Another burst of turbulence shook the ringbird.

I leaned forward in my seat, rubbing my hooves together, and tried my hardest to stop tapping my hoof against the floor. My armor felt tight and uncomfortable, and my lungs burned with the hot smoke I inhaled. Dim red light outlined my hooves as I held them, shaking, in front of my face. I couldn’t tell if the shaking was from the turbulence or if it was just me. I tried to pretend it was only the turbulence.

Around me, twenty Sentinels sat in their seats in the ringbird’s cargo bay, all of them quiet. Whatever talk or laughter they’d shared when we first boarded before sunrise had long since left them. All we knew was that we’d been flying for two, nearly three hours, stuck in this windowless box. It wasn’t hard to imagine the turbulence between the mountains as anti-air artillery on the dam. That was why I’d dug into my cigarette box, despite the tight space with almost no ventilation. I needed a smoke bad to calm my nerves before we landed.

Zip and Sig had left with most of the griffons and about half of the Sentinels’ pegasi early yesterday afternoon. We’d shared a heartfelt goodbye, promising to see each other again at the dam, and to look out for each other once that happened. Then the unicorns teleported them away, leaving me to do little but mope around the Bastion with Gauge and Chaff for the next hour. Then, they finally released Wheat, and he and Chaff loaded up with supplies for the long journey ahead.

I’d taken Chaff over to the side of the hangar and knelt in front of him while he fussed with the oversized bag on his back. “Stay close to Wheat,” I had told him, my hooves set on his shoulders. “He knows his way around the valley. He’ll get you home to Northlight.”

Chaff had been, as expected, pretty disappointed that the Sentinels wouldn’t take him along to the dam, and even more disappointed that we were making him leave. But, in spite of all of that, I could tell the little colt was homesick. When he didn’t say anything, I put my hoof under his jaw. “Chaff,” I said, making him look at me, “you are the bravest little colt I’ve ever met. There are adults who have less guts than you. Stars, I was the one nearly pissing myself at every corner when I left Northlight, and you followed me unseen through the grass without a care. And with the attack on the dam tomorrow, I wish I had your courage.

“But it’s time for you to go home,” I’d said, giving him a sympathetic smile. “I know you’re worried about what your mom and what your grandfather are going to say, but don’t be. They’ve been missing you even more than you’ve missed them. And I guarantee you, the first thing your mom is going to do when she sees you is take you in her forelegs and give you a big hug, then make your favorite meal. You don’t have anything to be worried about, okay?”

He’d slowly nodded his head, and I’d drawn him in for a hug. “I’m gonna miss you, Chaff,” I’d said, holding his head against my chest. “Maybe when this is all over, I’ll come and visit you again, okay?”

“Okay,” the little colt had whispered. Then, looking up at me, he’d added, “Thanks for letting me stay.”

I’d started to tear up at that point, so I’d just whispered ‘You’re welcome’ and gave him one last parting hug before letting Wheat take over. He’d shared a few details about his plan to get back to Northlight, and offered me words of encouragement for the assault on the dam. I likewise gave him some encouragement for the road, and then Gauge and I watched as the two walked right out the open hangar door. I’d simply stood there, tears starting to form in my eyes, until the closing doors had blocked my sight of them.

The red light in the ringbird buzzed and switched to yellow, snapping me out of my meditation, if you could call it that. Speakers crackled, and Dacie’s voice rolled through the cargo bay. “We’re about five miles out from the drop-off point, over.”

Near the door, Fusillade grunted and stood up. She was the one in charge of the strike team, of which I was a part of, and it was her job to make sure that we seized the RTZ so the rest of the troops could come flooding in. Underneath her imposing armor, which had been trimmed in diamond to help her casting or something like that, the mare looked terrifying. Despite being in her late forties at least, I had no doubt that she could hold her own on the field of battle. She was almost certainly one of the best warlocks the Sentinels had, to boot.

Hooking a foreleg around a handle near the cargo door, Fusillade looked out over all of us. “Your orders are very simple, understand?” she shouted over the roar of the aircraft’s engines. “When we land, find cover immediately, and begin to drive them back. Bombardiers, I want those gun towers bathed in rockets, and anything that tries to move, vaporize it. Unicorns, rally at the RTZ and begin clearing any obstructions with your magic. As soon as the RTZ is clear, defend it and secure a perimeter until we get the tank here.”

Her eyes slid across us one last time, and her magic grabbed four machine pistols and slotted them into brackets on her armor. “Check your weapons and shields. The second we land, you’re going to need them.”

Around me, the other Sentinels began to do just that, looking over their equipment and running quick diagnostics on their armor. I queued up my own diagnostics program with a thought and took one last drag on the cigarette before crushing it into the floor. I let the smoke linger in my lungs for as long as I could stand it before blowing it out through my nose, the heat tickling the back of my throat. The next time I dipped into that wooden box, I’d be sitting on Carrion’s corpse. I was certain of it.

My diagnostics check came back with no warnings; everything was green across the board. I pried my BR12A out from the clamps that locked it in place next to me and gave it a quick inspection. Its sights still worked normally, showing the number of rounds left in the mag and the distance to target. I’d spent a long time last night cleaning the thing and making sure it was in perfect condition for today. Hopefully between that, the machine guns in my armor, and my magic, I had all I needed to cut my way through the dam and find Nova. I even had two of those deployable cover things mounted to the sides of my armor, in case I really needed them.

The ringbird shook and I heard something that sounded like a whip cracking. Fusillade wasted no time pounding the intercom next to her. “What the fuck was that?”

“Triple-A, ma’am!” Dacie shouted into the speaker. “They must’ve set some up in the mountains! Shields deflected it, though!”

“Distance?” Fusillade shouted back.

“One mile! It’s gonna be rough!”

“Take it in fast and low!” the mare ordered. “Hover over the RTZ for ten seconds and then go! I’m going to open the cargo door, brace for a little turbulence!”

Her magic took hold of the red lever next to her and pulled it down hard. Almost immediately, a warning siren began to go off as the door started to lower. A burst of wind came roaring through the cargo bay, and I held up my hoof to shield my eyes from it. When I opened them again, I saw the mountains roaring beneath us, a blur of dull pink and orange in the low blue light of the rising sun. I could also hear the thundering of artillery guns firing below us, and that awful whip-cracking sound of the ringbird’s shields repelling their shells before they could blow us out of the sky. You know, with how fond Equestria was with shielding all of their important shit, just what exactly would it take to shoot something like this out of the sky?

Turns out, I really didn’t want to know what the answer to that was, because it seemed like the Crimson had it. There was some horrible thundering noise that nearly blew out our eardrums, and the ringbird shook violently as something hit it. I saw pieces of metal come flying off of the back, and the air around us crackle with electricity. Fusillade swore in Prench and hooked herself around the frame so she didn’t go flying out the open door. “Statut!” she ordered, slipping into her native tongue.

“Shields down and charging… glancing hit to the rotor housing,” Dacie said, and I could imagine her struggling to keep the thing flying stable. “Approaching RTZ in ten seconds!”

The commander turned to us and drew her four pistols. “Ready for drop!” she screamed, feeding magazines into each of her pistols with her magic. Swallowing hard, I hugged my battle rifle against my chest and slid forward on my seat, ready to jump to my hooves and gallop toward the door as soon as the ponies in front of me did so. The ground beneath us changed from grass and trees to a broad area of pancaked dirt and mud, with trenches dug into the ground and fortified with machine gun nests. I could even see a few startled Crimson in the trenches lower their heads as the ringbird came buzzing in a few feet off of the ground. “Go!”

Like a true leader, Fusillade was the first out of the door, jumping from the ringbird before it even stopped moving and landing with a practiced roll. Each of her four machine pistols took aim at a different bandit and fired a lethal burst at the same time, dropping four of them in an instant. Then she slid into the nearest trench and concentrated all four in front of her, turning the entrenchment into a terrifying hail of lead.

The rest of the Sentinels followed right behind her, landing scattered throughout the immediate area as the ringbird drifted along. When it was my turn, I bit down on the tac-rail of my battle rifle for a little extra grip as I jumped out of the cargo bay. I hit the ground with a heavy thud, the weight of the armor on my back nearly crushing my legs, and I immediately scrambled for the trench as bullets landed all around me.

My rifle came flying out from between my teeth pretty painfully when I landed on my tail, but I caught it in my magic before it hit the mud. My heart pounding in my chest, I took two seconds to inhale and try to calm myself down before I peeked out over the trench. Something hit the ground across from me and blew up, showering me and the Sentinels around me in dirt. I cowered against the wall of the trench, waiting for the dirt to stop falling, and then I carefully opened my eyes and peered over the trench toward the dam.

Well fuck.

I saw the ringbird retract its cargo door as the last of the Sentinels jumped out of it, a smoldering scorch mark scored diagonally across the rotor ring and exposing the blades inside. Those Sentinels galloped toward the trench the rest of us were in while two enormous concrete towers lit up in all sorts of machine gun fire. Two of the Sentinels didn’t make it; I saw their shields pop as .50cal rounds ripped through their armor, cutting them into gory pieces where they stood. Then bigger guns higher up in the towers thundered, and the ground around us exploded again.

The skies were a mess. Flak filled the air with thick black clouds and flaming shrapnel, occasionally knocking a winged figure out of the sky. Pegasi and griffons chased each other above the dam, and bullets flew wildly between them as they did the dance of death. In the distance, lightning flashed and thunder growled; it seemed like it’d only be a matter of time before the heavens themselves decided they wanted in on the melee.

Things weren’t any prettier on the ground. The Sentinels moved left and right down the trench, with the right side spearheaded by Fusillade herself. Crimson soldiers scurried to defensive positions in a second layer of trenches, rushing to machine gun nests and likely securing the heavy ordinance they needed to kill us. Behind them, I could barely see a metal pad in the ground, piled high with crates and scrap metal and garbage, and with heavy iron stakes driven into it. And beyond that stood a tall gate, probably at least fifteen feet high and topped with barbed wire, more machine guns, and more Crimson. Oh, and it was flanked by those two huge gun towers which just rained death on us.

I about shit myself upon seeing all of that. But I knew what my job was. I needed to get to that metal pad so I could start throwing shit off of it. And the longer we stayed holed in here, the sooner the Crimson got those artillery pieces in the gun towers trained on our trench and just annihilated us.

The first wave of antimatter rockets streaked out of our trench the moment Dacie took the ringbird a safe distance away. They detonated against the gun towers, throwing up huge clouds of debris and smoke, but when it cleared the damn towers were still standing. Not that I expected they’d do anything to the towers, but it was still disheartening to see the towers return fire almost immediately. More rockets detonated against the gate, destroying machine gun emplacements and throwing bandits off of the walls. At least those volleys did something.

I heard the air snap right behind my ears, and I instinctively ducked down. When I looked behind me, I saw a sandbag spilling its contents onto the ground through a perfectly round hole in the fabric. Great. Fucking snipers. Compared to the assault on the Fort, I decided that just this single minute on the ground was worse. It was definitely more daunting, if anything, just seeing what we were up against.

I scooted along the trench to a safer spot and poked my head out, making a quick survey of the battlefield. There was a machine gun nest about fifty yards downrange that was suppressing a group of Sentinels trying to barrage the gun towers, so I leveled my battle rifle at it and began spraying. With the rangefinder in the scope, I was able to get a few clean shots off, taking down two Crimson and probably gravely wounding a third. A warning light and what felt like a solid whack to my right side alerted me to incoming fire, and I ducked back down into the trenches before something that could bypass my shields finally got me.

A whistle down in Fusillade’s direction shrieked into the air, and an enormous barrage of antimatter rockets blanketed everything downrange of us. I knew what that whistle meant, and seeing that I still had eighteen rounds in my mag, I scrambled out of the trench and charged across the open ground. Around me, about half of our strike force dashed across the open terrain with a ferocious battle cry, while the remaining half provided the suppressing fire. Bullets fell all around me, and I nearly slipped on my hooves as I tried to spin out of the way of an incoming barrage of tracers. But I could see the end goal in sight, and with one last leap, I jumped into the second trench.

Right on top of another bandit with a raised bayonet.

I felt the sharp tip of the bayonet slice into my side, past where the light Sentinel armor covered me. I gasped in pain, and the two of us crashed down hard in the bottom of the trench. I still felt my battle rifle somewhere in my magical grip, so I at least knew I hadn’t lost it, but at the moment I was too concerned with the mare writhing under me. She kicked me off with a powerful buck to my helmet (which was the moment I realized she was an earth pony) and began to scramble back to her hooves, drawing a knife from a sheath on her shoulder. I managed to get my hooves under me and lunge at her before she could bring it to bear, sending the two of us back to the ground again, with me on top and trying to pummel her face with my spiked horseshoes to make her drop her weapon. Even though the points drew blood from her face beneath her smeared war paint, and even though I’m pretty sure I broke her nose, the mare didn’t let go of her knife, and instead sliced at my exposed leg. I felt the blade whizz through my skin, but thankfully it was only a shallow cut. Still, it forced me to back off enough to let her stand up and come at me again.

I tried to bring my rifle to bear as I darted away from the knife, but she was too close for me to use it effectively and I didn’t have a bayonet on it. One of her hooves swatted it aside as I fired a burst, sending the bullets into the ground, and she lunged at me again with the knife. This time, I threw my shoulder at her, putting her off balance enough to make her miss her swing and get me some leverage under her body. Growling, I shoved her back and spun around to deliver a buck to her chest, sending her stumbling away from me.

Screaming in frustration, the mare tried to lunge for me again, but somepony else finally noticed our fight. Before she even closed half of the distance, her neck suddenly erupted with a ton of small holes as bullets tore through it, going so far as to ricochet off of my shielding afterwards. She fell in a meaty pile on the ground, and Fusillade came galloping over, one of her machine pistols smoking at the barrel, and the other three aimed at targets on the gate.

“Rifle!” she screamed at me, her magic grabbing my battle rifle and chucking it in my direction. I managed to catch it before it hit my face, and I quickly sighted another Crimson bandit on the gate and forced him back into cover with three more bursts. I received a surprisingly hard slap to my shoulder and turned to see Fusillade pointing to a mounted machine gun pointing through the gate. “Drop it, marksmare!”

A big red number three flashed at me in the sights of my rifle as I sighted the gun emplacement, but it thankfully didn’t matter; with my last burst, I took the head off of the bandit behind the gun, and my rifle automatically ejected the empty magazine and greedily loaded the next one I slotted into it. We didn’t get to savor our victory for long, though. Within seconds, the Crimson on the wall were back to shooting at us, and I felt something rip through my shield but ping off of my armor just above my left flank. We both hit the dirt, not wanting to expose ourselves to that kind of fire, and waited for our shields to return to full strength.

Then I realized something. “You shot at me!” I shouted at Fusillade.

The unicorn commander just gave me an irritated frown. “Did I injure you?”

Wilting from her glare, I just mutely shook my head.

She snorted. “Small caliber,” she said, shaking one of her machine pistols. “Lets me shoot into a melee without any risk of friendly fire. Our shields protect us from bullets this small.” We heard a shout from a Crimson soldier approaching, and without breaking eye contact with me, Fusillade just raised two of her machine pistols above the edge of the trench and sprayed in an arc. A second later we heard a choking gasp and a shitty SM45 submachine gun tumbled into the trench, landing between us. Fusillade’s magic opened two boxes riveted onto her armor, and she quickly exchanged the two magazines for two fresh ones from her reserves.

I just nervously smiled and shuffled backwards a bit. “I can see why you’re a commander, ma’am.”

“I wasn’t made a commander for that,” she said, standing back up. Placing her hooves on the ground, she holstered her machine pistols and her horn began to glow with a bright white light. My eyes widened as the gems in her armor began to glow as well, and I saw threads of magic dance between them and her horn. “I was made unicorn commander for this!”

She released her magic and the ground rippled in front of her, literally breaking apart as her spell tore through the earth. It traveled in a line of white energy directly from her to the RTZ, where the spell burrowed into the shit piled on top of it. In a burst of radiant energy, everything just exploded in a white light, scattering the shattered remains of the blockade in a million different directions. When the blinding light finally died away, there only remained the stakes driven into the pad and a small pile of remains covering it. There was also the vaporized remains of a pony or two around it; all I could see were skeletons coated in the tattered remains of Crimson armor.

Fusillade fell back into the trench next to me, panting. “Je deviens trop vieux pour cette merde…” she muttered, wiping at her lips. I noted a tiny stain of red on her blue fetlock, and Glass’ warning came back to me. Still, I hardly paid that any mind.

I fell to my haunches, my eyes wide and forehooves outstretched to her. “Teach me how the fuck to do that!”

She shot a glare at me. “You are not even close to being ready,” she said. “And you still have a job to do.” Dabbing at her lips again to make sure that she wasn’t still bleeding, she drew her machine pistols and stood up. “Get the RTZ cleared!”

I drew back and sat up, peering over the edge of the trench. The RTZ was like twenty yards ahead of me, and the second half of the strike team galloped into our trench while the rest of us provided covering fire for them. Still, I saw one drop, and I could make out three Sentinels lying in the open, plus one bleeding profusely in our trench. Add the two that got obliterated from artillery after landing, and maybe one or two more in the first trench that I couldn’t see, and we were already nearly down to half strength. If we didn’t clear the RTZ soon, the assault would fail.

Luckily, it seemed like we had some help from above. I saw a few pegasi and griffons come swooping in, strafing the top and the back of the gate with machine gun fire, momentarily disrupting the barrage directed against us. I seized that moment to climb over the top and gallop toward the RTZ pad, spraying my battle rifle in concentrated bursts at any Crimson bandits I saw within range. Another battle cry went up from the strike team, and I saw four or five unicorns, Fusillade included, join me in the charge to the RTZ. One took a sniper round right between the eyes; I felt my stomach do backflips as his head exploded into pieces. Still, five of us made it to the pile of rubble Fusillade’s spell left behind, and we immediately took up positions around it.

“Shields!” Fusillade screamed, and her magic picked up a few scrap panels and chunks of rubble to levitate in front of us, since we were basically standing in the open. Me and another unicorn joined her, grabbing what we could and trying to hold it up to the gate. Some ponies in the strike team fired a few deployable shields around us to keep flanking fire under control, but they weren’t tall enough to stop the machine guns on the gate from shooting down at us, so I still had to hold the makeshift shield above and in front of us like Fusillade. I felt the chunk of concrete I held in my magical grip shudder as bullets slammed into it, and I began to sweat and pant as I struggled to hold a few hundred pounds of rubble in the air in front of me. While we did that, the remaining two unicorns began flinging rubble off of the pad, stacking it up on either side as makeshift cover from flanking attacks. They left the impaled beams for later, though. That was something that we’d have to figure out how to deal with.

“They’re charging!” Fusillade screamed, rearranging her makeshift cover to create firing ports for her machine pistols. I moved a few pieces of concrete and saw a group of Crimson rushing our position, submachine guns blazing. A few stray bullets found their way between the cracks in my rubble, but they thankfully bounced off of my shielding. Still, shit was likely going to get very bad if they got on top of us, so I jammed my battle rifle into the opening and began firing wildly. I dropped two, and Fusillade picked off a couple herself, but they were soon on top of us, rushing around our shields.

But the Sentinels in the second trench had our backs, and they opened fire with a devastating hail of bullets that began cutting them down before they could flank us. I saw the bodies mounting and the bullets flying, and soon my rifle squawked at me and automatically dropped its empty magazine. Fuck, how many were there? They just kept coming!

The stallion on my left cried out as a bandit leapt over the rubble and bodies of his companions and landed on the stallion’s back, knife drawn. A few bloody stabs of the knife cut through the gray jumpsuit around the Sentinel’s neck, and he fell to the ground before I could reload my rifle and bring it to bear. His pile of rubble collapsed in front of him as he fell, exposing the unicorns working to clear the pad to the machine gun fire from the gate walls.

Thankfully, somepony gunned him down before he could jam that knife into my side, but that still left us up shit creek without a paddle. “Cover it!” Fusillade screamed at me, and she grabbed more rubble to add to her shield while shoving mine to the left to fill in the gap. Straining and heaving, I picked up a few more pieces of scrap metal and concrete to add to my cover, dropping my rifle to focus on maintaining it. My jaw was wide open as I panted, sucking down air as my heart rate began to climb. I’d never held this much in my magic before. I was easily holding five hundred pounds in front of me, probably more. My sweaty mane began to cling to my neck and face underneath my helmet, and for the first time, I wished that it was shorter. With that sticky feeling threatening to break my concentration, I closed my eyes to try to focus everything I had into the cover. I could already feel the sensation starting to leave my legs.

And of course, the Crimson just kept coming, desperately trying to break our defense and stop us from clearing the RTZ. We were out of direct sight of the artillery in the gun towers, which was the only reason we hadn’t been blown to pieces yet, but that didn’t mean that the Crimson didn’t have hundreds of bodies to throw at us. I couldn’t see what was happening around me, but I could hear the shooting, the screaming, and the dying. I was scared. I didn’t know when a knife was going to rip through my neck as the fighting around us became more frantic. The shrieking of metal behind me must’ve been the other unicorns prying a metal stake out of the pad, but I didn’t know how many more of those they had left. It definitely took them a long time to just get one out.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard gunfire above us, accompanied by a desperate battle cry. The shrieking of Sentinel machine guns filled my ears, and I felt air thrown off by flapping wings blow against my sweaty neck. I cracked open my left eye to see figures landing around us and firing downrange, and a hazy blur of orange dominated my vision. It fired a burst of its machine guns at a bandit charging me, and then it spoke in an angelic voice. “Hang in there! Just a little longer!”

“Z-Zip?” I wheezed, struggling to make out the mare’s face. “What’re you—?”

“Later, okay?” she shouted back, the gun ports in her armor flashing as she killed another bandit. “Just keep that cover up!”

She moved to my side, offering me support while I put my all into my telekinesis. I even added another block of concrete to plug a hole in the cover. I didn’t want to know how much I was holding, but it was a fucking lot. I didn’t think telekinesis was going to be the spell to kill me.

Then the load lessened in my grasp, and I opened my eyes to see another unicorn helping to lift it. She just nodded at me, and I transferred some of my burden to her. Bullets and rockets rained hell on the Crimson trying to drive us off of the RTZ, and above us, the fliers had rallied to keep us safe. A pair of pegasi worked on the steel stakes behind us, slicing away at the metal with their laser blades while the unicorns tried to pry them out. In the face of our coordinated effort, the Crimson’s mass assault counterattack began to lose steam as we shredded them to pieces.

“They’re falling back!” Fusillade shouted. Through the gaps in my cover I could see the Crimson in front of us turning tail and diving back through the doors in the gate before they slammed shut. I felt the barrage of bullets against my cover lessen, and I dropped a few smaller chunks to focus on the big pieces. “Keep up the pressure!”

A few more minutes was all it took to clear the last of the stakes from the pad. “It’s clear!” one of the pegasi shouted. “Let’s go!”

Fusillade nodded and began to spin the rubble she held in front of her. “Back to the trench! I’m calling it in!” Then, with a howl of exertion, she flung the debris in front of her, dashing a bandit trapped on this side of the gate to pieces and destroying a machine gun nest on top of it. Then, spraying her machine pistols, she withdrew to the trench, dodging hot lead along the way.

Zip tugged on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s go!” she screeched, and I saw the air wobble around her head as her shields deflected a bullet. That was enough motivation for me; lacking the strength to fling my cover at the wall like Fusillade did, I just dropped it in a pile off to the side of the pad and began galloping back, trying to cover our retreat with my battle rifle pointed at the gate and blindly firing behind us. We both slid along the ground and landed in the trench, dirt and mud and shell casings pelting us in our faces as we fell on our backs, choking as we inhaled the smoke given off by the rocket pods on the bombardiers.

Fusillade already had her back to the trench wall and a hoof pressed against her helmet when we sat up. “Silverwing 1, this is Commander Fusillade. The RTZ is clear, I repeat, the RTZ is clear!”

‘Silverwing 1’ was the callsign for Dacie’s ringbird, and I craned my head around, looking for it in the dim morning light, or what little of it there was through the approaching storm. Past the brutal melee in the skies, I thought I caught sight of the ringbird flying wide around the dam, staying out of the way of the Crimson’s AAA. Still no sight of the Crimson’s remaining ringbird, though. Where Carron was keeping it, or what he was planning to do with it, was beyond me.

Of course, I couldn’t listen in on what Dacie or any of her copilots might have been saying back to Fusillade, since I didn’t have a command radio keyed to the ringbird. I could only watch the mare’s face as she listened to their reply, which wasn’t too helpful; Fusillade was hardly expressive at the best of times, and about the only response she made to what she was hearing was a brief flaring of her nostrils. But, after a moment of prolonged silence, she suddenly stood up and waved to the rest of us. “Down! Down! Here it comes!”

Zip had been about to take off and rejoin the melee in the skies, but I pulled her down with me at Fusillade’s order. Truth be told I was happy for the excuse to keep her by my side, prevent her from flying back into the air where she could be taken out by a stray round or a really good sniper. I didn’t know what casualties were like in the air, but I assumed they had to be brutal. Most of our fliers were griffons from Sig’s quarry, and they didn’t have Sentinel armor like we did. We simply didn’t have enough suits of griffon armor; Sig had modified his himself when he first joined all those years ago because they couldn’t find anything that fit him. I guess griffons didn’t serve in the Synarchy’s Special Forces.

A few sparks of electricity and flashes of light interrupted my thoughts, and we all peered over the edge of the trench toward the RTZ. The air above it seemed to ripple and distort, and I could tell something was happening. Then my horn buzzed as I felt a huge surge of mana build in the air around us, until with a thunderous bang, a fifty-two ton behemoth of steel and depleted uranium appeared above the middle of the pad.

Everything stopped on both sides. The machine guns, the rockets, the screaming, everything. About the only thing that didn’t stop was the aerial melee, scattered as it was above the dam. Everypony simply stood where they were in awe of this enormous machine, defying gravity above the metal pad.

Then the cannon fired, obliterating the entire center portion of the gate and much of the wall above it, sending shrapnel, body parts, and screams of agony and terror into the air.

The shooting began again, but this time it was mostly one sided. With a cry of valor, the strike team leapt over the top of the trench and began shooting at the fleeing Crimson, who were running for their lives in a disorganized mob from the tank. The tank ejected an enormous brass casing out the side of its turret, and then it pointed up and to the left, taking aim at the gun tower there. Another blast from its powerful cannon blew a hole in the side of the tower, and plumes of flame roared out of the various bunkers and gun ports as the ammo inside cooked off, turning everything within to a black char in seconds. The tank ejected its second shell as it turned to the right, and it repeated the punishment to the remaining tower. Then, with a roar and a whistle of its powerful turbine engine, the tank glided forward off of the RTZ, and the hatch on the top opened.

Silver hooves supported the weight of an aging stallion as he climbed halfway out of the commander’s cupola, and all of us immediately stopped what we were doing and saluted Platinum Rampart. Fusillade seemed particularly taken aback. “Sir, I thought you were staying behind at the Bastion?”

Rampart smiled ever so faintly and held up his hoof. “Commander Thunder is leading the Bastion in my absence. Since his injury prevents him from being on the field, I figured I would take his place. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a good scrum, and if I wasn’t here when we brought down Carrion, that just wouldn’t be right.”

We looked behind us as another group of Sentinels teleported in and immediately rushed forward to take point at the smoldering remains of the gate, relieving the battered and weary strike team. Rampart took note of the cleared rubble around the RTZ and nodded. “Excellent work as always, Commander. I knew putting you in charge of the strike was the correct decision.” Fusillade bowed her head, and Rampart turned a bit to see what awaited us beyond the ruined gate. “What is your take on the situation?”

Fusillade straightened up like she was giving a formal debriefing back at the Bastion. “The Crimson are in disarray for the moment and running scared, but Carrion’s elite will have them back at the next line of defenses in a few minutes. We have four gates to break through to get to the central command tower, and knowing Carrion, he’s going to start throwing slaves in the way as shields by the third. We’ll have to be careful with our fire.”

I felt a seething anger welling up inside of me. Of course the little shit would resort to that! Even though he had many more ponies than we did, of course he was going to play dirty with us. Anything to fuck us over and stall our attack, because he had to know that we had the initiative by now. I could only hope that we’d end this fight quickly before too many more lives were lost and too many slaves died in the crossfire. If I wasn’t fast enough, Nova might be one of them.

Rampart thought her words over and nodded once. “Expected. Our soldiers are disciplined enough to watch their fire, and the mercenaries are aware that civilian casualties will come out of their final payment. We should have our forces lead the charge, followed by the mercenaries, while the griffons and the volunteers focus on holding our rear and clearing out the buildings.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I’d rather have my ponies work on clearing the buildings than a bunch of trigger-happy volunteers who couldn’t march in a straight line a week ago,” Fusillade protested. “They can keep collateral damage to a minimum.”

“Commander, what is the strength of your team?” Rampart asked her.

Fusillade stiffened like she knew she was beat. “Eleven ponies, sir, including myself.”

The earth pony slowly nodded. “I want your team to follow the tank and work with the fresh soldiers to take the checkpoints. Direct the volunteers to hold our territory and defend any buildings the Crimson could use to get behind our advance. We can’t afford to let Carrion retake the RTZ.” He turned to Zip, who was still at my side, as another wave of Sentinels and mercenaries teleported in. “Keep the skies above our spearhead clean. The tank’s armor is thinnest on the top, and I don’t want any homemade bombs dropped on it. Neutralize the triple-A threat so we can move the ringbird in to provide fire support, and have the griffons work on clearing the buildings we bypass from the top-down. Understood?”

Zip saluted. “It’ll be done at once, Commander.” Then, spreading her wings, she only spared the time for a weary smile for me before taking off and rejoining the fight.

I felt my heart go with her as she returned to that dance of death. If something happened to her up there… No, I pushed the thought out of my mind. She’d be fine. Her and Sig, both. They’d all be fine. They were too good to get taken down like that.

“Ember?” Rampart asked, and I jumped at my name. I saluted to him, and he slapped the hull of the tank. “Your zebra friend is a pretty good driver, and he figured out how to wire that sentry drone of his directly into the tank’s firing computers. It generates a firing solution much faster now, thanks to him. I’m glad to have him on board.”

That made me feel a little warmer inside. “Thank you, sir,” I said, imagining just how excited Gauge had to be to have that monster under his control. “He won’t let you down.”

“I’m counting on it.” The stallion looked toward the front, where the Sentinels began driving the Crimson back out of this sector of the dam and securing building entrances. “But that’s enough chatter. We have a job to do.” Then, grunting, he lowered himself into the tank, closing the hatch after him, and with another roar of its engines, the mighty metal monstrosity glided forward into the heart of the next sector.

Fusillade wasted no time in delivering orders now that the tattered remains of our strike team gathered around her. “Listen here!” the mare shouted. “We’ve done our part, but the battle isn’t over yet. We are to follow the tank and provide fire support for the fresh soldiers at the front, and eliminate any flanking threats Carrion might throw at us! Stay close to the tank and its shields will keep you safe, and soon we’ll have Carrion’s head on a plate. Now move! Rejeté!”

The Prench mare fell back to the RTZ to direct the incoming troops, who were appearing in batches every minute, while the rest of us rushed forward to the tank and formed up in a line behind it. Side by side and five deep, the remaining ten soldiers of the strike team, myself included, trotted along after the tank, our ears ringing and heads pounding with each concussive blast of its powerful cannon. I realized that every shell the tank fired was at least in part directed by SCaR, and I could imagine the little drone having a blast (ha-ha) at being a tank. Assuming of course the drone was even programmed to find things fun, but I didn’t really know. It walked a fine line between machine and pet, and I never really knew which side of the spectrum SCaR fell on.

Another blast from the tank’s cannon sent the next checkpoint up in flames, tearing apart the crude fortification and sending the Crimson running. This sector hadn’t been contested at all; the bandits were too terrified of this monstrosity of Equestrian engineering we’d brought with us to take the dam. But I could tell from the heavy shooting going on through the smoke and the number of bullets that ricocheted off of the tank’s shield that the next checkpoint was going to be harder to take.

The fresh Sentinels dashed through the smoke, laying down suppressive fire with the machine guns in their armor while occasionally stopping to take more precise aim with a rifle. More and more volunteers from Blackwash and the neighboring settlements filled up the rear, taking defensive positions near doors and buildings to repulse any Crimson counterattack. The terrifying part was that I knew there were hundreds more Crimson under me, inside of the dam itself. Above me, pegasi fought with each other while griffons harassed them from above, landing on buildings and prying apart the shoddy steel roofs to flush the Crimson hiding inside out into the open. We were surrounded by Carrion’s forces, but we were the ones driving forward. We were the ones with the momentum.

I coughed on some of the acrid black smoke as we followed the tank through it; the thrusters keeping it in the air more blew the smoke into my face than dispersed it like I hoped they would. On the other side, things were looking a lot more organized for the Crimson. The area between this checkpoint and the next was basically flat and bare, providing no cover whatsoever apart from a concrete bulwark on the right. The big gate guarding the next sector was taller than the previous one and decorated with a whole bunch of machine gun nests that immediately began shooting as soon as they had a bead on us. Me and Fusillade’s strike team were safe behind the tank’s shields, but some of the others weren’t so lucky. A few were able to push through and get to the cover behind the bulwark or deploy their own, but most just retreated and let the tank go first. A few bodies and pools of blood scattered the area, many of them Crimson, a few of them Sentinel.

I stopped when the tank did, one hoof rested on its rear armor, and peered around its corner. The tank aligned its turret with the gate and dashed it to pieces after a few more rounds, and the entire thing collapsed in a horrible shrieking of twisting metal. When nothing stirred among the rubble and ruin, the tank glided forward again, the rest of us hugging it closely, using its shields and mass as cover against any snipers that might be lingering in the area. I saw a group of volunteers break off to cover enormous steel doors that presumably led deeper into the dam, securing our rear from any surprise attacks. Unfortunately for us, they couldn’t cover the sky.

The characteristic rotor noise of a ringbird spread over the dam, and one of them suddenly appeared to our rear. I thought it was Dacie’s at first, given that that’s where it showed up, but the moment it opened fire with its cannons that assumption vanished pretty quickly. Those of us that could huddled right next to the tank, hoping that its shields would protect us from the rounds coming in, and thankfully for me, they did. But for the Sentinels who couldn’t get to safety…

When the ringbird finished its pass, it left a lot of bodies in its wake. Some of them were Sentinels. Some were mercenaries or griffons. Many of them were familiar faces, ponies I’d grown up around in Blackwash. Their bodies and limbs laid strewn about the open, and those who’d eluded the ringbird’s strafing run rushed forward to try to drag the wounded back to cover before it could make another pass. I didn’t want to know how many it killed. Just seeing all the dead and familiar faces and coats lying behind us devastated me. I fell to my knees, brokenly screaming at what I saw. But really, what the fuck did I expect? This was what I signed them up for: to die for the Sentinels so they could take down the Crimson. I did this! I fucking killed them, because they followed my example! Mine!

A roar broke out over the dam, and I finally got enough of a grip on myself to stop screaming and actually look around. Now that their ringbird had thrown us into disarray, the Crimson soldiers mounted a massive counterattack. Ponies galloped out of the smoking remains of the gate ahead of us, firing wildly, while pegasi dove from above and began strafing everypony they could see. I could even hear the sounds of shooting behind us as they tried to break out of the buildings we’d contained them in, and attempted to storm the two stairways between the tank and our reserves. I didn’t have to be a general to realize that we’d stumbled into a trap.

“Hold the line!” ponies began screaming, trying to form up into ranks and seize whatever cover they could get to defend against the massive counterattack. The tank rumbled and its machine guns blazed as it tried to halt the charge in front of us, so I pressed my back against the tank and sighted some pegasi landing around me. Several quick and desperate bursts dropped a couple, but not before they could get some shots off on me. Thankfully, they only had those twin automatics which were shit at piercing my shields. If they had something heavier, then I probably would have been fucked.

I almost didn’t see the bundle of grenades land right next to me. I wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t slammed off of the back of the tank right next to my head. If I hadn’t been high on adrenalin right then, I probably would’ve reacted too slow to keep my limbs attached to my body.

My orange magic surrounded the grenade bouquet in a protective dome a split second before the bundle exploded. I wasn’t anywhere near skilled enough or strong enough with my magic to contain it, though, so I felt a painful spike of pain stab my brain through my horn as my shield burst and shattered. Hot shards of shrapnel and lead balls pelted the shield of my armor, which did its best to deflect them; I think my magic helped a bit by slowing the shrapnel down, because my shields didn’t break, and I realized I was still alive a split second later. The ground underneath the grenade was pitted, and I could see plenty of shrapnel poking out of the blasted concrete.

Before the Crimson could drop too many more of those improvised bombs, our forces in the sky rallied above us and began forcing them back. Much of the fighting around me had turned into a desperate melee, with ponies so close together that I couldn’t risk shooting with my battle rifle without possibly killing somepony on our side. But the Crimson didn’t seem to have any concerns about that as they fired blindly into the fray, killing more of their own than they were ours. As for me, I kept my eyes peeled for more bombs and fired desperately at any Crimson who broke off and tried to rush the back of the tank. If they got to it, I knew they could do some serious damage, maybe break the thing entirely. And we still had two checkpoints for this thing to blast through.

A bullet ripped through my shields, tearing along my right side before slamming into the tank behind me. I cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground, feeling the burning sensation around my barrel. I didn’t know how deep the bullet bit me, only that it hurt a fuckload. Cursing and cussing between gritted teeth, I raised my head off of the concrete and fired a few volleys at a pair of Crimson trying to rush toward the tank while I was down, assuming I was dead. I was only thankful they didn’t double-tap; otherwise, I wouldn’t be here recording my story for you right now.

I heard the roaring of rotors again, and I looked up to see the Crimson’s ringbird coming in for another attack run. With most of our forces caught in combat in the open, its cannons were set to decimate us. I screamed some warning about the incoming monstrosity, but it seemed like nopony heard me over the roar of the battle. It swooped in low, guns surely taking aim, and preparing to possibly end our assault in one pass.

It didn’t get the chance. A stream of tracers flew at it from the left, ripping through what shielding it had and pelting the thing in the side. I saw Dacie fly our ringbird in from that direction, guns blazing as she tried to swat the bastards out of the sky. Once she got in close enough, she unleashed a volley of rockets at it, which the wounded ringbird tried in vain to swat down with its point defense. The surprise onslaught soon sent the Crimson’s machine up in flames, and a thunderous explosion that shook the dam signaled the end of their last ringbird.

I cheered as hot steel and debris pelted the dam around us, and I could feel morale picking up. The Crimson that now found themselves trapped behind our lines with no air support began to panic, and from there it didn’t take too much effort to clean them up. Bodies coated the ground with blood, and the screams of the wounded and dying soon took the place of gunfire.

But Dacie’s charge didn’t come without a price. Apparently Zip hadn’t managed to take down the AAA near the central tower, because I saw black clouds of flack begin to explode around the ringbird. Dacie tried to pivot it and turn it away, but in that tiny moment where she was changing directions, I saw a big shell slam into the rotor ring and detonate. Spewing fire and razor sharp rotor blades, the ringbird plummeted to the dam below, just barely landing on the road instead of falling off of the side. There the thing laid, fire guttering from its engine and smoke pouring from the cockpit. I felt my heart jump into my throat as I watched, fearing the worst, until I saw the windows of the thing’s cockpit eject and four figures frantically climb out of the burning mess, one of them distinctly leonine in appearance.

With the Crimson repulsed again for the moment, I broke cover and galloped toward the ringbird wreckage. Dacie and her copilots huddled against the ringbird’s hull, obviously a bit shaken about getting shot down, but none of them looked hurt. Before I could get there and check that out, however, a familiar griffon dived out of the air and landed right by his sister’s side. I arrived just in time to hear Sigur worriedly ask, “Are you okay?!”

Dacie nodded her head, but she looked a bit dazed. Maybe she hit her head when she crashed or something? “Yeah, Sig, I’m fine,” she said, gently pushing Sig back. “Just a little shaken up.” She looked over her shoulder at the ringbird wreckage and winced. “Sorry about the bird.”

“Spirits fuck the bird,” Sig said, hugging his sister. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

I just stood back and let the two have their moment. My eyes drifted to the ringbird and looked it over. It looked like it was salvageable; the only real damage was to the rotor ring and maybe the engine. With a little work, the Sentinels maybe might’ve been able to get it running again. The rest of the hull and the superstructure of the thing was in pretty good shape, at least. Dacie had done a good job setting it down fast without destroying it.

The revving of the tank’s massive engine caught all of our attentions, and the armored behemoth began to glide forward again with a pack of Sentinels, mercenaries, and volunteers following closely behind it. I even saw Fusillade fighting her way through the ranks to get to the front; apparently she’d dumped command of the RTZ to somepony else and had rushed forward to rejoin the fighting. Or maybe we’d simply moved everyone to the dam already so she didn’t need to be at the RTZ anymore. Fuck if I knew.

Sig and Dacie finally noticed me, because I felt talons grab my shoulder and pull me closer when I was watching the tank float past. “Glad to see you’re still alive, Ember,” Sig said, smiling at me. “I don’t think even I’d survive all the shit you’ve been through so far.”

“I don’t even feel like I survived it myself,” I said, looking at my side. My gray jumpsuit had been split where the bullet had ripped into it, leaving a small line that oozed blood all the way back to my flank. I winced at the throbbing pain; that was going to be a bitch to deal with. “Almost didn’t.” I smiled at Dacie. “Thanks for getting us to hell in one piece.”

Dacie waved her hand and sat back down. “Yeah, yeah. Too bad I couldn’t keep myself in the air.” Then, reaching for a holster at her side, she drew a pistol and loaded it. “Guess I’ll have to make do on the ground.”

She tried to stand up, but Sig held her down with a claw. “You’ve done enough, Dacie. You can stay out of this.”

“My place is up there with you and our siblings,” Dacie said, glaring at him. “You can try to stop me, or you can let me take your wing. Either way, I’m fighting for our home.”

I bumped Sig’s shoulder with the butt of my rifle to get his attention. “Let her fly with you,” I said, smiling at Dacie. “Trust me, it’s safer up there than it is on the ground, and if you won’t let her fly with you, then guess where she’ll be.”

Sig looked at his sister and sighed, shaking his head. “Stay with me and follow my lead. Got it?”

Dacie stood up and grinned. “Lead the way, brother.”

They spread their wings to take off, but I tugged on Sig’s feathers with my magic. “Stay safe up there, okay?” I pleaded with him. “And make sure nothing happens to Zip.”

Sig patted me on the head of all places. “Don’t you worry about her. She knows what she’s doing.” He flew up a few feet more. “You, on the other hand…”

“I’ll be fine,” I growled at him. I looked to my left, seeing the tank almost at the remains of the third checkpoint. “Fuck, I have to go! I’ll see you when this shit’s all over!”

Sig and Dacie didn’t waste any more time getting into the sky, and I didn’t waste any time galloping back over to the tank. I really didn’t want to be caught out in the open without its protective shield around me in case we ran into any more heavy machine guns. Around me, ponies rushed forward, but I could tell that our momentum was flagging. They weren’t moving as fast or as frantically as they were in the beginning, and a lot of the volunteers from Blackwash looked like they were on the verge of running. I couldn’t blame them; a lot of us had died and we hadn’t even secured the upper level of the dam yet.

But I saw their eyes follow me, and for some reason that put a little bit of spring into their step. I stopped in the middle of the road, watching the volunteers from Blackwash begin to congregate around me. Many were covered in dirt and grime, and a few in blood, and there was some sort of desperate light in their eyes, like they were lost but had finally found a way home. Swallowing hard, I raised my rifle into the air for everypony to see it. “We’re almost there!” I yelled in a shaky voice. “Two more to go, and everypony will be free! Everypony! And Carrion will know that he made a huge mistake when he decided to fuck with Blackwash!”

Then, lowering my rifle, I pointed it toward the rear of the tank ahead of us, which was just visible through the smoke. “Let’s show them what we’re made of!”

The ponies of Blackwash cheered, and I saw hope in their faces. Hope and determination. Here we were, three weeks after the attack on Blackwash, fighting to avenge our town and return the favor to Carrion. Not only that, but we were freeing friends and family. I could list off the names of every pony that stood around me, because I’d known all of them my entire life, and they all knew me. Every single one of us knew ponies still held captive by the Crimson, and together, we were going to free them. We were going to free them, or die trying.

I led the charge back into the fray, and I felt the drumming of hooves around me, heard the flutter of wing beats above me as the ponies of Blackwash followed. Ahead of us, Fusillade’s strike team fanned out as the tank pushed through the debris of the second checkpoint, the Sentinels all taking cover where they could find it and delivering shots downrange. I was about to charge around the left side of the tank, and was about a foot away from doing so, when I heard a huge blast of something and I glimpsed a shell rocket past the tank, passing right in front of me. I spun around to see it rip right through a pony’s body, tearing him to pieces, before slamming into a concrete bulwark behind us all and exploding, showering the ground with hot shrapnel.

I guess the Crimson did have anti-tank guns after all.

The volunteers I’d rallied dispersed behind whatever cover they could find, and I peered around the rear of the tank to see what lay ahead of us. This sector of the dam was a lot more closed off and tight quartered, with ramshackle buildings rising up on either side of us, filled with Crimson raining death down on us from above. That wasn’t the worst part, though; at the far end of the sector, right next to the checkpoint, I spotted a pair of anti-tank guns with crew frantically reloading as our tank advanced. To make matters worse, the sector was littered with a bunch of unarmored, unarmed ponies just… standing there. I recognized a few mane and coat color combinations from Blackwash among their number; but why the fuck were they just standing around?

I tried to line up a shot at the anti-tank gun to the tank’s left, but there were a pair of slaves just standing in the open in front of it. I couldn’t get a clear shot at the ponies crewing the gun, and even though I was pretty accurate, I didn’t want to risk hitting any slaves. About the only thing I could see clearly was the armored front plate of the gun, and there wasn’t anything I could do to that.

The second anti-tank gun fired, the air in front of the tank exploded as the shell slammed into its shields, pelting everypony standing nearby with hot, biting shrapnel. The impact alone was enough to shove the tank back a foot or two, nearly knocking me over in the process. That gun also had two slaves just standing in front of it, completely unfazed by the loud noise right next to their ears. The Sentinels were slowly fighting their way through this sector using what cover they had and deploying their own cover where they could, but by the time they even got to the anti-tank guns one of them would definitely be able to pierce the tank’s shields. And I knew Rampart sure wasn’t going to use the tank to destroy the guns with innocent bystanders nearby, and Fusillade probably wouldn’t either. What the fuck did I do?

On the right, I saw Fusillade lead the charge, her machine pistols laying precise suppressing fire on any Crimson that poked their heads out of cover. She slid behind a piece of deployable cover about halfway up through the sector, and she holstered her machine pistols to free up her telekinesis. Her magic surrounded a slave’s mane and yanked her to the ground, exposing one of the loaders to an accurate burst of fire from the Sentinels standing behind Fusillade. Without their pony shields, the crew of that anti-tank gun got cut down very fast, and the Sentinels advanced along the right flank, trying to outflank the anti-tank gun on the left.

Which had just reloaded. The barrel pivoted slightly and elevated, and right as the tank lowered its shields to fire and blow a hole through the checkpoint, the anti-tank gun fired. The shell sliced through the air, visibly punching it out of the way, before it slammed into the turret ring of the tank, right at the thinly armored part that raised out of the hull to allow the turret to swivel. With a painful cry of metal, the shell pierced the tank’s neck armor and blew up, shooting the turret into the air as the ammunition inside detonated. The tank’s engine shrieked as it started to burn up, and the hull of the machine dropped to the earth with a solid thud, like a hammer pounding an anvil.

“Gauge!” I screamed, immediately losing all sense of caution and galloping over to the tank. I threw my rifle onto the ground and hopped on top of the tank’s hull, my magic straining and prying at the driver’s hatch. A few bullets shattered against the tank’s armor around me, and my shields caught a few more, but I didn’t really notice at the time. My thoughts were entirely on ripping this hatch off of its hinges and getting Gauge out before the fire spread to the rest of the tank’s ammo or engine.

The hatch suddenly flew open, and a striped foreleg reached out of the smoky interior of the tank. I immediately wrapped my magic around it and pulled, hefting Gauge out of the steel coffin as fast as I could. He finally came out with a yelp, limbs flailing as I accidentally threw him a foot or so in the air before falling off the tank myself. He hit the ground with a thud, groaning, and I immediately pried one of those deployable cover things off the side of my armor and activated it in front of us, shielding us from the machine gun fire of the front wall.

I shuffled over to it and helped Gauge sit upright. “Are you okay?!” I asked him, practically screaming in hysterics over the noise of the fighting around us.

“I’m fine!” he shouted, pushing away my hooves, which I’d put a little close to his face. “Where’s SCaR?”

An alarmed chirp and squawk echoed from inside of the tank, and the little sentry drone buzzed out of the smoke and ducked behind our cover. Gauge breathed a visible sigh of relief and reached out a hoof, patting the drone on its ‘head’ before turning back to the tank. “Holy shit…” he murmured, looking at the damaged wreck next to us. “Did anypony else…?”

I bit my lip and shook my head, unable to take my eyes off of the flames licking the rim of the turret ring. “I didn’t see anypony…”

I could see morale flagging around me with the tank in ruins and the Sentinels’ leader most likely dead. A counterattack and suppressive barrage began to push us back toward the second gate, and casualties were starting to become a big concern. By now, we’d already lost half of our original forty-eight veteran Sentinels we had left after the attack on the Fort, including Platinum Rampart. Who knows how many volunteers, griffons, and mercs we’d lost, too. Our advance was wavering, and the Crimson were growing more confident, having destroyed our two trump cards.

Then I saw Fusillade leap onto the wreckage of the tank, completely turning her back to the ruined checkpoint and raising her machine pistols for all of us to see. “Allons!” she screamed at us. “Three down! One to go! Give it everything you got!” Turning around, she pointed toward the last checkpoint in front of us, the final obstacle between us and the dam’s central tower. “Pour la chance, l’honneur, et la gloire! We take the watch!”

In the chaos and madness of the battlefield, the aging Prench mare was like a beacon, a shimmering ray of hope and defiance. I couldn’t quite explain it, but seeing her standing there, covered in dirt and blood, the diamond trim of her armor reflecting the light of the burning tank like a million exploding stars while bullets fell around her, gave me the hope that somehow we’d do it. Somehow we’d overcome the setbacks. Somehow we’d free the slaves. Somehow we’d kill Carrion.

“Stay here,” I told Gauge as I picked myself up off the ground, snatched my rifle, and charged.

Bullets flew at me every step of the way, but I didn’t stop. I aimed as best I could while galloping and fired several bursts downrange at any Crimson I could see. Around me, the rest of our forces did the same, turning our advance into a mass of bodies determined to drive the Crimson back. Even still, we kept our fire controlled and disciplined to avoid hitting any of the slaves the Crimson had thrown into the mix. Most of these slaves, however, actually tried to get down and get away from the fighting, sometimes giving us clear shots at the Crimson, and sometimes inadvertently blocking some. I didn’t see a white pegasus or a brass-coated stallion at the least.

I dashed forward, trying to get to some debris the tank had blasted off of the previous checkpoint to shield me from some of the bullets flying everywhere. Just as I got there, though, two Crimson bandits popped up on the other side, and their eyes widened at seeing me charging toward them. I didn’t waste a second; I took aim at one and then the other, and I took both of them down with two quick bursts before vaulting off of that cover and tackling a wandering slave on the other side, bringing her down before she could get hit by a stray bullet.

Popping my second deployable cover in front of me, I safely tucked the slave behind it and tried to sit her up. “What are you doing?! You’re going to get yourself killed!” I shouted at her, recognizing Signal Flare, one of the techies back in Blackwash.

“My master told me to stand here,” she said, almost droning with some sort of fake enthusiasm. I blinked, completely taken aback, and noticed that something didn’t seem… right about her. Her pupils were pinpricks in her eyes, and they stared blankly ahead, not even looking at me. Whenever she did blink, which was not very often at all, it was slow and deliberate. I noticed with some shock that she’d been shot clean through the leg, but she didn’t even seem to notice it. Her left cutie mark had been burned off, replaced with a heart like mine.

“What the fuck did they do to you, Flare?” I asked, looking in the direction of the central tower. Was this what Carrion meant when he said he was going to mindfuck me? I shuddered at the thought of that; I’d honestly rather just be dead than be like… whatever the fuck Flare was. Propping her against the cover, I put my hoof on her shoulder. “Stay here and don’t move. I swear we’re going to figure out how to fix you.”

“Okay, master,” Flare droned, not blinking as she slumped against the cover I’d set up for her. That just sent a million chills down my spine. I didn’t want to think of how many of the Crimson she’d willingly spread her legs for because of that spell. I only prayed that she wouldn’t remember any of it when we fixed her… if we fixed her…

I could see the central tower just past the gate in front of us, unmanned anti-air guns around its perimeter. I guess Zip and Sig had finally managed to clear the tower of its AAA. Which was good, if a bit late, considering that our ringbird was already out of commission. Above us, the battle still raged, but it looked like we were winning. There were certainly a lot more griffons up there than there were ponies. Already, some of our fliers were starting to launch strafe runs against the Crimson on the ground. My heart soared when I saw my orange girl lighting up some unsuspecting bandits with the shrieking roar of her machine guns.

Hey, battlefield love is a strange and usually pretty violent thing.

Grunting and the sliding of unshod hooves on concrete drew my eyes to my right, and I saw Gauge sliding into cover next to me, SCaR buzzing after him. He spat out a submachine gun he’d scavenged off of the ground, dropped it, and then winced when the thing accidentally shot at me. Thankfully, my shields sent those bullets flying away, but it still made me jump and nearly fall out of my cover, almost into the line of fire of a really fucking annoying Crimson machine gun. Still, he hurriedly grabbed the submachine gun, made sure the safety was set, and looked to me. “So what’s the plan?”

“Plan?!” I screeched at him. “Your fucking dumb zebra ass just shot me!”

“You have shields!” Gauge protested. “It didn’t really shoot you!”

“Fucker, if that was a few inches closer it would’ve been inside my shields, and I would’ve died!”

“Hey, I’m doing my best, okay?” Gauge shouted back at me. “Guns aren’t really my thing!”

“Then why the fuck are you up here?! Nopony’s going to get close enough for you to beat to death with a wrench!”

I heard a yell behind me and turned around just in time to stop a bandit from bayoneting me in the back. I swung my rifle like a club as I turned, and the butt cracked the Crimson soldier right in the muzzle before he could get to me. When he fell to the ground, I quickly put the rifle to his face and blew his brains into bloody pulp on the concrete, shuddering as I did so. Getting splattered with another pony’s gore was never a fun sensation.

Gauge just looked at me, and I actually pointed my rifle at him. “Don’t you fucking say anything,” I warned him before immediately peering around the corner of our cover. I noticed with some horror that Flare was still smiling despite the fact that she had a piece of the bandit’s skull plastered to her cheek and her body was covered in his blood. I could actually see the blood droplets on her eyeballs, too. It was really fucking disgusting and disturbing. I wish I had brain bleach to wipe that memory away, especially the part where I started trying to clean her with my magic.

“What’s wrong with Flare?” Gauge asked once he finished retching after getting sprayed with gore, finally taking notice of the third pony we shared our cover with. “Stars, what did they do to her?”

“My masters made me more obedient for my new owner,” Flare mechanically sung.

“You don’t want to know,” I said to Gauge, dropping the gore I’d picked off of Flare’s face on the ground. “But we’re going to fix it. Right after we string Carrion up by his balls.”

I took a few shots at an exposed Crimson machine gunner, reloading when my rifle automatically ejected its empty mag. A quick glance at the ammo containers bolted to my armor showed I had five mags left. Already half done. I had to marvel a little bit at just how expensive this battle had been so far. I could’ve bought like a hundred cigarettes with all the bullets I’d fired today!

For the record, I am not an addict, I swear.

“Hold!” I heard Fusillade shout from somewhere nearby, though with all the smoke and chaos of the battlefield, I couldn’t actually see her. “Hold this position!”

“Why does she want us to hold?” Gauge asked me, shying away from the edge of our cover as bullets struck around it. “I mean, not that I’m complaining…”

“Because we don’t have a fucking tank to get through the fucking gate,” I growled, sighting down a bandit through the translucent cover in front of us and firing at him. He ducked when the first burst whistled around his head. “Fucking shitbag!”

“Then how are we going to get through it?” He tried to balance the SM45 in his hooves and fire through the cover like I did, though the violent recoil of the submachine gun almost ripped itself out of his hooves. He shook the thing in frustration and locked his left foreleg into the leg brace near the end of the barrel to try again. “How do you aim with this thing?!”

“I swear on the stars, Gauge,” I muttered, finally taking that bandit’s head off when he peeked over cover again. “Too much time in the maintenance hangar and not enough time at the firing range.”

The submachine gun in his hooves stopped firing and began to squawk at him, and he stupidly looked at the thing. Rolling my eyes, I just took it out of his hooves and set it on the ground. “Just… don’t worry about it and let me do the shooting,” I told him. “If somepony sneaks up on me, though, beat them into a fucking pulp. You’re good with beating things, right?”

Gauge just glared at me, and I chuckled a bit. Honestly, just having one of my friends here with me to tease took a lot of the stress off of my shoulders. Especially when I caught a glimpse of an orange pegasus diving onto the walls of the gate, guns blazing as our fliers fought to capture the checkpoint now that we couldn’t just blow it up.

But I shouldn’t have worried too much. Even though we’d taken a lot of casualties getting this far, the Crimson were also getting exhausted, and most of their soldiers were still deep within the dam itself. The bandits holding this gate were the last line of defense before the central tower itself, and the sheer number of griffons we had from the quarry had simply overpowered the pegasi Carrion had been able to muster to fight back. With the skies firmly in our control, our fliers simply attacked the checkpoint from all angles, and after a few minutes, the shooting stopped.

I noticed that for the first time since I’d stepped into the ringbird’s cargo hold several hours ago, everything was finally quiet. I could hear the ringing in my ears from the sudden lack of noise. There was nothing but the sound of the wind and the clicking calls of the flesh-strippers circling over the dam.

Then the gate in front of us began to open, and I instinctively trained my rifle at the seam. But when I saw an orange pegasus there, exhausted and covered in blood but still alive, I let out a huge sigh of relief and lowered my rifle. One by one, the Sentinels and mercs and volunteers began to move out of cover toward Zip, and I saw Fusillade approach her from our side as well. She was pretty much the only reason I didn’t run forward and tackle Zip in a hug and a volley of kisses.

“Status?” Fusillade asked when the two mares were close enough, while me and Gauge trotted up from the side.

“Secure,” Zip said. “Whoever else was on top of the dam retreated to the interior to make a stand there. The surface is ours.” She looked over Fusillade’s shoulder, toward the burning wreckage of the tank in the background. “Stars, is Commander Rampart…?”

Fusillade grimly nodded. “I have taken control of this operation, Commander. It is up to the two of us to see this through to the end.” She likewise looked over her shoulder, and her head hung just the slightest bit for a tiny moment. “We will tend to our dead later. We’ve taken many casualties to get to this point. We shall not let their sacrifices be in vain.”

Zip curtly nodded, and I saw her eyes dart over to me. She visibly relaxed when I nodded to her, and she turned her attention back to Fusillade. “The path to the central tower is secure. We can regroup there while we plan our next move.”

“Good,” Fusillade said. Then, turning to the rest of us who’d gathered around her, she pointed back the way we came. “I want the access points to the interior of the dam secure. Nopony comes out while we stand guard. You have orders to shoot at the slightest movement from those staircases.” Then, pointing toward the opposite end of the dam, she added, “I also want the remaining checkpoints secured and the access points on that side of the dam locked down. Sergeants, partition your duties amongst yourselves.” Then, turning to Zip, she nodded. “To the tower.”

Zip quickly touched her wingtip to her brow before turning around and moving toward the central tower. Without any orders of my own, I followed the two of them and the small posse that they assembled as they walked to the tower. Gauge and SCaR stayed close by me, but wisely let the rest of us trained and armed Sentinels lead the way. Who knew if there were still defenders in the central tower, after all.

Without the chaos of the battlefield, I finally had the time to look around me and see just how dearly we’d paid for half of the dam’s surface level. Griffons and a few pegasi in Sentinel armor laid across the ground, their bodies perforated with bullet holes, and in some cases missing limbs or even more. But for all the casualties I saw, there were many more Crimson. There were three, maybe four Crimson for every Sentinel I saw lying on the ground. It turns out, in the face of overwhelming firepower and superior training, the average Crimson soldier didn’t stand a single stars-damned chance against us. It was only the masses of troops and the occasional lucky shot that made the Crimson such a potent force to be reckoned with.

Ahead of us loomed the central tower. Larger than any of the other buildings we’d passed thus far (apart from maybe the gun towers at the beginning), it dominated the space made available to it. It had a narrow base that kept it to one side of the road running through the dam, but the upper levels of it expanded and bulged over the road below like a fat watchtower. The behemoth of steel and concrete loomed above us as we approached, the AAA on its roof silent and surrounded by dead bodies.

I shuddered as I passed underneath the shadow of the building. Thankfully, Zip was close enough to brush my shoulder with her wingtip, though she didn’t do much else while there was still business to be done. Behind me, I could hear Gauge breathing nervously as we approached the door. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was thinking about Nova and praying that she was here.

We piled in on either side of the door, and Fusillade nodded to Runabout, one of the earth ponies whom I’d accompanied with Zip and Sig when we attacked the Fort. I was glad to see she was still okay, and she didn’t look any worse for wear, which was good. Reaching across her armor, she pulled out several breaching charges and mounted the bars to the door. Once she took a few steps back, she pulled out a white detonator and threw it on the ground. “Clear!”

She stomped on the detonator, and like in the Fort, the bar hissed and glowed before crumpling the door around itself and falling to the ground. I still didn’t really know how those things worked, but it had something to do with them increasing their local gravity to a million times that of Auris’ gravity to break walls. But that wasn’t really important, because it did its job, and that was all I cared about. One by one, the Sentinels dashed into the building, immediately securing the area by the time I even filed in.

The central tower was pretty large and surprisingly organized for an operation run by a bunch of rape-happy bandits. In fact, I think the damn thing was cleaner than Blackwash’s listening outpost. Computers and other equipment were neatly spaced on tables lining the walls of the large central room, and I saw several opened notebooks with notes and messages written in neat writing. I pulled one closer to myself and scanned the first few lines just to satisfy my curiosity:

Carrion,

Something woke the computers in the ICEC. The engineers say that they received a signal around 14:00 from a listening outpost at the attached coordinates. They think it’s Equestrian, and it sent us a five-lettered code, claiming this was 1 part of 7. The installation numbers attached referenced the dam as well, so you should have received a part as well. I am willing to purchase the piece of the code you received for 2 million Cs in various caliber, kind and size negotiable at your behest. Furthermore, I am willing to pay you a further 2 million Cs for the code still held at the source of the transmission. Your orders are to seize any Equestrian technology you find at the source and eradicate the local population. Nopony beyond us must see what these pieces of the code are.

Once you have sent both pieces to me, and Yeoman confirms that both are legitimate, you are to erase them. These cannot fall into the wrong hooves. The good of Auris depends on it. Use the ringbirds as necessary to accomplish what you must.

I make this offer out of the generosity of my heart and the goodwill of the Ivory City. Do not cross me. We both know you don’t stand a chance.

-Reclaimer

Frowning, I ripped the message out of the notebook and tucked it into a pouch on my armor. It finally confirmed something I’d been suspicious of for a long time now: this whole thing was a lot bigger than I could imagine. The Crimson didn’t attack Blackwash for the hell of it; the Ivory City and this pony, Reclaimer, were the real ones behind it all. Carrion’s Crimson might have killed my mom and my town, but Reclaimer was the one who made him do it.

Not that I wasn’t going to kill Reclaimer any less. He still did all this shit to me—to us.

“Stairs,” Zip said, and I looked over to where she and Sig were peering around the corner to a staircase that went up. I followed Fusillade over to the two of them, Gauge and SCaR following at an anxious distance.

Fusillade gave the stairs a discerning glare and turned to Sig. “Well?”

“I hear movement,” Sig said, angling his head this way and that. “Can’t tell how many, though. It sounds like they’re trying to stay quiet.”

The Prench mare nodded and stepped forward, her machine pistols at the ready. “Keep your fire under control,” she said, gingerly stepping onto the first step. She looked over her shoulder and nodded at me, the first pony she saw. “You, with me. Don’t shoot unless shot at.”

I gulped and nodded, falling in behind her. Zip’s wingtip brushed along my armored side as I did so, and I turned to her to share a quick nod. Gauge lingered in the middle of the room, awkwardly shifting from hoof to hoof while SCaR orbited his head. I flashed him a comforting smile, then began to ascend.

Fusillade paused at the landing while she waited for me to follow her. A shut door cut us off from the next room, but it looked like it was made of flimsy shit. Nodding to me, Fusillade lit her horn. “Watch the right.” At my nod, she set her jaw and wrapped her magic around the handle, ripping it and the entire latch out of the door. Fuck, it probably would’ve been easier to just rip the thing off its hinges!

But I didn’t have time to think about that. As soon as the door swung open, Fusillade darted in, her machine pistols drawn. I followed her in and swung my rifle to the right. My eyes took in a blur of holographic computer screens in the darkness, some flipped tables, and a few shell casings lying on the ground. The coppery smell of blood hit my nostrils like a fucking wall, and I glanced down to see a body lying on the floor near my hooves. A body with its face painted in red. Distracted as I was, I only barely caught the glimpse of movement right against the wall as it advanced toward me, and I immediately raised my rifle and jammed it forward.

Teal eyes blinked in shock and fear beneath a short and disheveled red and yellow mane. The tip of the barrel of my rifle touched a white nose on a white body, and a few pearly feathers twirled down around me as the figure’s wings snapped open in alarm.

My breath caught in my throat. “Nova?!”

“Ember?!” the pegasus squeaked at me, and I immediately lowered my rifle and set it to safe. I blinked, rubbed my eyes, shook my head, everything just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But after all that, the pegasus was still there. Still alive. Still… still smiling.

My first friend, my best friend, was alive.

I squealed like a filly and tackled her, nuzzling her as hard as I could. Nova giggled and laughed and wrapped her legs around me even as tears poured from her eyes. I felt the stress of everything, everything since the attack on Blackwash disappear, even if only for a few moments. Nova was here and alive, and more than that, she was healthy and well. Safe at last. That was all I cared about.

Hoofsteps thundered on the stairs behind me. “Nov?!” I heard Gauge shout in the stairwell a second before he burst through after us. After a moment to look around, he spotted the two of us on the floor, and dogpiled onto us with a happy yell. Nova’s eyes lit up, and before she could say anything, the two were already kissing. Kissing and rolling, while I just did my best to slide out of the way.

I stood up and waited off to the side, grinning from ear to ear and even shedding a few tears of joy. The two of them, zebra and pegasus, just sat together, holding each other in their forelegs and crying, kissing each other over and over again. I felt a warm presence at my side as I watched, and soon Zip’s wing wrapped around my shoulders. Even her eyes flashed with moisture, and she sniffled once over the grin she wore on her muzzle.

“Ah, être jeune et amoureux...” Fusillade said, smiling and sitting down even as other slaves started to crawl out of their hiding places. I have no idea what that meant, but fuck it. It sounded right.

Now there was only one more thing to take care of.