Blazing Muzzles

Chapter Eight: The Heart of the Enemy

By Blaze Spectrum

I opened the cockpit, despite being battered, the hinges of the cockpit still opened with little to no effort. I pulled my left hoof over the side, then my left. After that, I used my front hooves to force my butt off the fighter. I fell a metre and then made contact with the grass. It really looked like a nice day. The birds were chirping, the sun was out and the sky was clear of clouds. The only sign that a war was occurring in the first place was a few trails of smoke coming from downed fighters that were there for months. Probably because nopony even bothered to extract what was a eight metre long scrap of burnt metal.

Heading towards the airport, I saw Twilight and her friends again, they were infinitely more lucky then me and had their fighters docked down.

Right at that point, I received a COM message,"You receiving? We've cleared the hostiles. Sending HLAS2 Gunship to your position."

I stopped walking by that point. HLAS2 Gunships were for some of the longest and highest risk operations. They were when a dropship wasn't big enough and din't have enough firepower, but when a destroyer or frigate were far too extreme. They were 50 m long, perfectly fine with carrying several smaller vehicles, equipped with two rocket launchers at each side that could rotate and move around to every point on its side. It had two heavy machine guns that were both at the sides, about as powerful as a starfighter's, but there was two of them, and their ammo reserves had 2400 rounds for each cannon, when a starfighter only has 1800 rounds in its huge ammo barrel. If it was to be compared to a fighter then the ratio would roughly be 30:1. One really powerful thing.

Afterwards, I looked up after having my third cup of coffee in the terminal in a row, I could see a gunship landing. I may have attracted many eyes with my titanium armour and guns magnetically stuck to me, but I didn't care. I could enjoy coffee that costed half of what they did in UPSN bases.

I put my helmet back on; then I dashed straight into a jumbo jet's portable bridge or whatever it is and jumped off an exit side. Despite how rude my actions were, I couldn't care much less. The main six were taking a more proper, but more long way to exit.

I sprinted about a hundred metres until I reached the gunship. The side doors were open, so I jumped right in. A minute later Twilight's friends joined in.

The doors at the side slowly closed, and while they were closing we already took off. I looked around. There were ten seats at the port and starboard of the ship. A table was in the middle and dead bolted to the floor so that it wouldn't disrupt the survival of the crew when under fire. There was a 40 inch television, although it was as thin as possible. It was partially bent on attack and partially bent on keeping the crew entertained. Like a small ship. Of which it was.

To the back of the living quarters was bunkers, twenty metres, with twenty at each side, one on top of the other. So it added up to forty troops in the long run, fifty if it's a shorter one.

"We're headed all the way for the Smoky Mountains!" the pilot shouted."Turning on to fuel conservation."

Smoky Mountains? It was at the other side of the country. A good three thousand five hundred kilometres. With fuel conservation on we would be going at 700 kph. Might as well as go to bed.

I hurled myself onto a bunk, put my weapons on the magnetic part on the wall. Wasn't long before I dozed off.

I heard a crash. It woke me from my slumber. I grabbed my weapons, but I couldn't put them on all at once so they ended up in a pile on my chest. I groaned and put them on one by one.

"What the hell happened anyways?" I asked.

"We're being boarded," the pilot looked desperate.

"Really?"

"They should wrench open the side doors any minute."

"How long was I out?"

"Four hours and three quarters. We've just entered the enemy airspace too. Seems like like their really serious about defending this place. Luckily, a few dropships and gunships went with us."

"We have more? It'll give us a fighting chance."

I dumped my LRR3 and picked up an AP4 Shotgun. The thing had its cocking barrels concealed, while still having space for the pump action handle. It seemed to be loaded from the top and didn't have a removable magazine. You could say semi automatic shotguns were better, I say they suck. They're unreliable as heck when compared to pump action. Many ponies have reported more jamming issues, more everything. I wouldn't go for full auto even. I'm up for a reliable weapon, not one to beat the heck out of everything. If you manage to combine those two though, then I'll take it.

I stared at it for another second, until another crash rattled the ship. I walked in between the doors and was ready to camp. Twilight was ready to assist me, judging by the way she was holding her UL8 Sniper Rifle which she just got. Rainbow Dash, was ready to storm whoever came on board. She was permitted from using explosives, for obvious reasons.

The doors ripped open. I turned around and fired my weapon from the hip, only my reticle guiding me. The shot split into twelve pellets, and most of them hit the an unfortunate marine boarding. The shot would have done tons of damage to her delicate balance of organs, but that didn't matter. She was ripped in half and her top half flew over me and hit a marine behind me. Taking note of that marine, I turned around while cocking the handle back and blew his head off. Gore splattered around the inside and even more spattered on my already reasonably bloodstained armour.

Another one jumped in. His eyes had lightning in them. He was just begging to slide his combat knife in my throat. He unsheathed it and charged at me.

I cocked my weapon, the cartilage falling out. Before I could shoot, Twilight blew his head off, the headless body heading right at me. I didn't have enough time to react and pulled the trigger anyways, blowing the body which was torn in half a few metres away. I wasted ammo but saved myself from being tackled by a headless corpse. I cocked it again.

The boarding squads weren't about to give up, and still sent more. The first marine on was killed with a few RFK4 shots from Rainbow Dash. Another one had a shotgun, and pulled the trigger while my back was turned.

The blast threw me back a few metres. I wasn't dead, but I would have been if the marine shot me at point blank range. I turned around, and while he was still cocking the weapon I shot him in his left lower leg.

The shell split, and quite a few pellets dug into his leg, ripping it off. I kicked him in the chest, making him fall from the sky. Had the gap between the boarding craft been any shorter, then he wouldn't have fallen down.

"Wait," shouted the pilot above the noise."I think I can use the rotating rocket launchers to take down the boarding crafts!"

The next thing I heard was two loud explosions around me. The boarding crafts quickly lost altitude and hit the ground, splitting into a huge fireworks display.

"Are we at our destination?" I asked the pilot. I wanted to get off the thing right now and begin breaching in what would be the end of the war.

"Almost," he replied."They have a huge shield protecting the fortress. Virtually impervious to fire, but you could just go straight through them."

I looked out the left side. The base really was huge. I was told that it was 150 metres tall, 450 metres wide, 1250 metres long. And four hundred fifty metres was under ground! It was pretty obvious to see why destroying this structure could be the key to winning the war.

After looking out, I saw a rocket headed towards our ship's hull. It looked like it was gonna hit me but instead hit several metres to my left. The blast knocked me off my feet and made me slide a few metres back. If I was at the opposite door than I would have been forced straight off. A few bullets to the hull followed.

"Status?" I asked the pilot.

"Hull integrity compromised."

"Drop us off. Now."

He weakened the vertical thrust so that the ship could land on the ground softly. We all jumped off, onto the dirt and soil. I heard the mushing sound as we got off. I pulled my LRR3 off my back. It was an open area for when we were outside. While the RFK4 could effectively kill at 500 metres it's just pretty hard to aim at that range without a scope.

I looked through the scope. A marine with a rocket launcher was at the battlements. He must have tried once or twice to blow up a ship or two. I aimed at his head and pulled the trigger. Almost instantly he fell down onto a shocked comrade of his. While the marine stared down at his dead ally I shot him as well. By then, a sniper grasped what was going on and aimed her rifle at me. She was taken out with a swift bullet to the chest and neck.

By then, the rest of the dropships came down. Chin mounted machine guns sprayed the AR. We couldn't go without losing something. A marine fired rocket, before being taken out by a sniper. The rocket hit a dropship that collided with another on its descent. All our COMs were tied together so we all heard the desperate cries of the pilots. Luckily, the two downed vehicles crashed down onto the battlements.

I grabbed my RFK4 from my back, swapping it for my LRR3. I sprinted forward. I had to stop several times due to the length to the base being a few hundred metres. I wondered if I should have run practice laps after all.

I wasn't really much time to gripe. Dozens of UPSN squads charged the guards of the front battlements. After a universal command to throw a grenade. I took one from my left leg, pulled the cap off,(like taking the cap off a pen so you could prime one with a single hoof) and threw it as far as I could into the battlements. There was several simultaneous explosions and explosions that set off more grenades. A massacre that could be seen for miles.

After we were sure there were no more grenades about to go off, we charged forward. The last thing we wanted was to be set back to square one and have the AR come back to the battlements.