"Sir you have someone here to see you." James said as he opened the door to my office. Next to him was another soldier, except his unit patch wasn't ours. Mostly because we don't have one.
"Captain Blue Print, sir. Reporting as ordered." I glazed over the fact is name is basically a piece of paper with plans on them.
"Welcome Captain. I imagine you're here for my designs. Luckily for you I have absolutely nothing to do so follow me." I led him through the base over to the motor pool, where the tanks were now parked. I climbed on top of mine and slapped the fifty cal.
"Here she is, Captain. The Ma Deuce. They wanted a big gun, here it is. What do you think?"
"I think you're going to hunt a hydra with that gun." He noted.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Nah, they're out of season at the moment. Terrorists, on the other hand, are always open season."
"You've seen combat?" He asked
"Plenty of it. Just a little less than a year of it. We used guns like this on trucks and defending the base, yet here it is mounted on a tank that's seventy years old."
"It's been in service that long?"
"I don't think it's the exact model, but yes. It's filled a variety of roles and does a damn good job so it's fought in plenty of wars and will continue to do so."
"Tell me some more about it, if you don't mind, sir."
"Come on up and I'll give you a tour." I watched slowly climb up the tank, clearly afraid of falling. "She won't hurt you, I promise."
"It's even bigger up close." The Captain noted of the gun when he joined me on the top of the tank. I opened the ammo box next to the gun.
"This is what it fires, twelve point seven millimeters wide. I've seen this thing tear apart walls, cars and quite a few bodies."
"That's one hay of a hole to patch up." Captain Print said, as he started to take pictures of the gun. "How much does it weigh?"
"About eighty pounds. Although I'm not sure what that translates over to whatever you guys use for weight, but it's heavy."
"Do you have some spare rounds so they could be reversed engineered?"
"Plenty of those, it should be fired around five hundred rounds a minute."
"I'll pass that on to the engineers. I think I'm all set."
"Just like that?" I asked, not sure if he was making a joke, "I could've taken pictures and sent some rounds."
"Yea but we gotta convince the Princesses that we do stuff." We shared a laugh.
"I feel you there, what's next for the gun? I mean the plans and whatnot for the competition."
"We'll make a prototype and enter it for the first round of choosing, unless four are entered. In that case we'll just test them all, the whole thing should take a few months. If you want my opinion, I like the way this thing looks, it just screams try and mess with me. I think if he doesn't win, it'll find a role." We slid off the tank and began to walk back towards the gate. When we arrived, I offered him my hand.
"I hope it wins, all I could do now is hope. Thank you, regardless for coming here Captain."
He shook my hand "Of course, General. Somepony will keep you updated on the competition." He walked through the gates and back towards town. I went back to my office to see if I had anymore work that I had to worry about. I wrote down promotions for my aides de camp and looked over the non-existent orders and supply requests, I walked back out with a plan to return later in the week.
I read somewhere that major generals are allowed three aides:a colonel, a major and a lieutenant. I already had a colonel or three up my sleeve, but needed a major and lieutenant. I planned for to promote Captain Beam to that rank and let him keep his company or give him a battalion. I didn't know any lieutenants, but since they were such a low rank for officers I could easily promote Sentry to it.
Three months later
"First Brigade will run small unit exercises and be the reserve battalion this week. Second will keep their assignments and Third will fill in for First. Questions?" I said to my colonels. We were
"Whitetail Woods?" Michael asked.
"As always. Also James, reports from Mad Brooks say some noise was heard coming from the general directions of the Everfree. It's probably long gone but send a squad to check it out."
"Wilco." James responded and left.
"He's doing well." David noted.
I didn't respond but I agreed with him. I was concerned that there would be a grave mistake of putting an eighteen year-old in charge of six thousand, some of whom were his age or older, but James proved everyone wrong. He certainly had some growing pains and was overly cautious when it was his turn to have exercises, but he fixed his issues. I knew no matter how often someone told him that his father would be proud of what he's done he would act with a chip on his shoulder. Like he still had to prove himself. I personally figured it was himself or me. To himself to prove that he can do it and myself because I've became an older brother he didn't have, someone to prove he wasn't some kid, a view I never had of him.
I was trying to figure out how to deploy my men in the most efficient way. So far I liked the two one and one off style, for now, which also allowed for the battalion off to do more training. I rotated my battalions on occasion so they would know the towns we protected. I was still waiting on four thousand and five hundred more men to arrive, but I still was able to protect each town with about a platoon, but some needed two or even three.
"Sir, there's somepony to see you in the admin building and a report came in from Canterlot." Flash's voice came in over the radio.
I answered the radio, "Alright, I'll be over in a minute. You guys are dismissed." I marched over to the admin building and watched several trucks leave to go on patrol. I walked in and found Sentry talking to someone on the radio.
"This report came from Canterlot, peace may be coming for the Griffons."
"Who said you can go through my mail? I'll demote to private if I catch you again!" I shot back.
"You did by making me your damn secretary."
"I did? Damn I got to lay off the booze." I looked down at the reports. It was a message from backchannels that said a peace agreement was possibly being reached by the Griffons, with an unknown clan being the top dog and earning the throne. I figured it was diplomatic rumors and nothing would come out of it. No point for me to worry until I actually hear it was confirmed.
"A school teacher. Something about having some troops to visit or something."
"Okay. Let me know if anything pops up." I said, as I opened the door. Hopefully this meeting wouldn't last too long, I have some other work to do.
"Roger that."
I closed the door. Inside was Cheerilee, the teacher here before an extra seventy kids arrived in four months. She stood up and offered me her hand.
"Thank you for seeing me, General. I'm sure you're a busy stallion."
I shook her hand and shrugged my shoulders. "Not really. I'm still missing around four thousand men and I'm just giving order to my colonels. What can I help you with?" That got a smile and a small laugh from her.
"Coming up soon is career day. I always try and have a wide variety of ponies come in: farmers, bakers, chefs and every job under the sun. I have never been able to get soldiers to visit"
I sat in my chair "Now with fourteen thousand close by, you can have plenty come and talk."
"Yes. I was hoping you could send a couple of soldiers over."
"I'll make a you a better offer." Her confused face told me I caught her off guard and I kept rolling. "This is an entire division. Eighteen thousand soldiers, but we have doctors; and I know personally that combat surgery is way different from regular surgery. Mechanics, radio operators. We have some others but their importance isn't too high. I'll come and visit, along with regular troops and some support battalions."
She obviously didn't expect me to be so generous. "Thank you very much, General! It starts in three days time at nine thirty in the morning." I grabbed a piece of paper off my desk for something later. "What did you mean about combat surgery?"
"I was wounded in the back about a third of the way through my second deployment. I'll round a few men up by then." I said as I walked her out the door. "Sentry?"
"Yeah Dan?"
"Anything new from Canterlot? A vague report is bound to be made clearer soon."
"Nothing yet. When we come back there may be an update." I nodded at his point.
"Yeah, okay. Come on, we got training. Tanks won't drive themselves."
"I'll stay back and design one."
"You wish, now come on." I ordered as I walked out. We made about halfway to the tanks when about a dozen soldiers walked up to us.
"Excuse me, General, sir." The lieutenant leading them said. I noticed most of them were NCOs
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Me and some of the stallions were wondering if we could have the weekend off."
"Who's your colonel?"
"Carpenter."
"Did you ask him?"
"No, sir. I'm not sure where he is."
"Alright. Why do you all want the weekend off? Bachelor party for one of you? Going to a city and bar crawling and getting tossed out of strip clubs?"
"Sir, we all have kids in school and this weekend they're going camping in Whitetail Woods." I realized I could have them go to the school.
"Alright, but on one condition."
"What's that sir?" Someone else asked.
"In a few days, the school is having a career day. A few of you come with me and I'll sign your passes for the weekend."
"That's it?" The lieutenant asked, I like to think I'm not a hardass on most, but if he wants to really earn time off.
"Would you like to run eight miles on full combat gear?"
"No, sir." They all shouted.
"Excellent. Write your names down on some paper and put in the admin building."
We continued on our way to the range. So far, there hasn't been any fuck ups with using the tanks. The drivers figured how to drive them and the gunners and loaders got the hang of breech loaders. However, we've only trained on shooting at wooden targets and I was concerned that someone would introduce armored vehicles soon. So I brought in some metal plates for the range instead of usual wood to practice using armor piercing shells instead of high explosive. Everyone was standing around talking. I walked over and shouted, "You ladies ready for some training?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" They chanted back.
"Good. Mount up, we're heading to the range. We're doing new shit." I looked at my tank as everyone else mounted up. I had a soldier who's a good artist put an actual devil dog on the turret. Everyone else got artwork added to theirs.
"Afternoon, all of ya. Box, take us to the range."
"Roger." Match Box said. He was a quiet man, usually says no more than three words at a time. His light blue fur reflected the light back up and all over his little corner of the tank.
I looked at my loader and gunner, Steel Stud and Eye Spies. Stud was my height and nearly pure muscle, he's probably related to Big Mac. He could handle several shells at a time courtesy of his earth pony strength. His dark gray fur absorbed the light coming in, leaving just his frame. Eye Spies was the lone female on my crew and had easily better than 20/20 eyesight, if such a thing was possible. Her yellow fur glowed with the sunlight. I closed my own hatch and adjusted my periscope.
I doubled checked the piece of paper I took from my office, twelve targets, four inch thick iron sheets around eleven feet by thirteen with three hidden in bushes. I turned on the radio to everyone else. "Alright, there's enemy armor in the area. Keep your eyes open." Almost immediately the two on my left opened fire.
"удар!" David cried out (AN: Hit, pronounced chit/shit Not kidding.)
"Missed!" Michael noted.
"Spies, choose your target."
"Target in the open, quarter mile." The tank jerked slightly as the shell left and the canister came back in. Stud reloaded the gun while someone else fired. I checked off two targets hit.
"Got 'em!" James said, I added another hit.
The shooting kept going for fifteen minutes, I wanted to make sure we hit everything and then some. Luckily, shells were not a concern since Princess Celestia had a small addition added on to a factory that makes naval shells to make shells for us.
"Alright everyone cease fire. Cease fire." I said, "Next time we come out here we're shooting and scooting. Let's head back, artillery is up next."
Three days later
We pulled up in front of the school, in total there were eight of us, a private, a sergeant and the lieutenant who asked me, as combat troops. A doctor, a mechanic and an engineer also joined us since they had a more specialized job. I figured me also coming along would be good since there is less than a hundred generals in the army.
"Where should I park?" I muttered to myself, a distinct lack of yellow lines and concrete things to almost drove over to tell me. "I should be fine anywhere right?"
"Suppose anywhere will do."
"Parking in the class, watch out everyone."
"Within reason."
"Party pooper!" Someone called from the back, to which we had enjoyed a laugh. I decided across the street will be good enough. We were set to arrive an hour after the day actually started, since Cheerilee thought we were extremely busy and any attempts to say we weren't and didn't mind showing up when it started were ignored.
"Anyone care when they go?" I asked as we walked over. Silence was my answer. "I'll go first then we'll go by rank." I received a chorus of 'Yes sir'
We walked in and took a spot on the far wall. Someone else was talking and judging by his clothes, he worked in an office.
"And that's how I got my cutie mark in law. Any questions?" When no hands went up, everyone clapped.
"Thank you, Mr. Jury." Cheerilee said, "General, would you or one of your soldiers like to go next?" The class turned to look at us all.
"Of course. I'll go first and we'll go down the ranks." I said, making my way to the front. "My name is Dan Kroger and I am a Major General." A kid raised a hand, "Yes?"
"What's a Major General?"
"Good question, I am in charge of a division, which is made up of twenty thousand soldiers, which can be further broken all the way down to groups of four called a fireteam. But above a division is a corp, made of three divisions, then an army group, which is two corps together and above that is the entire army. But getting back to my rank, since the newest Major General, all others have more experience than me. Then are Lieutenant Generals, Regular Generals, General of the Army and finally the Princesses themselves. The ranks for Generals go by moons, Brigadier Generals wear one moon, I have two and so on."
"You seem quite young to hold such a high rank." One of the parents pointed out.
I laughed at their statement, "Oh, I am. I'm only twenty four, I'm probably the youngest general, in general." I shared a light laugh with everyone else. "But I'm the youngest by a couple years, if not more."
"Why's that?" Another parent asked.
"I wish I knew, but my best guess is that I've spent about a year in a combat zone. I spent five years in the United States Marine Corps. It was like the army, but we do beach landings." I paused for a moment to wait for someone to ask me about the Corps. Instead a little girl raised her hand. "Yes?"
"Did you ever kill anypony?" I covered my laughing with a fist.
"Glimmer!" Cheerilee hissed.
"It's fine." I waved off her concerns. "Um, yes I have. I've seen some horrible things, done horrible things. But, I've played soccer and handed out candy with kids. I have seen weird things-"
"Base to Sandman Actual." My radio interupted.
"Must be important if they want be right now, pardon me." I said as I pulled the radio of my belt. "Sandman Actual go ahead base."
"Sir, this information is for your ears only, are you in a safe place?" I looked up with a confused look. Clearly something big was happening. I excused myself and went outside.
"I am now. Why? What's going on?"
"Sir, there are reports that changelings are attacking cities across Equestria."
"Are they confirmed?"
"Yes, sir." I leaned up against the wall. So much for a quiet few years before I had to train until a war broke out.
"Fuck." Was the only word I could think of. I started thinking of a response.