PonyZ: Radio Zed
Chapter 3: The Red Devils
Outside Stary Sobor, Day-Z +2; 4:32 P.M.
"To beat death, you've got to know death."
- Schatzi, Night of the Dead: Leben Tod (2006)
The survivors snuck their way closer to the edge of town, seeing a large amount of zombies roaming the streets. “Jeez, I’ve never seen this many of them in one place before.” Stormy whispered to Rarity, who nodded and clicked the safety off of her Car-15.
“It’s very peculiar. From what we’ve seen so far, there’s usually only one or two at one place at a certain time. I can count nearly thirty here.” She replied, mentally counting the undead. A shot rang out from a DMR, and one of the zombies’ heads exploded. Hawk scoped in with his rifle, scanning for the sniper.
“Church tower, about four fifty away; clear shot.” He flicked off his safety, zeroing the rifle up to four hundred meters and aiming half a mill dot up in his sight. He settled his sights on a pony’s head.
“Hold your fire, we don’t know if they’re friendly or not.” Twilight said, pushing his rifle barrel skywards. Hawk nodded silently, flicking the safety back on as he glared at the captain from under his hood, as no other pony could see his eyes. The group started sneaking towards the church, weapons at the ready. They were just outside the church when the doors of the church opened and a platoon of twenty ponies, all wearing red berets, aimed weapons at them.
“Drop ‘em! Drop ‘em or we shoot!” The survivors complied, slowly placing their rifles on the ground. This seemed to satisfy the red berets, who holstered their weapons. “Sorry about that, we were just making sure you weren’t those shoot on sight bandit assholes. You can grab your weapons now.” The head pony, a unicorn stallion with a colonel’s bird on his beret, spoke up, l85 AWS on his back. The survivors grabbed their weapons and headed inside before the zombies could get any closer, with the red berets closing the door behind them. “I’m Colonel Firestorm, you?”
“I’m Captain Twilight Sparkle, of the 82nd Airborne. The paratroopers are mine, and the rangers are Captain Dusk Shine of the third rangers’. The two marines are scout-snipers we picked up. Nice to meet friendly faces out here colonel.” The colonel smirked.
“It’s always a good thing to meet friendlies out here. We’re from the Special Air Service. We had been on base here at Stary when the outbreak began. We had to exfiltrate the base because we were getting overrun. The marines on station stayed, and were systematically slaughtered by the undead. The base is pretty much FUBAR right now.”
“Fubar?” Rainbow Dash asked, having not heard the term before.
“Effed up beyond all repair; Fubar.” The colonel supplied, taking a swigger from his flask, which was filled with coca-cola. “Ah, good old Coca-cola, not a better drink in all of Equestria. Anyhow, you’ll want to talk to General Light Speed, he’s in the crow’s nest. Big M107 on his back; can’t miss him.” Firestorm nodded towards a wooden ladder leading up to the roof of the church.
Dusk and Twilight ordered the survivors to stay down below, and headed up to the roof. Up top were two ponies, one resting, and the DMR sniper from before. The resting pony was a blue pegasus with a yellow mane and tail, and had an M107 Anti Material Rifle on his back, and was reading the only Equine book on the roof, Sun Tzu’s Art Of War. Beside him was a pack of bubblegum, a fragmentation grenade, and a box of ammunition, containing DMR and M107 magazines.
“General Light Speed, I presume?” Dusk asked the blue pegasus with a yellow mane. The pegasus looked up from his book at the two, placing a bookmark and setting it by the bubblegum.
“That’d be me, Captain. What do you need?” He cracked his neck, which was stiff from his position against the wall of the tower.
“We need help getting into the base so we can get military grade hardware. Then we’re headed up to Namalsk so we can get access to Namalsk’s Radio tower, and from there we’re going to try and radio in some backup from the Communications array there.” The general laughed in their face for a couple seconds before regaining composure and wiping a tear from his eye.
“You’re serious, aren’t you? Well, I’d like to help, but we have our own problems currently.” The general pulled a map from his jacket and unfolded it. There was a place marked “Devil’s Castle” on the map, with a big black X circled on it. “This is the Devil’s Castle area. We used to have control over it, but earlier today a bunch of Griffonian Spetsnaz, about a company of them, took it from us and drove us down here, where we’ve been cooped up for the better part of three hours. One of the SOBs has been strafing us with a Hind, but he must have seen a better target ‘cuz he pulled off and headed towards the southern road into town. You help us take back the Devil’s Castle and I’ll help you get in the base. You scratch my back I scratch yours. Deal?”
Dusk shook his hand, grinning. “Deal. That was us hiking our way here, by the way. A…associate of ours shot him down with a sniper rifle southeast of here. We’ve got nothing but our two feet. Have you got any transport?” The general nodded, pointing at a bus parked nearby the church.
“Yep, the guys call it “The S.A.S Party Bus”. That should hold your platoon, along with mine, so transport’s no issue. We can head out within the hour, are your ponies ready?” The two nodded, and the General smirked. “Good. Now, how good of shots are your snipers?”
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The castle itself was very Germane gothic in design. It had probably been some rich Chenarussian prince’s commissioned castle built by a Germane castle builder. It had been built out of the surrounding mountains’ natural rock, which had weathered over the many years until nearly pitch black. Speaking of mountains though, Hawk was sitting on top of a comms antenna built on top of a mountain about 1.1 kilometers away from the castle with a L115A3 .338 Lapua Magnum sniper rifle. The rifle had been retooled by the Red Devils’ gunsmith, Silver Smith, to mount an AS50 enhanced zoom scope, for even longer distance shots. The rifle now had an operating range of 1.8 miles, and could fire less effective .300 magnum ammunition, but the .300 ammo was only rated for shots up to 730 meters and closer, less than half the range. The scope, however, only assisted Hawk for up to 1.3 kilometers, and the castle itself was only 1.1 kilometers from his position. To a markspony trained for long distance shooting, this was a walk in the park. Target in a sparsely wooded dip, no crosswinds, higher elevation for better targeting, this would be rather simple.
Stormy was sitting slightly lower down on the hill, aiming towards the target with her SVDS rifle, which had been retooled to fire at distances of 1.2 kilometers, compared to its original 923 meters, and had a dual band scope attached which allowed her to swap between her normal scope and a night vision scope. Closer to the castle, about 450 meters out, was the assault team. The platoon of survivors and the Red Devils had mixed together into two teams, one led by General Light Speed, the other by Colonel Firestorm. Firestorm’s team would flank around the back through the brush and sneak into the castle from the back while Gen. Light Speed’s team provided distraction through heavy rifle fire at the front of the base.
Hawk gazed at his watch. -0920- The attack began at 0930, so he had ten minutes to relax. Gazing through his scope, he zoomed in on Stormy Winters. She was a pegasus, and a fellow marine at that, all good things in Hawk’s books. He had nothing against the other species, but pegasi? Well, could unicorns or earth ponies fly? No. Alicorns could too, but Alicorns? They’re perfect. Perfection breeds insanity. When you are perfect, nothing will ever go wrong; it’s unnatural. Hawk shook the stray thoughts from his head, clearing his mind. He was really missing his medication right now, but he could deal without it for a few days. Hopefully they’d reach the Marine base in Stary by then… his base… He thought back to when he and Cloudy had retreated from the base, during the final minutes of the marines’ frantic defense. The Devils were right, the defense had failed… ‘And it failed because you bucked up and left them to die.’ The little pony in Hawk’s head, taking on the smooth, velvety tone of Pvt. Cloudy Skies-Archer spoke in hushed whispers in his mind.
‘SHUT UP. We had to leave; they…they were going to die anyway. We were running low on ammo as it was… It was your idea anyway Cloudy, remember?’ The pony in his head shut up at that comment…She wouldn’t drive him over the edge, yet, but he desperately needed his medication; he’d run out yesterday, downing the last pill while the others were busy trying to find the pony with the gauss rifle; Karde was his name? Flipping plothole made fun of his stealth. HIS STEALTH… Hawk shook his head again and cleared his traitorous thoughts. He gazed at his watch once more. -0930- Stormy fired a shot from her SVDS rifle, and Hawk returned his scope’s gaze to the castle, picking out a griffon trying to set up a mounted machine gun - a DKSHM-41. The bullet exploded out of Hawk’s rifle, thudding itself into the Special Forces griffon’s skull. The griffon slumped over the low battlements of the roof, the discarded mounted machine gun falling to the ground below.
Hawk watched as the ground team in front began to enter the castle. Blitz and a Red Devils pony stacked up on either side of the front door, which had been changed from a giant portcullis gate to a rather small bullet-resistant locked door. Apparently, the lock on the door wasn’t very bullet resistant, as Blitz blew the lock open with his Trotington, and the Red Devils pony peeked inside with an M14 AIM rifle, sending four shots into the castle’s first room. Hawk watched the ponies pile into the castle, behind Blitz and the Red Devil pointmare. Hawk was glad that the red devils hadn’t recognized him underneath his ghillie suit, as he had only put it on when he and Cloudy had been sneaking out of the base, so zombies didn’t catch them. He really didn’t want to go into the depths of his personal life with the Rangers and the Airborne ponies, it was…well…personal, after all. Another griffon popped up on the battlements, probably trying to sneak to the ground level to flank the survivors. He got about a foot into the air when two nearly simultaneous rifle shots, with Hawk firing half a second or so faster, blew chunks out of his skull, red mist floating for a few seconds and the dead Spetsnaz griffon’s body fell to the ground. Heh… cake.
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Blitz peered around one of the corners inside the castle, looking down a long hallway, with two griffons at the end. One held an AK-103/GP-25 automatic rifle, and the other held an RPK squad machine gun. He yanked his head back behind the wall, narrowly dodging an untimely demise due to half a clip of machine gun bullets. He then groaned in pain, as a stray bullet had ricocheted off the wall and embedded itself into his left wing. ‘Right. Mister Spetsnaz, meet mister Trotington.’ Blitz thought to himself, holding the shotgun out around the corner, blind firing a full eight rounds at the griffons. Peering around the corner, he smirked with grim satisfaction, seeing the two griffons on the ground, multiple shotgun wounds throughout their bodies. “Clear, let’s move up!” He shouted back to the Red Devils pointmare, a light opal pegasus mare, with an amber mane and tail, who had just exited a barracks room, reloading her M14. She nodded, cocking the rifle. They trotted down the hallway to the dead bodies, stacking up on the door. Blitz blew it open with his shotgun, and she tossed a fragmentation grenade inside. An explosion rang out, and a dead griffon came flying out of the door into the hallway.
Inside the room was another dead griffon and a ladder leading upwards, the stairs leading upwards having been collapsed with rubble. Blitz and the mare shared a nod, and he began to ascend the ladder, her rifle covering Blitz’s ascent. About halfway up, there was a loud explosion, and the castle shook. “Must be Bravo group making their entry on the far side of the castle!” She yelled up to Blitz, keeping her M14 aimed at the top of the ladder. After another tense minute, Blitz was at the top, and staring at yet another locked door.
“ Come on up, we’ve got another friggin’ locked door. I swear, it’s like this place is tryin’ to make me waste ammo. There needs to be a key that opens every door, and we should have it.” He grumbled as the mare clambered up the ladder.
“If we did that though, all it’d take is one griffon to steal the key and we’d be screwed. Instant access to everywhere in the base. This was ours before the griffs took it.” She stated, stacking up on the other side of the door.
“Oh. Must have been daydreaming about an ace during that.”
“A what now?” She raised an eyebrow
He recovered quickly, stammering out an answer. “I-I-I mean an uh… ace of spades…heh… CLEARING!” He blasted the door off its hinges with a single powerful blast of shotgun ammunition. The pointmare rolled her eyes, and was about to enter when the door got up and groaned… Make that a griffon that was hit by a flying door, and was trying to get up. He took a M14 bullet to the face before he could do anything hazardous to a pony’s health, and the two continued on, as the rest of the team reached the ladder. The two scouts continued on through the castle, and the mare stopped to examine a slightly skewed painting.
“Hey, this looks nice. Wonder why it’s sideways though. I wonder…” Blitz quickly tackled her, before she could do anything, and she began to blush, with him laying on top of her.
“Hey, sorry about that,” he began, getting off of her and helping her up, before continuing. “My buddy Bubble told me about something similar to this, the Germanes used to use them a ton of times back during the Equestrian-Germane civil war; the uh… second world war. We uh, fought the first war against the Griffs. It’s a trap; skewed painting’s covering a wire that when it gets stretched…” He made a small explosion gesture with his hands. “Poof, no more pointmare.” They backed up to a safe distance, and Blitz used a twelve foot pike from one of the old suits of armor to move the painting. There was a click, and the painting exploded outwards with the force of a C4 plastic explosive, as the two watched from around the corner.
“Uhm… Thanks. I...Uh…I...Thanks for not getting me killed.” She quietly stammered out, blushing profusely.
“Eh, no problem, uh…” He still didn’t know her name, he realized.
“Private first class Lightning Dust, third S.A.S reconnaissance.” She quickly provided, the red fading from her cheeks. He tossed away the broken piece of pike, and the two continued down the hallway, reaching a set of actual stairs.
“FAUST, finally! STAIRS!” Blitz whooped, doing a little happy dance as Lightning rolled her eyes. “Hardy har. You know, we’re both pegasi, why don’t we just fly up?” Blitz gestured to his wing, which was missing some of the primary feathers.
“Took a bullet and the muscle won’t move right. I’m grounded, but I dunno why you don’t just fly up. You look fine to me, but I’m not the medic, that’d be ‘Scotch and Fluttershy.” She shrugged, having no good excuses for not flying. Blitz rolled his eyes and the two began to climb the stairs. The stairs exited out to the battlements, where a single griffon in Spetsnaz officer’s uniform was lying behind the battlements wall, trying not to get shot. Dust aimed at him with her M14, and the rifle made a resounding click – the bullet had jammed in the barrel. The griffon’s head shot up, and he aimed an AKM rifle at Dust. Blitz acting quickly, jumped in front of her, firing his Trotington as the officer fired a burst from his AKM, the shotgun tore the officer’s face off, and the AKM shots went wide, with two of them missing completely, the other one burying itself into the side of Blitz’s shotgun, jamming the Pump action.
“Jeez Blitz, that’s twice now you’ve saved my life. You my guardian Angel or something?” She smiled, rubbing a hand across her forehead. Now, Blitz began to blush as he tried to un-jam his shotgun.
“Yeah yeah, whatever…” He muttered, trying to dig the bullet out with his Ka-Bar combat knife. The bullet remained adamantly stuck in the action, rendering it useless. Blitz swore to all things Faust-related under his breath and tossed the weapon away, taking the officer’s AKM rifle and a couple clips of ammunition. After a few minutes, the second team, minus a couple Red Devils who were scavenging for ammunition, reached the battlements. Another few minutes and Hawk and Stormy trotted up to the battlements, having hiked the whole way. Dusk noticed that Blitz was holding the AKM, instead of his shotgun, as he chatted with Lightning Dust.
“Hey Blitz, where’d your shotgun go?” Dusk raised an eyebrow, pointing to the Griffonian assault rifle. Blitz spat off the edge of the castle and holstered the rifle.
“Piece of crap got jammed by a bullet and it broke the action. I’ll have to grab a new one at the base.” Then, of all the ponies to notice Lightning Dust, Rainbow saw her out of the corner of her eye.
“Hey, what the buck are YOU doing here?” She pointed her Car-15 at Dust, and every Red Devil commando and Blitz pointed their motley assortment of weapons at Rainbow.
Dusk and Twilight jumped between the two groups. “Woah woah woah, calm the Buck down everypony!” The two groups, Survivors on one side, Red devils and Blitz on the other, grumbled and ever so slowly lowered their rifles. Then, Twilight turned to Rainbow, looking ready to scream bloody murder. “What the Hay is wrong with you?” She whispered angrily in Rainbow’s ear.
“But, Twi, it’s” She began.
“I know good and Freaking well who it is, and can’t you see she’s stuck in this with us too? They all are. We need friends right now, not enemies. I don’t care who she is or what she did, Equestrian is Equestrian is Equestrian. We stick together. END.OF.STORY. Now go make nice.” She pushed Dash towards Dust and Blitz, the latter watching her like a Hawk, finger resting over the AKM’s trigger.
“Hey, uh…Dust…”