When Jack awoke he was the only one in the barracks so he got up and looked at the clock on the wall, it read 6:24 and he thought do they not do drills or anything in this army? He decided to get something to eat in case they do have a mission or patrol. It had snowed again the night before and as he walked he was happy the trench was concrete and not dirt. He walked in got some food and sat down. As he ate he looked around there was around ten ponies in the mess hall all of them eating talking or reading letters. Letters He thought, he wished he could still send and receive letters from his girlfriend in England. He sighed as he finished then got up and gave the food tray to the cook and walked out.
He got only a few steps away from the mess hall when he heard a familiar voice go, "Hey!" He turned and saw Clip walking towards him.
"Yes?" Jack responded.
Clip didn't look like he was going to stop but as he walked by he said, "The general is looking for you, you can find her in barracks A1C." And without another word he walked away.
Jack watched him walk down the trench tell he turned a corner then Jack headed away from his barracks looking at the numbers, A1, A4, A2 there was no order to them. After walking around the trench for five minutes he found it. He knocked on the door.
"Come in." Came from the other side and he opened the door, walked in and sat down in front of General Starlight. The room looked bare but there were some maps laying on a big table in the back. She looked at him with a smile then went on with, "So glad to see you and properly introduce myself. I am General Starlight Glimmer commander of fort Vine which means all orders you receive go through me do you understand?" Jack nodded and she continued, "Well good now that that is out of the way, the recovery unit got you somethings." She opened a small box behind her desk and pulled out a bundle of cloth, then set it on the table in front of Jack.
Jack looked at the bundle then opened it inside where four medals he looked up at Starlight and said, "What are these for?"
Starlight smiled and said, "You killed the crew of that tank that attacked you well the gunner was a high scoring tank ace and being you killed him you get his medals."
Jack looked grimly at the medals and thought, The Americans liked to do this. Then he said, "Really a ace?"
Starlight nodded and said, "He had ten tank kills and countless infantry kills, I'm glad you have those medals now." She stopped as the door swung open and a white pony with a blue and white mane raced in.
The pony set down a file and said, "General Rainbow Dash wanted you to see this as soon as possible." Jack seen the pony had wings.
Starlight responded with, "Yes thank you, if you don't mind Tank Hunter I have business I need to tend to."
Jack nodded then got up and walked out into the trench. It had started to lightly snow which Jack had liked, he always enjoyed it when it snowed which made it easy to sneak around the battlefield.
Jack was drawn up to the courtyard by the sound of tanks treads and when he got out of the trench he seen a tank pulling into the fort with what looked like battle damage. He walked up to a yellow pony with a green mane and asked, "Who is that?"
The pony turned and said, "That is Trixie she is a close friend of the general and she only goes out on night patrols." Jack nodded as he looked at the tank it was the size of a Cromwell tank with a rounded front, flat sides and back and a dome turret with a long skinny gun and the whole thing was painted black with The great and powerful on the side of the turret.
Jack watched the tank pull into one of the warehouses which he decided to find out if there was any assignments. After walking around for half an hour he found Raz talking with a pony with was dressed in a coat with a hood so one couldn't see the pony inside. As Jack walked up to Raz he smiled and said, "Hey Raz mind if I ask you something."
Raz turned and when he seen Jack he smiled, "Tank Hunter good to see you what is it you wanted to ask?"
Jack answered, "Do you know if we have any assignments?"
Raz laughed and when he did the pony in the hood recoiled then Raz said, "We seen combat the other day so we have the day off."
"Oh ok." Jack responded, Raz turned and continued to talk to the other pony at which Jack walked to the warehouse, he decided to spend his day looking around the base.
The first thing Jack saw as he walked into the warehouse was a tank that looked like a Hellcat but the turret was a triangle and the gun pointed out the tip. Jack looked the tank over it had what looked like hundreds if not thousands of scratches from what Jack had guessed was small arms fire, as he looked at it a pony walked up to him.
"She can take a beating." The pony said and Jack turned and looked at the pony, "Name is Gearbox and I'm the chief mechanic here at Fort vine." He then held out a hoof.
Jack started shaking Gearbox's hoof and said, "I'm Tank Hunter, and it's nice to meet you."
"Really? Well it's nice to finally meet you and let me say thank you for killing that ace we finally got a chance to look through one of those Raider tanks." Gearbox said.
"No problem. Wait look through?" Jack asked.
"You're new here right then follow me and I'll show you around." Gearbox said as he waved for Jack to follow. Jack walked with Gearbox to the back of the warehouse, Jack noted well it wasn't very loud it wasn't quite ether, as they stopped in front of the hull of the tank he had knocked out. "You remember this girl don't you?" Gearbox asked and added, "Well maybe not all taken apart but anyways this is where we bring in Zebra tanks that we have never seen before or don't have information on and pull them apart, it is a fun job." Gearbox smiled as he finished, Jack wondered where the turret was tell he looked up. It was hanging from a large crane. "Well right this way is the tank holding and repair area." Gearbox said as they walked through a door into a large well lit room that was quite clean for a holding area. The tank in front of them was Derpy's, it was clean and freshly painted.
"Wait you paint the tanks too?" Jack asked.
"Well ya got to keep them from rusting somehow." Gearbox said with a chuckle.
"Again again!" Came from the other side of Derpy's tank and it sounded like a kid.
"Anything else to see?" Jack asked Gearbox.
"No this is about it, now I'm going to go back to work on the Raider tank get me if you need anything." Gearbox said then nodded and walked back through the door they came.
Jack thought for a moment this gives me the chance to see why a kid is in here. He walked around to the other side of the tank and right as he got around Derpy shot up into the air with a filly in her hoofs who was giggling.
As Derpy floated down she seen Jack and called out, "Hey Tank Hunter what brings you in here?"
Before Jack could respond the filly said, "Who is that mom?" The question startled Jack.
As Derpy set the filly down she said, "He fights the bad guys just like me. Now you should run along." The filly nodded then ran off. Then Derpy turned to Jack and said, "She isn't my real filly, we rescued her a week ago and she called me mom ever since and I just can't tell her to not." She looked at the filly running away and smiled and Jack could tell that filly brought her joy.
"I thought you had a filly that and why is she still here?" Jack asked.
"I do her name is Dinky she is a unicorn, she is safely back in Ponyville and as for Blue Blaze the filly who just left well there are around ten ponies living on this base who are waiting for a opening in the fighting to get out." Derpy responded.
"Well that is good to know, oh I would like to know is there any maps I can read or something to get the lay of the land?" Jack asked.
"Ya here follow me." Derpy responded and started walking and Jack followed. They walked out the warehouse down into the trench the to a barracks not far from Jack's. They walked in and Derpy called out "Hey Blue Sky you have a books of info on the land around here."
A pony from behind a counter tossed a large book to Derpy and said, "Here this will tell you anything you want to know." Then went back to move things around.
Derpy handed Jack the book and said, "Here you go now is there anything else can you with?"
"No I think I'll go back to my barracks and read some of this." Jack said and Derpy nodded and they both walked out, then just before parting ways Derpy hugged Jack then walked back towards the exit of the trench. Confused Jack walked back to his barracks.