*Boom!*
Everything is noise, all consuming, enveloping. I am submerged deep within its layers, built of screaming chaos all around.
*Boom!*
At the heart of this inescapable whirlwind there is the roar of a great engine, primal, leonine and loud. Like some barely contained wild creature it rumbles rhythmically with life, as if pacing behind the bars of a cage, willing itself out.
*Boom!*
Rumbling above this though; by sheer force the true king in the tumult of the world, explosions thunder on all sides. Their true violence is muffled, dampened by thick walls of armour plating, yet they are still very much there. Despite its thickness this steely shell shrieks and creaks like the hull of an aged ocean liner with each lurching movement. At an even higher pitch meanwhile metal clashes sharply against metal outside, shrapnel and bullets raking across our walls.
‘What do we do now?!’
‘Sweet Celestia! Shoot back!’
‘At what exactly?!’
‘Where are they?!’
‘Just drive!’
‘Where?!’
‘Anywhere! Get us the buck outta here!’
I am sat in a box, hunkered down in the protection of its gloomy interior. What light there is only just pierces the shadows through a scant few viewing slits, although bright beyond measure in contrast only making the inner world seem darker. The place is an oven, air staled, baking and sealed. An oppressive mix of alchemical scents sting at my nostrils: thick alkaline and sharp acid, both too pungent in the confines. The space is cramped, filled up with a mass of tubes, wiring, instruments and machinery. It is all inexplicable, impossible to pick through the jumble of levers and buttons which protrude from every surface, forcing their way inward. The lack of space, the howling noise and the darkness all grip me tightly, catching my breath short in my throat.
‘Anywhere isn’t exactly helpful!’
‘Where’s everypony else?!’
‘Dunno; all I can get in the coms is Dahl’s damned music! Nopony else is responding!’
‘Last time I saw them the Nats were hemmed in, and I saw Ruby’s bunch drive into a ditch…’
*Boom!*
Voices, four distinct individuals, shout against the tide of other competing sounds. Fearful, they snap at one another, their owners seated deeper in the shadows below me. I am trapped at their centre, at their head. I am frozen despite the inferno, set in stone, rooted on the spot. Command: a new, unpleasant, and alien concept is mine, whether I like it or not. I should act, do something or say something, but feel lost before I can even begin.
*Boom!*
‘They’re getting closer!’
‘For buck’s sake, just fire back already!’
‘Fine!’
*Boom!!!*
The thundering world seems to jump, flung backward in time with the enormous cannon at its heart, the weapon on automatic spilling exhaust gases and a spent casing from its breach. My eyes sting, harsh fumes pricking at their edges, but the rest of me could not care less. The force barrels through me in a wave, reverberating from the tips of my hooves to my very core, in its progress setting my whole body on edge. Soaring on a potent mixture of excitement and adrenaline (likely cut with an undercurrent of pure terror) everything falls into focus.
‘Wow…’ The voice is mine, but not mine alone, joined by a quartet of others in a heady and sighed exhale.
‘What y’ hit?’
‘How should I know?!’ And with that the moment of sublime is shattered.
‘You fired the shot! How can you not know?!’
‘You said shoot so I shot, nothing more to it. Now I repeat, get us the buck outta here!’
My eyes are drawn upward and my being follows suit. I rise up and out through an open hatch, appearing through rushing wind and carried clouds of dust. We are in a sea of sand, the war machine beneath me stark as gunmetal grey against the surrounding gold. Brighter still though are the shell bursts as they erupt before us in our path, throwing up both darkened earth and flame. I whirl about on impulse, seeking sight of our obvious pursuers, in the process just in time to see the angular prow of another tracked vehicle as it breaks over the crest of a dune. Rolling like a ship it falls forward onto its treads, black smoke snorting from two exhausts at its snout as it breaks into a charge at our left flank.
‘Stop the tank!’ My voice is hardly my own, bellowed without thought, more desperate than commanding.
‘What?!’
‘Target at nine o’clock! Split turn and engage, Toffee stop to give the best fire position and hopefully…’
*Crash!!!*