“Oh buck, really?”

“Yeah” Manifest said dejectedly.

“Is there a way back to our lines without running into anypony?”

Manifest looked at the map again, he hadn’t actually checked yet. Quickly he scanned nearby routes, and at least one looked open. Or at least it did based off of what information there was a half hour ago. “Yes” Manifest said, cautiously.

“Well that settles it. We aren’t going to retrack the Dukes’ tank, we’re pulling out.”

“We can’t,” Manifest said quickly, honestly before he knew what he was saying. “Not with the Duke’s tank as close to the tracks as it is.”

“Why not?”

“They have a crane, the second they see a tank they’re going to haul it onboard and take it with them to study. You heard the major, they want one bad.”

“Then we douse it and put so many holes in it that they can’t figure out where the steel was supposed to go to in the first place, and then we get the buck outta here.”

“They’ll take what’s left, and maybe they won’t have the whole thing but they’ll have something. We can’t let them have it.”

“Crap, what do we do?” Sure Shot asked, not defensively or with malice but with true bewilderment. Manifest thought for a moment.

“We gotta take out the Wrecker. Buy enough time to fix the Duke’s tank.”

“Fix the Duke’s tank? We don’t even know what’s broken.”

“If we can start it up and move the drive wheels, then all that we have to do is retrack it.”

“We don’t know if it will start up! Let’s set a trap for the Wrecker, blow it up, and drive outta here.” Just as Sure Shot clearly was, Manifest could almost feel the Wrecker coming closer as the seconds that they had ticked away, and the pressure was translating into the conversation.

“If it can start up then this is the best plan. Let’s at least check. If not then we can bail out like you want.”

There was a slight pause in Sure Shot’s answer, but when it arrived Manifest felt that he could have waited forever for it. “Manifest, I’m promoting you to acting platoon leader. What are your orders?”

“What!?” Manifest said, bewildered, “I don’t know how to lead a platoon”

“Neither do I, and so far you’ve been coming up with most of the plans anyway. You have more experience, and the only reason that you weren’t the platoon leader the moment the Duke got knocked out is that he kinda hates you. Just keep doing what you were doing.”

The weight of responsibility settled in Manifests conscious, and he struggled to throw it off. “What if I make the wrong call?”

“It could happen to anypony.”

“Ponies could die.”

“Damn it Manifest, we don’t have time for this!” Sure Shot said angrily. “Now either give me back command and we do it my way or start giving orders.” His tone softened a little, as if he were afraid that Manifest might take him up on his offer. “You’ve done alright telling two ponies what to do, it’s just a few more now.”

Manifest opened his mouth to answer, to say that Sure Shot should be in charge. He didn’t want the responsibility of command, nor the consequences that could come from choices that be made whilst in it. But he stopped, his mouth arrested by a realization. Choosing not to lead was still a choice, and any consequences that stemmed from it would come back to him. Before Sure Shot asked him he could pass any happenings off as following orders, but now he knew that if things went wrong, and if he would have done something different, that his choice not to lead would be the cause, and the responsibility for it would come to him.

It took the wind right out of him. Regardless of what he did, the responsibility would be his. He did not get to ask for it, the fate of the lives of 8 ponies was thrust upon him. He had no choice.

It was fate.

Or it was destiny.

Manifest took a breath. He did not have a choice on if he had responsibility, but he did have a choice on what he did with it. He had seen leaders try to shirk it, and he had seen leaders embrace it, and he knew which sort he would want to emulate. He could almost feel the weight taken off of him, or perhaps he had only now tried to carry it.

“Alright, I’ll be platoon leader.” As he said the words, the confirmation carried with it a sense of uncharacteristic calm. There was no backing out, there was only how well he did his duty.

“Okay, so what do we do?” Sure Shot asked, worriedly. Manifest looked over to Deadeye.

“Do you want to load the cannon?”

“I’ll do it.” Deadeye said, a bit unenthusiastically.

“I didn’t ask if you could, I asked if you wanted to.”

“Not really.” Deadeye answered. Manifest hit the transmitter on.

“OK. Deadeye, I want you to run over to the Duke’s tank and send their gunner over here. When you get there, I want you to keep on giving the Duke first aid, and I want you to have the Driver try the engine. If it starts, you and Sure Shot need to coordinate dragging it back onto the road and retracking it. If we can repair it, that’s what we want to do. If it doesn’t start, I need you two to douse it in gas, light it on fire, and shoot it as much as you can, then tear up the tracks west of us as best as you can. We can’t have them sending a train back to pick the dukes tank up. My tank will be going to ambush the wrecker. If anything happens radio me, and if that doesn’t work then meet me at the crossroads a mile north of here. Copy?”

“Copy.”

“Copy.”

“Then get going.” Manifest said. Deadeye opened the hatch once more and ran out. Manifest shut the transmitter off and exhaled sharply. He looked at the map, he had to find a suitable ambush point for The Wrecker, and quick. He looked at the map, but his heart wasn’t in it, and neither were his eyes, the map becoming a haze of greys and lines that carried no meaning. Forget it. He leaned back and took a drink of warm water from his canteen. Waiting was always the worst, especially now that they had only minutes before a war train descended upon him, and more so now that he was in charge of stopping it and getting everypony home safe. He may have accepted command, but it still made him sweat.

A unicorn dropped down into the hatch, closing it behind him. Manifest jolted back up, and hit his intercom, “Lead, let’s get going. Drive till you reach the first crossroads and make a right.”

“Copy.”

“And Lead, live up to your name.”

The tank lurched from beneath him with uncharacteristic vigor, tossing him in his seat with a hearty rumble from the engine. The unicorn that sat in the commander’s seat looked at him, confused.

“Do you want to switch seats?”

Manifest looked over to him, and realized that on maybe every other tank in the company their roles would be reversed. Correct was probably the better term for it. “No, I sit gunner seat.” The unicorn’s confusion persisted. “Wait, do you know how to load the gun?” Manifest asked hopefully.

“Yes?”

“Ok, once we get into it I’m going to need you to load what I tell you, copy?”

“Uh, yeah, copy.”

Manifest could have been more convinced. He teased the thought of switching seats with the confused gunner, but he didn’t want to navigate the cramped interior while the tank was moving, and they didn’t have the time to stop. The gunner would just have to adapt, ideally before they took on the Wrecker.

Abruptly it occurred to Manifest that he hadn’t thought about how they were actually going to destroy the train. He pulled the photo back up and looked again. With only the choice between High Explosive and Canister, High Explosive was the obvious winner. But where the hay to shoot? None of the flatcars or boxcars looked like a suitable target, and shooting the crane or the plough at the back wouldn’t do much either. Taking out the locomotives would be a stretch, because he would need to hit both of them to stop the train. Even then, the Unicornians could probably send a locomotive back to pick it up later. There was a chance they’d be unable to, but manifest couldn’t let there be one. If he stopped the train and then destroyed the tracks ahead of it, they couldn’t send back a replacement locomotive.

And the answer had presented itself.

He looked at the gun, and remembered that Deadeye had loaded a Canister a few minute earlier. That wouldn’t do. He looked over at the unicorn gunner. “I didn’t ask you your name?”

“Oh, it’s Steady Aim.”

“Okay Steady Aim, I’m gonna need you to reload the cannon with HE, copy?”

“Yep.” Manifest heard the breech block drop, and the sliding of brass on metal as the canister shell was pulled out. Steady Aim looked around for the HE storage, then found it and loaded in a round. He pointed his hoof at the HE ready rack and mouthed the word, and nodded assertively.

“Hey Steady Aim, do you know how to use the bomb launcher?

“Nope.”

“Ok. At the top is a lever, pull that to the right side and push down and it should open up. There are two boxes, one for smoke and one for HE. Put a smoke in there and close it up.”

“How do I aim?”

“Use the periscope, you kinda just guess where it should go.”

“Oh, great.” The other voice on the intercom went quiet for a few seconds, then came back. “Do you know how to aim this thing?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t we switch then?”

Manifest shook his head immediately. They wouldn’t. “If you really want to try and crawl past the gun over here, you be my guest. But last time I did that it was a pain in the flank, and we weren’t even moving.” Steady Aim didn’t respond.

The tank slowed, then veered off to the right before accelerating with a hearty roar of the engine. They were now driving back east, in the direction of the war train. Manifest put his eyes to the periscope, if he didn’t see it before it saw him, this would be a lot harder.

The road they were on was raised up against the fields that flanked it on either side, and Manifest simultaneously blessed and cursed his luck. They would be very easily seen, with nary a tree or other obstacle to obscure him from the tree line to his right that edged the railroad, but the field on the left was only a few feet lower than the road, so getting into a hull down position should be easy enough. He looked over at the treeline where the railroad sat. It was elevated as well, maybe 10 or fifteen feet above the field. The treeline was sporadic, which allowed him to see the tracks through the gaps but would no doubt allow the Unicornians to see him as well. Manifest made his plan, then looked into the distance for the telltale smoke or steam of an engine.

“Manifest, do you read?” Sure Shot asked, the voice grainy but still understandable.

“Read you, what’s the news?”

“The engine works. The transmission too, somehow anyway.”

“Ok, drag it out and retrack it. Be ready to burn it and bail if I say so.”

“Copy, good luck.”

“Thanks.” Manifest said, and he shut his transmitter off. He quickly glanced at his watch, however fruitless a gesture it was. The train could be delayed, or worse, early. At any rate, it was now a touch past 9:25. He looked back up to the periscope and focused on the tracks with burning intensity. He was now torn between two thoughts. The more distance that the Flyer put between his platoon mates before he ran into the Wrecker the better, but a more selfish part of him wanted the Wrecker to appear immediately, if only to save him from the horrible uncertainty of waiting.

“Commander, smoke up ahead on the right.”

Leads statement startled Manifest, and he quickly looked ahead. Rising up above the trees, far down the tracks, was a plume of black smoke, billowing with unnatural intensity. He couldn’t see the train itself, but that was the only thing that it could be. If he had put a mile between the Duke’s and Sure Shot’s tanks he would be lucky, but there wasn’t time to make any more.

“Lead, go left off the road, and get us hull down.”

“Copy.”

The tank slowed rapidly, then swung left under Manifest before pitching downward. He held onto the gun and the turret wall to steady himself as it rocked back up, then quickly lurched right before coming to an abrupt stop. Manifest hurriedly put his shoulder under the guns pad and his eyes to the gunsight, and looked for his target. Through the sight he could see that they were positioned so that the raised roadway rose up and blocked out all of the tank but the turret, the gun only a foot or two above the road itself. Dust that the tank kicked up hung in the air, but he could still see the treeline and raised railroad across the field. He angled the gun up, until he saw what he was looking for. Through the break in the trees was the ballast of the railway tracks. He put it in the center of the sights.

With his magic he hit the transmitter. “Sure Shot, come in.” for a few concerning seconds, there was silence.

“I’m here.”

“We’ve made contact with the Wrecker, we’re about a mile down the road from you.”

“That’s awfully close. We pulled the Duke’s tank out to the middle of the road, I guess to make it easier for them to take it with them.”

“load a HE, If I don’t stop it, drive back to the railroad and blow the hay out of the tracks, then get ready to destroy the Duke’s tank.”

“Copy.” Sure Shot sounded less than sure, but Manifest couldn’t dwell on it. He sat at the gun, the ballast of the tracks directly in his crosshairs. It was an unmissable shot that would guarantee stopping the wrecker for as long as it would take to repair the tracks. He almost pulled the trigger, but he arrested himself. For the Dukes tank to have a chance to be repaired, the Wrecker had to be destroyed. At a range of a mile, the Unicornians would doubtlessly hear the engines of the tanks ahead if they stopped to fix the tracks, and doubtlessly would push up to find them, and once they found them in that weak position would doubtlessly attack. Manifest had to be sure that any Unicornians from the Wrecker wouldn’t be in shape to make any attack. He held his fire.

“Steady Aim, listen for my ammo choices.” Manifest looked back from the gunsight to the periscope, and panned it to the left. He had twisted it only a little before he saw a black mass moving behind the trees, indistinguishable and monolithic, but still concealed by the foliage from revealing its details. A few hundred feet further down the line he could see a pair of billowing black clouds of smoke erupt above the treeline from the two engines. The time was drawing close, and he went back to the gunsight.

In the narrow field of view that he had, it looked tranquil. He could see foliage swaying in the wind out of focus behind the ballast and tracks he aimed at. Above the low murmuring of the idling engine, he could hear the rapid labored chuffing of the locomotives, and it reminded him of the engines that he used to hear back in Fillydelphia. He used to go to the rail yard just to watch them. He put the thought out of mind, just as a black mass entered the top left of the gunsight.

He pulled the trigger, and with the characteristic muted ‘BOOM’ the cannon fired. Being only a few feet from the top of the dusty road, the dirt from the blast immediately obscured Manifests vision. He froze, for all he knew he missed, and his position was definitely exposed to the Wrecker. For maybe a second he waited for the dust to clear to see if he had blown the track out from under it. Then he heard it scream.

The Wrecker shrieked from behind the cloud of dust with a sound of agony the likes of which Manifest had never heard, a high pitched squeal of metal grinding against metal, like a wounded creature. Then the scream was drowned out by a terrible rending, a shattering of wood and steel, and Manifest knew without seeing that he had derailed it. Through the dust he could only see impressions of the carnage that he had unleashed. He thought that he saw a boxcar, sliding down the embankment before shattering at the bottom and spilling its contents of flailing figures and undeterminable equipment, but the dust thickened and yet again he was only left to his ears. They heard only too clearly.

The sound of destruction continued over the sound of screaming metal, until the screaming finally stopped. The crashing and thunder of destruction lingered, and then it was almost quiet. Manifest thought that he could only hear the comforting noise of his engine, but then he perceived a noise over it. A pained and weak wheezing. The dust finally cleared enough that he could see the destruction that he wrought.

Sitting on the embankment Manifest could see the back half of the Wrecker half concealed by the treeline, intact and on the rails. The rear locomotive of the two still sat on the embankment, but not on the rails, no longer. Manifest could see the gouge in the tracks where his shell had hit, and the trees shattered like twigs where the front of the Wrecker had plowed through. The first engine lay on its roof at the bottom of the embankment, steam escaping from its dented frame with the wheezing sound that Manifest heard. Ahead of that was a boxcar, the wheels ripped off and the frame barely solvent, but in front of this there was nothing recognizable. Manifest remembered several cars being at the front of the train from the photographs, but all that remained in the field were matchsticks of wood, with the occasional metal axle or wheel to permeate the destruction. A large artillery gun lay on its side, it must have been mounted on a car before it disintegrated beneath it.

From the second locomotive came a burst of steam from its top, and Manifest heard a mournful wail puncture the silence, then the wheezing of the first returned. The second locomotive silently chuffed twice, then two more, then two more. As Manifest looked out over the scene, he felt a pang of melancholy.

Then he saw movement in the trees behind the second locomotive, and the melancholy vanished. There was still half a train of Unicornians to deal with. “Gimme a HE.” He said as he got back onto the gunsights. He felt the breech drop and heard the case slide out as he traversed the turret left. The sights moved from the tender of the second engine over to a boxcar, half concealed by trees. Through the sights, he saw figures leaping from the car and down the embankment. The breech slammed shut and a small red light shone in Manifests periphery. He fired.

Again the blast from the cannon kicked up a opaque wall of dust. If the unicornans hadn’t seen him before, they did now. “Lead, reverse then left, parallel the road, stop when ordered.” The tank lurched backward beneath him. “Another HE”. He felt the breech drop again as the tank turned left. He traversed the turret right to be ready. They rumbled forward, and Manifest kept his eye to the gunsight, waiting to clear the cloud of dust. It thinned as they drove from it, and Manifest strained to see the wrecker again. Even at its relatively slow speed the tank buffeted over the slightly uneven ground, and it was enough to throw the sights wildly. He tried to keep the gun level by adjusting its elevation with his shoulder, but he could barely control it. “Lead, Halt.”

The tank ground to a halt, and Manifest leveled the gun out. He could now see that he traversed the turret too much to the right, and rotated it left. They were still hull down, which he could tell by the road in the bottom of the sight as the turret panned past the wrecks of the locomotives. The sight passed over the boxcar that he just shot, his round had blown the center out and it rested in two pieces on the tracks. The sights passed a flatcar, but he kept them turning. Another boxcar entered the scope. An easy target. He stopped traversing. Nopony was jumping from this one, but the sliding door at the side was wide open. They must have already cleared it. he fired anyway.

The dust clouded his vision again, but now he knew what his plan was. As long as the road remained raised above the field he was in, he could drive parallel to it and stop to fire, while still exposing little of the tank. “Forward” he ordered. The tank lurched again. “Another HE.” The breech dropped. They cleared the dust again and Manifest put his eye back to the gunsight. It felt natural at this point.

He traversed the turret right this time, the sights passing over the flatcar again. as they did, he saw a two large flashes emanate from the top. He only had time for his eyes to widen in surprise before the embankment in front of him erupted with a pair of explosions. Manifest fired blindly, the blast from his gun drowning out the several muffled explosions from outside. “FORWARD!” he ordered loudly. The tank lurched beneath him. “HE!” the block dropped, more forcefully than before. The rapidity of the explosions he heard outside indicated that the flatcar had an airship gun, maybe more than one. Nopony knew how much armor they could penetrate, but the explosions indicated that they were HE. Once they pulled out of the dust Manifest would blow that flatcar to bits.

They emerged from the dust again, and Manifest called out. “Halt!” the tank grinded to a stop and manifest hurriedly turned the turret, looking for the flatcar. It entered his field of vision, disappointingly intact. Through the scope he could see a pair of smaller cannons atop it, with unicorns loading large magazines into the top. Manifest felt the breach close, then saw the red loading light, and aimed. Or he tried to. He was too jittery, and the sight kept bouncing above and below the car. He cursed himself, then finally settled the sights. He saw the barrels of the airship guns flash, twice per, and pulled the trigger.

There were several sounds, all in rapid succession. There was the muted boom of the cannon, then the metallic ‘shicnk’ as the breach was opened by Steady Aim. This was followed immediately by muffled explosions outside, interrupted by a horrifically loud ‘BANG’ and several whizzing and pinging sounds. Manifest ducked instinctively, the sounds like gunfire awakening memories. The next sound turned his blood to ice.

Steady Aim screamed in pain. “AHHHH! Oh Celestia!” Manifest looked over, and saw blood coming out of Steady Aim’s shoulder, which he covered with his other hoof as he grimaced. Outside he heard explosions, so rapid that they sounded like a rumble of thunder.

“Steady! How bad is it!?”

“It friggen hurts,” he said, and Manifest felt a flood of relief. A seriously injured pony wouldn’t answer like that.

“Let me see.” Steady Aim lifted his hoof and Manifest saw a thin trickle of blood, springing from a metal shard embedded in flesh. Manifest thought about yanking it out, but doing so would only make it worse. “It’s not bad.” Manifest said, and his unwavering tone seemed to calm Steady Aim down. Manifest opened his mouth to ask if he could load, but his inquiry was interrupted by another flurry of explosions outside. Manifest didn’t know what they had, but if it could injure them inside the tank he couldn’t risk it.

“Steady, hit the smoke launcher.” The pony reached forward, and a hollow ‘thump’ echoed through the cabin as manifest hit the intercom. “Lead, forward, parallel the road and disengage to the north.” The tank rumbled underneath him, and Manifest turned to adjust the radio.

“Stop,” Deadeye shouted, and both the Dukes tank and Sure Shots ground to a halt. He looked over to the Dukes, and glanced at the bare spoked driving wheel. Now that it was on the steady dirt of the road, changing the track would be just as easy as it would be at the tank sheds in the shadow of Canterlot. Perhaps just as hard would be the better statement. He looked over his shoulder at Sure Shots tank to the pony who stuck out of the roof of it for orders. Sure Shot had a hoof cupping his headset to one of his ears, listening intently to something. His mouth moved, forming a soundless sentence under the idling of the engine. Sure Shot waited a second more, nodded, and then uncupped his headset.

“They just contacted the Wrecker, about a mile and a half down the line! Deadeye! I need you to grab the track and line it up with the road wheels. Iron Sights, get out and help.” Deadeye ran over to the spot on the road where the broken track lay on the road, the links at the ends shattered, and grabbed an end in his mouth. The disgusting taste of mud and steel assailed his tongue, but he ignored it as he tugged at the links, dragging the track bit by bit to where it needed to be. As heavy as the track was he pushed himself to get it lined up faster, feeling the seconds of exposure pushing him onward.

A distant boom over the comforting idling of the engine snapped him to attention, eyes up and ears forward to the west. There was a second explosion and then a cacophony of noise, like a rumble of thunder from a distant storm on a hot summer afternoon. Sure Shot and his gunner were looking out there as well, waiting for anything else to happen. For several seconds, there was silence.

A shrill whistle pierced the air, and all the color ran from Sure Shots face. His mouth formed the two unmistakable words of “oh buck,” and then a rapid ‘boom-boom’ rang out. Sure Shot turned to face the two on the road. “GET THAT TRACK ON!”

As a second rapid ‘boom-boom’ echoed through the trees Deadeye decided that the track was lined up with the road wheels, and if it wasn’t then at least it was close. He ran over to Sure Shots tank, to where the extra track links lay on the mudguard and grabbed two of them in his mouth. He ran back to the track, dropping one at one end and the second at the other. He looked at Sure Shots gunner. “Replace the link at the end!” he said, motioning to the track, before he ran back to where the first link had fell.

Deadeye stopped, looking for a wrench that wasn’t there to remove the last link. He shook his head and galloped over to Sure-Shots tank, unlatching a stowage box on the side to get what he needed. His ears swiveled backward as a new sound echoed over the field, a light rapid ‘pop-pop-pop’ that grew into a indeterminable rumble, capped off with the familiar ‘boom-boom.’ He grabbed the wrench out of the box, and ran back to the track. ‘Unscrew the locking nut, pull the retaining pin out, change the link, then do the first two bits in reverse’ he thought as he started on the nut. ‘Easy.’

It wasn’t. Mud had caked over the locking nut, and it wouldn’t budge. The ‘pop-pop-pop’ sounded again, growing into the same rumble endcapped with the same ‘boom-boom.’ Deadeye strained harder on the wrench, but it still refused to move. “Buck this wrench,” he thought bitterly, followed immediately by ‘oh, buck this wrench.’ He spun around and cocked his leg, then kicked the hay out of it. He turned back and grabbed the wrench in his mouth, and started unscrewing the nut as fast as he could. It came off, and he kicked the pin out and the broken link away. “Ready!” he heard the gunner call out as he slid the pin into the new link.

“ ’Un se’ed” he spat past his wrench as he torqued the locknut on. He spat it onto the dirt road, then shouted “Done!”

“Alright, we’ll do this just like at armor school, ready?” Sure Shot yelled.

“Ready!” Deadeye replied, running to the front of the laid out track. He looked back to Sure Shot, who spoke into his intercom. For some reason, Deadeye felt like they were forgetting something. The belching of Sure Shots tank pushed this thought to the back of his mind and with an ear piercing grinding the tank lurched backward, snapping the cables between the two taught. The engine revved up, and the two started moving backward. Slowly the Dukes’ tank started driving over the track, and Deadeye made sure that the road wheels lined up properly. As the track reached the front of the tank, he grabbed his section and lifted it up, straining against its increasing weight to get it over the front idler wheel. Once it was over he kept a hold on its front, making sure that it stayed on top of the road wheels as it made its way back. Finally, he set the track on the drive wheel, making sure that it meshed with the sprockets before raising his hoof. The revving of Sure Shots engine cut out, and apart from the soothing idling there was silence.

There was silence.

Deadeye looked over at Sure Shots tank. Sure Shot was looking west, eyebrows furrowed, ears forward. He abruptly turned toward Deadeye, “Manifests tank has been hit and the gunner has been injured, and he’s broken away north to try and draw them off. You got 5 minutes to finish putting that track on, or we pull out. Gunny, come here.” The gunner ran over to Sure Shots tank as Deadeye ran to the front of the Dukes and clambered on. He knocked on the hatch at the front.

“The track’s ready, reverse slowly!” he yelled, the adrenaline was getting to him, and as the tank revved beneath him he felt fidgety. They had to get this finished so that they could get the hay out. The tank shifted beneath him slightly, then he felt it lurch. Immediately the engine stopped revving, and Deadeye leapt down and ran to the back. He could see the gunner atop Sure Shot’s tank, pulling a machine gun out from the hatch. “What’s that for?” Deadeye asked.

“Insurance in case we have to pull out, for the guys on the back” the gunner said, motioning to the rear of the tank. He hopped onto the back out of deadeyes sight, and deadeye turned to the track. A bit of it overhung from the drive wheel, and it nearly touched the end on the ground. Deadeye grabbed the retaining pin in his mouth, then tried shoving the ends of the tracks toward each other. After a bit of fumbling he managed to piece them together, then jammed the pin through them. The track was now one continuous loop, but it drooped at the end, slack instead of tense. He grabbed up the wrench and the locking nut, and started threading it on.

He would have loved to hop into the Duke’s tank and drive off just as soon as he had screwed in the locknut, but they couldn’t. If they didn’t tension the track, it would walk off the tank and they’d crash again. And tensioning it was a nightmare. In order to do it, they had to unscrew a locking nut at the base of the front wheel, then using a pry bar and the force of two ponies lift the wheel until the track was tense, then have a third screw the locking nut back on and secure it. No time to waste thinking about it. He finished up locking the nut, then ran to the back and grabbed up the pry bar in his hooves. “Hey, help me out with this,” he called back toward Sure Shot’s tank.

“Coming!” he heard yelled back. Deadeye slung the bar over his back, and got ready to hobble back to the front wheel.

‘Crack.’

Instinctively he looked west to the direction of the sound, like a whip slicing through the air. Or a bullet, he realized suddenly. He stood immobile for a second as his brain processed the information, then the pry bar fell from his hooves. That was a bullet. He saw Sure Shot’s gunner dive off the side of the tank and throw his body behind the armor. That was a bullet!

He dived under the Duke’s tank, waiting for the next shot. ‘Oh crap-oh-crap-oh-crap’ he thought, that repeating statement composing of most of his brain activity. ‘I’m being shot at.’ With that thought Deadeye became acutely aware of how fragile he was. Inside of the tank he never feared for his safety, he never worried about harm befalling him. But now, outside, he realized that a single mistake on his part could kill him. he had been afraid when he had left Manifests tank mere minutes ago, but the simple ‘crack’ had brought his mortality to the forefront. The best reaction that he could think of to this horrible revelation was to upgrade to ‘oh buck-oh buck-oh buck.’

There was a red flash from the west, followed quickly by a bang. Another red light appeared, this one staying, its light cutting through the shadow underneath the tank. Deadeyes first reaction was to shift his body to keep away from the light, afraid of being seen. The light still shown, unflickering, but slowly Deadeye became aware of the near complete silence. Apart from the idling of the engine above him, he didn’t hear anything. No cracking of bullets, no banging of…he didn’t know what had made that sound.

He wanted to know what was happening outside, but he didn’t want to move. He was safe behind the roadwheel, and right now that was his main focus. But for how long? He was caught between action and inaction, and both could be the wrong move. He wanted someone to tell him what to do, but there was no one to ask. His instincts were pleading for him to hide, or run, and he wanted to follow them.

‘You can’t,’ he thought with abrupt clarity, like the thought wasn’t his but was given to him. Then he remembered his first day of training. He remembered the drill instructor, and he remembered the first thing that he had told them once they had all gotten out to the field.

“Your ancestors were prey. Creatures would hunt them, and they had two choices. Fight or flee. And fighting wasn’t natural to them, fleeing was. It’s the thing that ponies are better than any other creature at. Nothing can run like us. We haven’t had to face these instincts for hundreds of years, but when you get into combat, with death on the line, your instincts will kick in and given the choice between fight and flight you will want to choose flight. You can’t. War is about fighting, and if you learn nothing else from training you must learn that your intelligence must beat your instincts and fight must always win. Always.”

Deadeye took a deep breath, and tried to collect himself, but he still felt panic. Just because he knew that he had to do something didn’t mean that he wanted to. Moreover, it didn’t mean that he knew what to do. The red light still shone from outside. Looking out would be a start.

He rolled over onto his stomach, shimmying in order to keep his body from emerging from the safety of the road wheel. Slowly he leaned his head out until just one eye peeked out of the edge.

Hardly 100 yards away, in the field just a stone’s throw from the tree line by the railroad, was a unicorn clad in steel. Deadeye froze, but the unicorn didn’t move or seem to notice him at all. The shade under the tank kept him hidden, and at this point safe. A red light burned in the air above the field but Deadeye kept his vision on the unicorn. It stood immobile, it’s ears forward, it’s head up. Alert, but not aggressive. Curious maybe. The unicorn was a mixture between tan and grey, its mane and tail a muted reddish brown. The steel armor that it wore looked like it was once shiny but had been put through a sandstorm, with dried mud caked onto the bottoms. Deadeye remembered seeing this sort of pony in training, a Mage. The Unicornian elite shock troops. In the photos they looked cleaner.

The relative silence of the idling engines was cut by a high pitched hydraulic whirr, and the unicorn in the field took a step back in surprise, then his horn glowed and with a flash and a crack he disappeared. The whirring continued but Deadeye kept still, looking for where the mage had teleported to. There wasn’t a second crack. At least not one that he could hear. He looked right, where he could see the turret of Sure Shot’s tank traversing over to the field and sure shots gunner hiding behind the tank. Deadeye took one last glance at the field to see if the mage was still there. Right now he really wanted either to be in a tank or to have some means of self-defense, and he wasn’t going to get that by cowering. He didn’t see anything.

He rolled out from under the tank and quickly sprang to his hooves, the seconds of exposure feeling far too long as he scrambled up onto the top Sure Shot’s tank. The gunner had the same idea as he did, and both of them reached the gunners hatch at the same time. Deadeye rapped on the hatch rapidly. “lemme in lemme in lemme in” he muttered as he rapped on the roof. If he could get just get inside the tank.

“Hey! It’s my tank!” Sure Shot’s gunner protested, shoving him onto the engine deck next to the machine gun that he had just set up. He beat on the hatch forcefully. “Sure Shot! Let me in the bloody tank!” he yelled. Deadeye got back up to his hooves as the gunner continued his tirade. “the buck are you waiting for!” the periscope atop the turret swiveled to face the gunner, who leaned in close to it. “Yeah, it’s me! Open the buck up!”

‘Crack’

Their heads both snapped up to the east. A hundred yards away at best, by the treeline where Deadeye had seen him before, was the mage. He was looking right at them. Deadeye couldn’t move, his hooves frozen with fear. Neither could the gunner, and neither could the mage, his mouth slightly open in shock at their sight. For a few seconds, they just stared at each other.

The tanks periscope swiveled to the field, and it broke the silent truce.
The gunner leapt off of the tank away from where the mage was. The mage flashed out of existence. Deadeye spun around to the machine gun on the engine deck. He almost laid down to use the gun, but his instincts screamed at him to run or to hide. He felt too exposed up here. If he was going to hide though, he was going to hide armed.

He lifted the machine gun out of its cradle, and realized too late just how heavy it was. He pitched forward and over the edge of the engine deck, landing on his back with a puff of dust. It hurt, but not enough to keep him from rolling under the tank to what he thought was safety. He glanced down at the machine gun, and in the quick look that he had he realized how costly that mistake was. A layer of dust covered the gun, and the ammunition belt must have snapped leaving only a few rounds to use.

He now looked around franticly, trying to find the mage before it could find him. Nothing. He was breathing heavily, and he felt that even this would be enough to give him away. As exposed as he felt atop the tank he now felt trapped. He tried to control his breathing, but the adrenaline would not allow for it. He closed his mouth and held his breath to stop the ragged breathing, but the rapid panting remained. He looked over and through the gap in the road wheels he saw Sure Shot’s gunner, shoving himself up against the side of the tank as best as he could.

‘Crack’

The mage appeared in the woods, only a few feet away from the gunner, who spun and held his hooves up. The mage looked around rapidly, panic in his eyes. A fireball emanated from the air, but it did not move. “Where’s the other!” The unicorn shouted, the fireball shuddering in the air. Deadeye shifted the machine gun, precariously balancing it on one hoof in lieu of the tripod and swiveling it with the other in the trigger guard. He aimed down the sights at the mage's head, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened, not even an empty ‘click.’ Deadeye reached forward and pulled the cocking handle back desperately, and the gun made a reassuring ‘chi-chlink.’ The mage jolted upright at the sound, eyes darting for the source. The fireball moved, and Deadeye pulled the trigger.

‘BA-BA-BAM’

In the confines of the underside of the tank and without the separation of the turret wall between Deadeye and the muzzle the flash was blinding and the roar of the machine gun deafening. The recoil knocked the gun from his precarious hoofhold and onto the ground before he released, and the blast blew the dirt of the road into a small sandstorm. Amidst this disorientation he saw the mage fall onto its side, the fire go out as he clutched at his right leg and screamed. Deadeye reset the gun on his off hoof and re-aimed, but his hoof was stayed. The mage was a pitiful sight, writhing in pain. He looked up to the sky, then closed his eyes and gritted his teeth in an effort to fight the pain. Deadeye wanted to help him.

The mage’s eyes opened, and they were looking right at Deadeye. His horn lit up and a fireball appeared. ‘Oh buck.’ Deadeye pulled the trigger. ‘BAM.’ Again the flash and the dust blocked his view, but as he kept the trigger hard down the gun ceased. That was the last round. The mage still lay there, and as the dust cleared Deadeye could see a small hole punched in the chestplate of the armor. The mage weakly lifted his head and pointed his horn skyward, and a green light shot out from the tip. Then he closed his eyes and his head fell. From here Deadeye could see no blood, this wasn’t like the carnage of the battle at Canterlot, but he still knew that the mage was dead at his hoofs.

He dragged the machine gun out from under the tank, and looked skyward at the floating green light that the mage had conjured. Strangely, he felt calm. His nerves had cooled, and his breathing had returned to normal. He felt safe, but he felt something else that he couldn’t put his hoof on. He wanted a minute to just go over what had happened, without the threat of death on the horizon. Apart from the idling engine, it was quiet again. Despite the horrible thing that he had just done, he felt an inkling of peace.

Deadeye heard the sound of hoofsteps behind him, and spun around quickly, only to see Sure Shot’s gunner. He was covered in dust, and taking deep deliberate breaths in an effort to come down from the adrenaline high. “You killed him.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy Celestia, I thought I was a goner. You buckin’ saved my life.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Deadeye said wearily, flopping his hoof in a faint effort to wave off the weight of the statement. He looked to the empty tripod on the engine deck, then back at the machine gun and sighed. He looked back to the gunner. “Can you help with this?”

“Absolutely!” The gunner said enthusiastically, grabbing up the machine gun and heaving it onto the engine deck before deadeye could move to help. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks.” Deadeye muttered, his eyes drifting to the dead mage. He didn’t know what he should be feeling right now, but he knew that it shouldn’t be nothing. But that’s what he felt. No guilt. No remorse. No joy. No vindication. No anger. If he felt anything, it was tired. He felt a shove in the shoulder.

“Let’s tension that track and get the hay outta here, yeah?” the gunner said, and then he ran off to the duke’s tank. Deadeye started trotting that direction, looking away from the mage to something more comfortable, less challenging to think about.

“Unhook the cables for me?” Deadeye said, looking at the steel cables that connected the two tanks.

“Sure” the gunner said, quickly moving to disconnect them from the Duke’s tank. If he was so willing to do all the work, Deadeye almost felt compelled to let him. But he couldn’t. He sighed and moved to help.

A little burst of dust emanated from the road just ahead of him to the right, and Deadeye instinctively froze. There was a sound from the field, like a pitter patter of rain, and as he looked over he saw small tufts of grass and clumps of dirt being churned up by nothing. A sharp ‘ping’ rang out from the tank in front of him, and in his periphery he saw sparks fly off of the turret. A rumble like thunder from the field out east snapped him out of his stillness as he realized what was happening around him. He was getting shot at.

He sprinted over to the Duke’s tank and quickly ducked behind the safety of the armor. The gunner dived in next to him, surprised. “What’s going on?” he asked, then his face went pale. “Is it another mage?!”

“They’re shooting at us!” Deadeye said.

“From where?”

“Don’t know!”

Another rain of bullets fell from the sky, this one seeming to be more accurate. There were several ‘pings’ on the armor, and Deadeye heard the sounds of bullets cutting through the air above him before pattering in the field behind them. Moving out from behind the tank risked getting hit.

“What do we do?” the gunner asked.

The Fillydelphia Flyer rolled to a stop, dead center of the crossroads. Manifest looked down briefly at his watch. If nothing happened to the other tanks, they’d be here any minute and they could get the hay out of this place. Manifest spun the periscope to look down the road to the south, then turned to face Steady Aim.

The blood seeped out of his wounded shoulder, but it wasn’t gushing. The metal fragment still remained lodged in, and Manifest wondered if now was the time to try and remove it. The face that he must have been making as he pained over this decision didn’t go unnoticed by Steady Aim, who glanced down at the wound nervously.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad.” He said, looking back up to Manifest with a pale imitation of a grin. Clearly it did. Manifest just wondered if trying to remove it would only serve to make things worse.

“You can’t lift anything?” Manifest asked, but he already knew the answer. Steady Aim was now worthless as a loader, and due to the fact that the wound was in his shoulder he probably wouldn’t be able to switch positions and raise or lower the cannon with the shoulderpad. They were basically combat ineffective, and Steady Aim confirmed it with a nod of his head. Manifest glanced over to the first aid kit on the turret wall. Maybe if he treated it Steady would be able to load, or shoot, or something that would get them back to 100 percent. He levitated it off of the wall over to him.

“This is gonna suck?” Steady Aim asked

“This is gonna suck.”

Manifest popped open the first aid kit. There were bandages, antiseptics and sterilizers, scissors and pliers, and a myriad of other things crammed in, but Manifest wouldn’t need them. Apply a tourniquet around the shoulder to try and reduce blood flow, yank the metal out of him, hit it with antiseptic, and bandage it up. That was his play. He removed the tourniquet from the first aid kit. The radio squawked on.

“Manifest! We got a mage on us! Our Gunners are outside and they’re sitting ducks! Get over here!”

Manifest almost dropped the first aid kit as he reached for his mike, but kept its contents from spilling onto the floor. “On the way!” he shouted, unsure if Sure Shot even heard before hitting the intercom. “Lead! Back to the others now!”

The tank lurched beneath him as Manifest crunched the numbers in his head, and they weren’t good. They were just over a mile down the road from them, and the Flyer could do at best 25 mph. it would be about three minutes tops before they would be there. In three minutes there could be nothing left.

In three minutes he might not even be able to help. The main gun was now unquestionably out of action without a loader. But that wasn’t strictly true. If he loaded a round he would have one good shot before falling back on the co-ax. He looked over at the breech block, still open from earlier, then to the canister shells. One of those would be his best bet. He levitated it out from its container and lifted it up to his waiting hooves, then tipped it into the barrel and rammed it home. The breech snapped shut and the indicator flashed red, and Manifest felt only a little better about the situation. He looked at the co-axial, checking to see if the belt would feed and if the gun was cocked. It was. He put the pad against his shoulder, and prepared himself. Celestia, he hoped he’d get there in time.

He put them all in jeopardy. For a machine. If he had taken Sure Shots plan they’d already be done and gone. If he had stuck out the fight against the Wrecker the others would have the time. If he had returned to them when the gunner was injured he would be able to protect them. If… If he continued to think like this he’d drive himself mad. Now was no time for doubt or guilt, it was time only for violent decisive action. He shoved the thoughts aside, and for once they stayed there. For a moment. But with nothing to do but wait for contact there was nothing else to think about. Just his failings, and their consequences. He started to feel sick.

The radio squawked back on. “Manifest, enemy is down, can’t see any others. I think we’re all alright.”

Manifest hit his transmitter hard “You think you’re alright?! Find out!”

“Copy.” There was a brief pause, then the answer “we’re all ok.”

Manifest breathed hard. “Thank Celestia” He muttered, then he clicked the transmitter back on harshly “Sure-shot, if you ever decide to give me an update about our ponies without knowing if they are or are not healthy again, I will make you not bucking healthy. Understand?”

There was a pause on the other end of the radio, “Uhhhh…”

“Do you understand!?”

“Yes sir!”

“Good.” He spat into the mic. “We’ll be there in 2.” Manifest said, and he let his hoof off the transmitter and leaned his head back against the warm steel of the tank.

“Are you okay?”

Manifest looked over at Steady Aim, who despite having the metal in his shoulder looked more interested in Manifests well-being. “You seem pretty spun up.”

He was. He hadn’t felt stressed like this since… but that was wrong, the war put so much stress on him that he probably had lost 10 years off his life. But there was something that made him lash out like that, which he hardly ever did even in combat. He hadn’t felt stressed like this before. Further contemplation of his condition was interrupted by another squawk.

“Manifest, we’re taking rifle fire from an unknown source. Gunners are in cover behind the Duke’s tank, but are pinned down and can’t continue repairs.” This time sure shot sounded far less stressed, and his tone helped to put Manifest at some form of ease. They were in trouble, but not in imminent danger. Manifest clicked the transmitter.

“No muzzle flashes anywhere?”

“None.”

“How are the repairs?” Manifest asked. If they were done he could order them to pull out, and simply have the gunners trot alongside the tanks in cover until they reached a point where they could hop in.

“The track’s on, but it isn’t tensioned yet.”

“Crap.” Manifest said. They couldn’t just pull out, and no doubt this rifle fire was only the first part of a coordinated attack by the survivors of the Wrecker. Right now the two tanks he was headed for were sitting ducks, without the tensioned track the Duke’s tank could only reliably go forwards or back without risking throwing the track again. Honestly though, that wasn’t as bad as it could be. If he could figure out how to get the word to the Duke’s driver, they could just drive forward until they got out of the rifle fire then finish the repairs there. The only way to do that though was to either have one of the gunners knock on the driver’s hatch and tell him or to have a commander in the Duke’s tank, and with the Duke presumably still out for the count that was impossible. There was nothing they could do until Manifest got there. Again he felt a sharp rebuttal of that notion. There was always something that he could do.

“Do you know the general area of where the shots are coming from?”

“East, can’t see them though, I think they’re firing indirectly.”

Manifest cocked his head, even though the gesture of confusion was worthless over the radio. “What, like artillery?”

“Yes sir, I cannot see any enemy combatants or muzzle flashes, I think they may still be by the train.”

“Well, shoot back at them!”

“I don’t know their position.”

“just point it in the general direction and lob a few canister shots their way, if you can get in the ballpark and put their heads down that’s all we need.”

“Copy, what’s your ETA?”

“Here in one.” Just up ahead he could see a bend in the road, and he knew the others were just beyond. He only hoped that he would be able to help once he arrived. They rounded the corner and Manifest could see the Dukes tank, both tracks on, and Deadeye and the other gunner hiding behind it. Little puffs of dust popped up from the road, tiny explosions of mud in the field, and eruptions of bark from the woods behind them. They were still taking fire, inaccurate but effective nonetheless. “Lead, bring us alongside the Duke’s tank.” Manifest ordered, and the tank began to slow beneath him.

They pulled up alongside, and Manifest spun the periscope to the east and looked down as best as he could on the crouching ponies. They were unarmed, and apart from a pry bar on the ground had nothing between them. Manifest quickly ran through what options that he saw. If he could talk to them, he could order one of them to tell the dukes driver to pull forward and out of the line of fire. But he couldn’t talk to them, and even if he could the driver’s hatch was on the other side of the tank from them and they would have to be totally exposed to do so. They could finish tensioning the track, but doing that would require getting out of cover.

All of that was irrelevant though, because there was no way to order them. The only hatches that he could open so he could call out to them were the commanders and gunners hatches on top, and if opened either of those he risked getting hit, or a round diving in. no escape hatches, no loading hatches in the side like on the heavy tanks, not even gunports for the .30 cal that sat uselessly on the radio behind him. When they were buttoned up there was no way in, but there was no way out for anything either, not even sound. The only thing that exited the tank were shells and bullets. Outside he heard the muffled blast of Sure Shots tank.

He looked at the cannon next to him, then back through the periscope, then back to the cannon. It was going to save all of their lives.

“Steady, I need you to open that gun breech.” The pony next to him used his good leg to pull the lever and open the breech block, and the canister shell inside slid backwards an inch. Manifest pulled it out the rest of the way, letting the shell clatter to the floor. He didn’t need it. He hit the traverse to the left, and the turret swung obligingly.

“What are you doing?” Steady asked, confused.

Manifest didn’t answer as the turret swung over to the direction of the gunners outside, and he pushed up on the shoulderpad and depressed the gun so it was pointing at them. Through the gunsight, he could see Deadeye, a strange mixture of confusion and panic on his face. No matter. Manifest kept the gun depressed as he maneuvered to look down the barrel itself. “DEADEYE!” he yelled down the breech, as loud as he could manage. No answer. “DEADEYE, TALK THROUGH THE CANNON!”

“MANIFEST?!” Deadeye’s voice asked, echoing and far off, but still hearable through the cannon barrel. ‘thank Celestia,” Manifest thought,

“DEADEYE, FEED THAT PRYBAR INTO THE CANNON, WE’LL LIFT THE IDLER!”

“COPY!”

Manifest waited now, looking back down the barrel until a shadow flashed in front of it and the end of the pry bar appeared, angling off to the right as opposed to sliding in. deadeyes voice called through the barrel. “IT’S TOO LONG, THERE ISN’T ENOUGH ROOM TO PUT IT IN.” Manifest didn’t answer, he just hit the traverse to the right, and as the turret swung the pry bar began to line up with the barrel, until it slid in. Manifest traversed back left, moving his head to the gunsight. He lined up the reticule with the front wheel of the tank, and saw deadeye move adjust the pry bar into place, then motion upward.

“Steady, all your weight on the breech block.” Manifest said. His voice was harsh and raspy, yelling through the barrel might have lost him it, but no matter. Steady Aim pulled down on the breech, and it dropped a few inches under his weight. Manifest pulled down on it as well, trying to keep his eyes on the sights. Deadeye was fiddling with the front wheel, then he stepped back and pushed the prybar deeper into the barrel, away from the idler. The idler wheel stayed, and the track around it was taught.
With the turn of a nut, they were now free to leave.

“Lead, reverse.” The tank lurched backward beneath him, and slowly they started pulling away from the others. There may have been no way to contact the Duke’s driver, but he had to be watching. He flicked the transmitter over to the platoon frequency. “Sure Shot, we’re done here, let’s get the buck out. Slowly though, watch out for our gunners.”

“Copy.”

Sure Shot’s tank maneuvered to the left around the Duke’s, then edged past it slowly. Manifest held his breath, hopefully the driver would notice them moving out, and would move too. The Duke’s engine sputtered to life, and slowly the tank began to move as well. Manifest exhaled. It was too soon to celebrate, but they were so close. The three tanks trundled forward, Deadeye and Sure Shot’s gunner in a low trot in the shadow of the Duke’s tank, until they reached the treeline. The bullets that fell no longer fell around them, it was good enough.

“Sure Shot, let them in.” Sure Shots hatch opened, and the pony popped out and yelled unhearable words, and his gunner ran back to his tank and into the hatch to safety. Deadeye clambered up on top of the Duke’s tank and through the hatch, shutting it behind him. Manifest spoke through the transmitter again. “All tanks, check in.”

“Sure Shot standing by.” There was a slight pause, and Manifest felt a slight tinge of doubt, where was…

“Uh, Deadeye, I guess I’m a TC now? Standing by anyway.” Manifest felt a flood of relief.

“All crew accounted for?” he asked.

“All here” said Sure Shot.

“Yeah,” Said Deadeye.

“All tanks, follow my lead north.” Manifest ordered.

“Copy”

“Copy commander.”

“Lead, let’s get out of here. Manifest said, before leaning back in his seat, away from the periscope and the sights. He levitated up his canteen, and instead of the normal sip he allowed himself to take a long drink of the warm water. It still had never tasted as sweet. He closed his eyes for a moment. They stopped The Wrecker. They saved all the tanks. They were all alive. He had done it.

The radio clicked on. “Hey, commander?” it was Deadeye.

Manifest clicked his transmitter on without opening his eyes or raising his head. He was too drained to want to. “Go ahead.”

“I just wanted to say that, uh, I think that I’m staying on.”

Manifests only reaction was to smile as he clicked the receiver back on. “Are you sure?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then I’m glad to have you on, Deadeye. Thanks for sticking around.”