All Quiet on the Equestrian Front

by Tempest Wind


The Shire

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

Three

The Shire

Dawn broke. Rifles barked, machine guns chattered. Tank shells roared, echoing loudly throughout the town. Dive Bomber Devils shrieked down from above, and the ever present howitzer grumbled from far across the river.

This was the world Dusty Trails awoke to, the dull grays of the sky contrasted by the slowly rising sun.

“Well, they’re not in Canterlot at least.” Her loader- a bat pony mare named Gale Force- muttered, trying to keep herself from shaking, as she picked quietly at her morning ration. The Vickers 303 was resting against the front of the dugout, it’s burnt out and useless barrel replaced with a fresh one from the two’s stock. A new belt of ammunition gleamed along the side of the rifle, the deadly brass cartridges ready to do their work at a pull of the gun’s trigger.

“Guess not, kid.”

“Hey, I’m only, like, two years younger than you.”

“Uh-huh. What’s it look like out there?”

Gale shrugged, and sat aside her ration tin, presumably either full, or not that hungry. “Well, there’s bombers above us. Artillery over that-a-way, and rather pissy bugs a hop, skip, and jump across the river. They haven’t pushed hard yet, but…”

“Won’t be long, probably. Vicky ready to lock and load?”

“Ready to send some dead bugs straight back to the queen bitch herself, Dusty.”
Gale frowned, thrumming her hooves idly across her own preferred weapon, the “Chatterbox”. The ‘box, as it’s operators affectionately called it, was chambered in the short but potent .45 ACP, and a few lucky wielders had been given fifty round drum magazines to field test, as opposed to the more common twenty or thirty round box.

Gale had apparently gotten the weapon as a gift from her sister, a staff officer, as the only ponies Dusty had ever seen assigned them were NCOs and special operators, such as the wonderbolts.

Not that she’d actually fired the weapon for any length of time, at all. Not that Dusty’d gotten around to shooting off the Vickers 303 before yesterday, either.

Dusty slid behind the rather heavy machine gun, sloshing around the water jacket to make sure it was still in one piece. “Ammunition?”

“Plenty came along with the ‘Bolts land division. They've been hoofing it out amongst us. One of them uh, came by while you were asleep.”

“Aw, man, I missed a Wonderbolt?”

“Hey, your fault, not mine.”

“Well, I-” the two cut off their conversation, as rifle fire kicked back into gear, and Changeling tanks grumbled forward again.

Dusty raised the Vickers to a firing position, as Gale slid next to her, and the two set to work. Dusty’s steady hooves slid the Vickers gun across the river bank in long, staccato bursts as she swept the barrel towards any sign of Changeling soldiers.

Gale’s quick wings and hooves meanwhile kept the .303 caliber gun supplied with an ample amount of ammunition as it chattered noisily, bullets whizzing out of the end of the barrel at a lethal rate.

To their near front, a Stuka bomber screeched in from above, and the two stopped to watch it release its payload on an Equestrian position nearer the bridge, the two mares watching in horror as a hopefully dead pony went flying several feet into the air, before crashing down onto the cobblestone road. A few Spandau gun rounds from the Changeling end of the riverbank stitched up and down the corpse, now certainly dead.

Dusty swung the gun about to the far edge of her vision, spraying a burst at a flash of movement, and noting with grim satisfaction as a changeling toppled into the river. A panzer from across the river belched its reply to the gun nest, as a shell exploded against the front of the ruined house she and Gale had walled off with sandbags. Twitching and grimacing as ceiling plaster bounced off her helmet, Dusty glanced over to Gale, who was busy tearing open the top of a fresh .303 box. The younger mare paused momentarily to frown at the ceiling, before grumbling and returning to feeding ammunition into their machine gun.

“Where’s a Sparrow when you need it?” Gale whined, as overhead, another Stuka came screaming hellfire into the town. It’d only be a matter of time before an enterprising pilot decided to drop a bomb on their position. Or the veritable stream of retreating Equestrian soldiers- they’d been streaming in since late last night from fronts as far away as Vanhoover, or Acornage.

Dusty simply grunted noncommittally, as another Changeling panzer slid up to the next, it’s smaller autocannon steadily thumping back and forth across the Equestrian line.

Sparing a short glance to Gale, who was still arguing with the inanimate ammunition box, Dusty flopped herself over onto the ground, taking a surprised Gale with her, voicing protests. Barely a second later, loud and angry twenty millimeter tank shells burst above the pair, before moving on, away from the MG nest, and farther down the river line. Dusty exhaled quietly, before pulling herself back up and behind the Vickers, as Gale shakily opened up the ammunition box and began feeding the cartridge belts.

Off to their right, in the old bakery, the three pounder from the night before echoed out another shell, thankfully a direct hit on the Panzer with the autocannon. A few seconds later, the panzer began to cook off, as flame poured out the back.

The Changeling crewmembers bailed out of the fireball of a wreck, flames streaming from their uniforms as they ran about, attempting to put themselves out and screeching in pain.

Dusty blinked twice, before raising her gun barrel again, though she was halted by a shaky hoof on her left shoulder, her breath hitching momentarily in her throat.

“...Save… Save the ammo, Dusty. We’re running low.” Gale muttered, her voice barely above a whisper, as her eyes watched the immolating bugs begin to keel over and die.

---

Dusty let off the trigger, as the Vickers gun’s barrel glowed bright orange, and was careful not to touch the searingly hot metal as she let the gun rest against the sandbag emplacement. Sitting back, the Dodge Junction born mare ran a hoof across her brow, as her loader took stock of the pair’s remaining .303 belts.

“Think they’re done for today?”

“Too early.” Dusty shook her head, before pulling a ration bar out of her rucksack, after shaking off the ceiling plaster and roofing that had coated the burlap.

Gale began to say something, but was cut off by a shrill shriek from the opposite bank. The two’s gazes shot over to the bankside.

Dusty slumped slightly. A Changeling medic was attempting to treat one of the nearly incinerated panzer crew members. She was surprised the po-bug was still alive, herself. The pair watched the medic for several minutes, until the Changeling waved over a stretcher team. The four stretcher-bearing changelings carefully lifted the still shrieking Changeling, and carted it off, followed by the medic, who continued to administer… something, Dusty couldn’t really see what.

“Think he’ll live, Gale?” She found herself asking.

“I dunno, Dusty. I really don’t know.”
---

A few minutes later, the Changelings decided that attacking the Equestrians directly was beneath them, and the skies opened up once more with a rain of artillery. Shells of several large and varied caliber thundered down into the town, as the beleaguered defenders tucked into whatever cover they could scrape together. Gale and Dusty huddled in the far corner of their house-turned gun bunker, as the entire roof shook with the weight of shell after damnable shell.

The seconds turned to minutes, which drug onto hours, until dusk finally hit. Then, and only then, did the changeling artillery finally gave up trying to dislodge the defenders, either out of ammunition, or out of visible targets worth their time firing upon.

The sniper mare from the night before didn’t come around again to their emplacement, sadly, so the pair was out of cigarettes for the night, as they twitchily cleaned their weapons, and counted their remaining ammunition. Three and a half belts.

Gale sighed, and pulled herself to her hooves, tugging her chatterbox onto her back. “I’m gonna go find somepony with extra belts.”

“Good luck. I’ll come with.”

“Lonely?”

Dusty snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, sure, Gale. Nah, just don’t wanna sit there alone. Just uh. Just in case.”

“Oh. Yeah, I get you. Alright, let’s get going, then.”

With a nod, Dusty followed Gale out of the nest, letting the bat pony mare lead. The two crept carefully back up the ruined street, towards the local church, where they knew a well fortified gun nest was set up in the belltower- miraculously yet untouched by Changeling bombers.

They’d made it out onto the street proper, when Gale halt, prompting the half blind Dusty to bump into her. “Hey, Gale, y’know I can’t hardly see when you-”

Whatever Dusty was attempting to say was drowned out by Gale quickly and promptly slinging her chatterbox about, and laying on the trigger, as Dusty hit the deck nearly immediately. Gale promptly followed her to the ground, whilst rifle fire from their immediate front hissed and snapped overhead.

“Changelings! Changelings across the river!” Gale practically shrieked, as she dropped the empty magazine out of her chatterbox, slamming a fresh one in from her side pack. Dusty felt something bump into her where she lay in the slight dip in the road, and without taking the time to think it through, shoved whatever it was out and away from the pair, before tucking in close to Gale, and dragging the mare’s head back down into the dip- probably a shell hole.

A second later, the hoof grenade that she’d shoved out of the hole detonated, and for a split second the Earth pony mare was able to catch sight of what Gale was firing at.

Reaching a forehoof into her own side pack, Dusty Trails rooted about in the burlap pack, until she prodded a familiar cylinder, pulling it free of it’s holder. Holding the object in her left forehoof, she shakily jammed her right forehoof into the object, and shoved her hoof forward with deliberate action.

The Colt Brothers revolver- a gift from her father- barked as the motion-driven action operated the trigger on the Single Action Army, and a figure in the darkness slumped back, as she drug her hoof back to her barrel. By this point, Gale had finished reloading her Chatterbox with a fresh drum, and the two rose back up together out of the shell hole, Dusty jabbing forward in another trigger pull, whilst Gale’s ‘box growled angrily into the darkness.

Along the roadside and within the houses, other ponies began to rouse themselves, and momentarily, a flare burst out from a destroyed house, lighting the immediate area around the bridge.

Dusty and Gale found themselves staring at a platoon sized group of Changelings around said bridge over the Shire, both parties bathed in the dull crimson light of the flare overhead.

Rifles barked, Chatterboxes lived up to their namesakes, and Dusty’s revolver echoed out four more times, before being traded for a dead Changeling’s Mauser carbine.

By the end of the night, only Equestrians remained on the town side of the river.
---
Dawn broke, as Dusty laid the empty Changeling rifle carbine against the wall of Her and Gale’s Nest, sighing weakly as she let herself slump against the sandbag wall. She was soaked with sweat, and bags pooled under her eyes, as Gale let her own weapon drop awkwardly onto her back again, before splaying out, herself exhausted.

Thunder cracked, for once, not artillery, as rain began to serenely patter down. The two beleaguered mares looked up at the overcast sky, then each other.

Gale cracked an exhausted smile.

“No planes.”

“Thank Celestia’s bright and shiny ass.”
Rain meant no planes.

No planes? No Stukas.

Maybe they’d hang on for a while longer after all.