quick salute. "You got it, ma'am. We'll be ready to roll, but... the engine might complain if we try and start it right when we need it, we've been sitting still long enough for it to cool down all the way. Should I start it now?"

Flax shook her head. "Uh-uh. If we get her runnin' now, we'll be meltin' all of our cover by the time them scouts roll by, not to mention makin' noise. We'll just have to hope she turns over quick enough." Cream hesitated, but nodded, turning around and putting her eyes back on the road. "Emerald, can ya gimme an update on that transmission? Still comin' closer?"

Emerald perked up, and after straining her ears a little, she nodded. "Yes ma'am, still closing in. They've got to be close, now."

No sooner than the words had left Emerald's mouth, there was a distinct rumbling fading into hearing range. It was to the right, up the road and hidden behind some houses, but it was there. Emerald preemptively closed her viewport, reducing her vision to whatever she could see through the tiny optic. Cream followed suit, darkening the interior of the tank, and everypony seemed to be holding their breath. Emerald glanced back when she heard Flax loading the cannon, then manually rotating the turret via the crank. A few more moments passed in tense silence before Emerald saw them passing by on the road in front of her - two armored cars, one carrying a small cannon in a turret on top of a four-wheeled chassis while the other lacked a turret entirely.

The lead car, the one without a gun, rolled along through Flax's field of fire for a few seconds before abruptly stopping, likely when the crew noticed the pair of tanks pointed right at them from the trees. As soon as they stopped rolling, Emerald felt her tank jolt as Flax let rip with the cannon. There was a muffled thud and a puff of flame, and she saw the hole left behind where the shell punched through the side of the car. A plume of snow exploded into the air behind it, revealing that the projectile had gone clean through the other side. Without waiting for an order from Flax, Emerald gripped the levers for her machine gun and lined up her sights.

Emerald knew those cars were bulletproof from the front, but from so close and with a clean shot at the side, she figured she had a good enough chance to take a few shots. Her guess paid off when, after letting loose a stream of twenty or so bullets, she saw a myriad of tiny holes punctured in the side of the vehicle around the giant hole the cannon shell left behind. No doors or hatches opened, and smoke poured out of the two holes left in both sides of the car.

Less than a split second after Flax fired, Vanadium had followed suit. Her shot hit just below the turret of the second armored car, failing to penetrate all the way through the vehicle but stopping it dead nonetheless. The coaxial machine gun let rip with a burst, and just like the first car the bullets cut clean through the thinner side armor. Emerald felt another swell of pride for a job well done, especially one that hinged on her own abilities so much, but it wouldn't last long. With her headset still on, Emerald picked up on a new stream of heavily accented yelling that made her blood run cold.

The transmission lasted several seconds, but she was turning around in her seat to yell up to Flax before it had even finished. "Flaaaax," she called, voice rising in volume as she drew out the word, "bad news! Those two weren't alone - their friends down the road saw what happened and they know our position!"

Flax looked down, then slammed her hoof into the turret wall. "Damn! Should'a known they wouldn't be comin' out here so lightly armed... Cream, get us moving now!"

Cream Soda nodded, and a second later the engine was coughing and sputtering as it tried to turn over. The frigid air wasn't doing it any favors, and Cream was looking increasingly panicked when she let off the electric start and tried again. Just when it seemed hopeless, the engine chugged once, coughed again, and then finally jumped to life. The tank shuddered as if it were just as full of adrenaline as its crew, lights springing to life now that they were supplied with power from the generator. Cream didn't need to be ordered to move, flooring the throttle and holding onto her brake levers as the engine roared and the tracks started to turn.

Emerald quickly found the Equestrian military frequency again and keyed her microphone, transmitting to Vanadium's radio operator. "Slate? Slate, if you can read me, we've got bad news. More Crystal vehicles are in our area, and we've got to move. Tell Vanadium to follow us!"

"Understood," a gravely-voiced stallion replied, before a pop of static signified that he'd switched over to the intercom in his own vehicle. Emerald slumped back, left without anything to do at the moment, and held onto her seat while they rumbled out onto the road.

"Point us toward them houses," Flax ordered, "see if we can't pick out where the rest of those scouts are hidin'!" A second later, Cream locked up the right track and let the left keep spinning, dragging the tank into a sharp right turn before coming to a stop with its front facing the little gathering of homes. Peering through her viewport, Emerald once again felt a wave of dread washing over her like a tsunami. There, situated on the road right between two houses, was an honest-to-Celestia tank. It was short and squat compared to the boxy thing Emerald found herself inside of now, and its cannon looked almost diminutive on its big, round-faced turret, but that didn't make it any less terrifying to be staring straight down the barrel. Emerald braced herself, hoping for a quick and painless death, but it never came. There was a distant crack from the enemy gun, and an instant later a horrible, deafening bang inside Emerald's ears.

The shell struck home, right in the middle of their frontal plate, but it failed to penetrate the armor. A noticeable bulge had formed on the inside, and a few tiny flakes of metal fell off where the armor wasn't able to bend perfectly. Still recovering from the impact, Emerald barely noticed when Flax returned fire. Peering through her viewport, she saw where the shot landed. The Crystal tank sported a second, smaller turret down on the hull that looked to be armed with a machine gun. It took the brunt of the impact from Flax's gun, the front end being nearly completely caved in while fresh smoke poured from the hole. Before the enemy tank could reload and take another swing at Flax's tank, Vanadium fired again.

Emerald watched as the second shot also found its target, this one going clean through the turret face. The force of the impact knocked the enemy's gun off target, leaving the turret sitting at an angle with the gun going limp in the mount and pointing at the ground. A few seconds later, two hatches opened. One down in the hull, right next to the destroyed machine gun turret, and the other on top of the main turret. Only two crystal ponies bailed out, and the one climbing down from the turret looked badly wounded already. Emerald stared, watching them scramble down the sides of their tank, and hesitated. She had her machine gun right in front of her, but were they really worth shooting? And even if they were, could she? They were defenseless now, not even carrying sidearms as they struggled to climb out of their stricken machine. The driver was swift enough to make it to cover, galloping off the main road and behind the collection of buildings to the left. The pony fleeing the turret, however, was less lucky. With one of his forelegs maimed and a nasty gash running down one side of his body, he was likely a lost cause already.

While Emerald was still debating on what to do, somepony else decided faster. One of the two machine guns on Vanadium's tank rattled off a short burst, cutting down the Crystal tanker just as he managed to drop down into the snow. Emerald hissed through her teeth, watching the snow beneath the body steadily turn red, and turned away from her viewport. When no more gunfire sounded off, Flax's voice came through loud and clear on the intercom. "Fight's over, girls. Y'all can relax. Cream, get us turned around, we need to find a new position to hold onto for the rest of our mission."

"Do ye think any of them managed to get a message out before we took them out?" Sage asked, looking concerned. Emerald watched Flax closely, her face going through a range of emotions before she finally answered.

"It doesn't matter. Whether they did or not, we still got a job to do out here."

)()()()()()()(

It didn't take long for Flax to decide on a new position, directing Cream up the road in the same direction the enemy scouts had come from. Vanadium followed along behind her on the road, both commanders turned out of their hatches and keeping their eyes on the surroundings. Radio silence had been imposed once again, and that left Emerald as nothing more than a second pair of eyes to watch the road ahead. The thrill of the short battle earlier had more or less been washed out of her system, but Emerald was still stuck thinking about the tanker she'd watched trying to flee. What became of the other pony who made it to cover in time? They didn't show themselves for as long as Emerald and the rest were still around, and they were stranded with no functional means of transportation to get back to wherever their lines were.

The thought of getting stuck out in a place like this made Emerald shudder, and not just because of the cold. She'd heard plenty about how, once ponies evacuated an area, wildlife tended to creep back in and reclaim things rather quickly. One story about a pack of wolves was more than enough for her. Regardless of that crystal pony's fate, though, Emerald's job wasn't over. It was nearing midday, and the scouting mission was supposed to last for another few hours. Flax was breaking protocol, if only slightly, by advancing past the agreed-upon ambush area, but she had insisted to Vanadium that it would pay off. After all, they were out here to catch an enemy troop movement, and hopefully, they'd put up less of a fight than that tank did.

Vanadium, ever the stickler for rules, argued with Flax's decision immediately. Emerald got the feeling that Flax wasn't used to leading a formation, listening to the mare argue with her subordinate when she could simply remind the other mare of her rank and end the discussion. Then again, Emerald knew a lot more about holding rank over other pony's heads than Flax probably did. That, she supposed, was a useful skill to have, even if she'd probably never get to use it again in the army. It was while she was thinking back about her previous role with the signal corps, mind lost in memories and digging up old reserves of anger she'd tried to move past, that the first sign of contact went right over her head - literally.

A long, jagged red streak zipped across her field of view, going above her viewport and striking the front of the turret with a clang, followed a split second later by the muffled blast of a gun. There was a flurry of activity all at once, and Cream seemingly panicked and brought the tank to a dead stop.

"Keep goin', keep goin'! We're sittin' ducks out here, we gotta keep movin'!" Flax shouted, voice distorted as her headset microphone peaked out. Cream was quick to oblige when another round struck the front hull, failing to penetrate just like its predecessor. A moment after the second impact, Emerald finally put two and two together. The muzzle flash of ani-tank rifles was coming from another house up ahead, and judging by the delay between impacts there were only two of them. Glancing around as much as she was able with her limited field of view, Emerald realized they were still out in the open on the main road.

Cream floored the throttle once again, making the tank lurch forward as the engine revved up. Emerald could only guess Vanadium was following suit behind them, listening to more rifle fire sporadically ping off the hull. The cannon boomed as Flax started to return fire, echoed by Vanadium, and then all four machine guns across both tanks lit up at once. A stream of bullets arrowed toward the building the Crystal Ponies were firing from, as well as the numerous outlines of more infantry hiding in the trees and bushes on either side of it. The chatter of automatic gunfire was accompanied by the clattering of dozens of shell casings on the hull floor, and Emerald realized she was beginning to create a pile of hot brass right next to her leg when she felt the heat radiating off of it and through her pants.

Shying away from the hot metal as much as she could, Emerald squinted through her viewport and watched where her tracer bullets landed to adjust her aim. The two ponies with anti-tank rifles were pinned down for the moment, though that left everyone else free to act while the machine guns focused on them. Emerald swept her gun across the treeline for good measure, simultaneously hoping to have landed some hits and hoping that she managed to shoot over everypony's head. A split second later, she wished she'd been paying closer attention.

Emerald spotted the muzzle brake an instant before the gun fired, a hefty device attached to the end of a long, slender barrel. The anti-tank gun was short and well hidden, but the massive flash from its cannon and the cloud of snow it tossed up were unmistakable. The boom that followed was surprisingly loud, especially given the distance, though that only further confirmed how deadly that gun was. When the armor in front of her didn't catch the shell, nor was it penetrated, Emerald felt a wave of relief at the realization that they'd missed. Flax quickly silenced the gun with a high explosive shell, tearing it apart and sending its crew running in opposite directions. Emerald didn't feel quite so bad about cutting these ones down, if only because they'd just tried to kill her.

With their primary source of firepower out of action, the rest of the enemy troops seemed far less keen on staying in the fight. They began to break and retreat in groups, some trying to drag or carry wounded comrades along with them, and Emerald could only watch while Sage sprayed in their general direction with her machine gun. As much as the mare insisted her missing eye didn't hinder her, Emerald was seeing the proof to the contrary. Sage's gunfire went wide for the most part, though a lucky bullet here and there managed to find a target. By the time Sage's ammo belt ran dry, there weren't any more crystal ponies for her to shoot at. Emerald slumped back in her seat once more, releasing the levers for her gun, and heaved a sigh. Looking down, she realized her hooves were shaking, though she wasn't terribly surprised. Looking right down the barrel of an enemy gun twice in as many hours was enough to shake anypony, and Emerald knew better than to try and uphold some kind of tough pony act.

Emerald was just about to speak up and ask how everypony else was holding up when Flax suddenly screamed a curse, her voice shrill and filled with an odd emotion that Emerald couldn't quite place. Brow furrowed, Emerald turned around as much as she could in her chair - kicking aside some cooled shell casings in the process - and looked up at her commander. "Did one of those AT rifles get lucky? What happened?" Flax was staring out the right viewport of her cupola, jaw clenched and eyes wide, and Emerald could faintly see yellow flames reflecting in her eyes. Given the direction... that could only mean one thing. Emerald swallowed hard, then spoke up again in a softer voice. "Ma'am...?"

"They're gone, lass," Sage interrupted, answering for Flax with a somber tone. "Those bastards on the anti-tank gun must've hit 'er ammo - set it right off, nary a thing left but the hull and some scattered parts. At least it was quick, aye?"

"Yeah," Flax added, her voice hollow. "Yeah, it was quick. We're outta radio range from the camp, but we gotta report the loss as soon as we are. Cream, turn us around. We gotta get back as quick as we can." Flax paused and swallowed heavily. Looking up at her, Emerald could see the other mare's eyes were wet with tears that wouldn't quite fall. Flax clenched her eyes shut while the tank spun around, lowering her head and slowly removing her headset. Nopony spoke, and Emerald had a feeling it was going to be a long, quiet drive back to Riverpool.