Chapter 5
There was no mistaking it this time; there were flashes of gunfire coming from the bank. As the chief said, the ponies attacking the vessel were dug in a fair distance up the bank. Evidently, they didn’t want to get caught in the bog. It was difficult to tell, but Apple Bloom judged that there were a dozen or so ponies attacking the boat with various light arms. Just as she was musing about how stupid it was of them to try and take out a heavily armoured boat that could simply speed past them, a loud crash rang out and the boat ground to a halt.
“These bastards are prepared,” called the skipper in despair, “they’ve laid a whole lot of rocks down on the river, the thing’s blocked. We’re sitting ducks!”
Without a word, the only unicorn on the boat shoved her SLR into the officer’s forelegs and began levitating the stones, hurling them away with great haste. Nodding with approval, the skipper fired at his targets, simultaneously reversing the boat at top speed away from the barrier. The vessel's top speed in reverse wasn't very high, and he quickly abandoned his idea. Sweetie Belle’s strategy was slow work, but it was the best option they had.
No pony was hesitant in such a life or death situation. The chief’s philosophising about how every pony has a life was quickly forced out of her mind by the adrenalin fuelled instinct of self preservation. Fight. Kill. Survive. Every pony in the fire fight felt the same way. Truly, it was either kill or be killed.
The ponies in the forest were making good use of the natural cover. Lying prone in the foliage, they were invisible until they gave their position away by moving or firing. Even if they had the inclination to move, the inaccurate yet powerful spray of lead from the boat’s turrets had them pinned down, although no shot made its mark. This continuous barrage gave the skipper and private the cover they needed to take well aimed shots.
Apple Bloom got a bead on one of the bolder rebels who decided to push towards the bank. Shooting her clean through the head, the soldier smiled to herself, taking pride in her fine marksmanship. She took no time to consider the loss of Yellow Smiles, the eighteen-year-old mare who was forced to abandon her dreams of being a teacher when her family was caught in a violent crossfire down in New Apple Loosa. She was left orphaned, and picked up by the rebels who took pity on this little filly on the brink of marehood. They took her in and showed her the only life any of them had ever known. She wanted to finally prove her worth to her faction with a heroic charge into enemy fire. Now she laid dead, her troubled mind spilled on the forest floor.
A single whistle rang out, barely audible over the gunfire and yelling. Shortly thereafter, it was joined by several others. About half a dozen high pitched whistles were now punctuating the sounds of battle. This was immediately followed by the incomprehensible yelling of several voices.
“Damn it!” the skipper cried, firing Sweetie Belle’s weapon into the forest, “Keep the unicorn covered. It’s about to get real hairy!”
With the boat now stationary, the rebels were pushing their attack. The forest suddenly came alive with movement. At least thirty of the desperate volunteers were swarming in the forest on the western bank, and it seemed more and more were joining them. They were spread out and staying low, covering an area too large for the ponies aboard the stationary PBR to keep them pinned down. As the gunners swung an arc in one direction, the rebels would hit the dirt and take cover while their comrades further down the bank pushed closer to the boat. Using this tactic, they managed to slowly advance towards the boat with minimal casualties.
Despite the efforts of the five ponies of the Equestrian military, a small group of the rebels managed to take cover right in the bog, mere metres away from the boat. Here, they had a much better shot at their well armed, impenetrably armoured target. It was truly built like a tank; the rebels’ only hope was to take down the crew. They knew they had at least a few hours before any Marine reinforcements would arrive. Their plan was to keep the crew occupied on the west bank while another small force crossed the river further downstream to assault from the other bank. The turrets' shields only offered protection from one direction. All they had to do was keep the marines away from the wheelhouse, take down the unicorn and sit tight.
“Reloading,” cried Juvenis in a desperate, terrified tone.
One of the rebels in the bog overheard this cry and called out to his comrades deeper in the forest, “He’s reloading! Quickly, get that thing up here and set it up! We need to take out that unicorn.”
Apple Bloom was taken aback upon hearing the enemy’s voice, but kept slinging lead at any rebel who decided to jump out into the open. “That can’t be good,” she said, turning her rifle towards an area further away from the river’s edge where several ponies were desperately flattening themselves against the ground as they set up some sort of turret, “Two o’clock, they’re setting up arty or something. Chief, you best help me spray ‘em down!”
The next few seconds seemed to take an eternity. Apple Bloom leaned over the side of the boat and aimed down her sights at one of the rebels by the turret. Juvenis continued to slowly reload his turret, a look of mad determination in his eyes. The Chief frantically spun her gun to face the rebel’s own turret. The skipper, being experienced enough to know what would happen next, dropped to a prone and tried to order the ponies in his command to do the same, but the violent drop had winded him.
“NOW!” called one of the ponies in the bog in the loudest, most desperate voice imaginable.
Immediately following this order, every single rebel in the forest sprang out from their cover and barraged the boat with an insane amount of lead. Even the initial twin hail from the boat’s turrets paled in comparison to the killing power being directed at the PBR. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle hit the deck immediately. Neither of them were hit, but they were forced to abandon their duties as they were pinned down.
“AH, GOD!” the shrill, chilling cry came from the front of the boat.
Cursing loudly, Apple Bloom leopard crawled her way to the bow and saw the chief sergeant writhing in pain on the deck, nursing her foreleg. She scampered to her side and inspected the wound; a bullet had passed clean through the limb.
“Just keep firing!" the chief ordered through clenched teeth.
The synchronised fire from the rebels had ceased, but it had been replaced by the unmistakeable roar of a machinegun. Evidently, the rebels had covered their comrades long enough to set the device up. Even so, the lapse in fire from the PBR, which had lasted less than ten seconds, sturdied the resolve of the rebels and many of them were pushing the attack once again.
With a moment’s hesitation, the expeditionary soldier jumped on the turret and returned the rebels’ machinegun fire. Apple Bloom was quick to cut down their hope, just as her bullets cut down the swarm like a hot knife through butter. They screamed in dismay, and those that could immediately shrank back behind cover. Those that couldn’t either flattened themselves on the ground in desperation, made feeble attempts to escape, or simply stood motionless, accepting their fate. The mare on the boat’s machinegun felt a surge of power. A cruel smile crawled onto her face as she dominated the ponies who had incapacitated her chief.
“Reloaded,” Juvenis said as he finally added his own rain of bullets. The skipper took this as a cue to resume firing into the forest with Sweetie Belle’s SLR. This gave her the cover she needed to get her job done.
The battle proceeded a few more minutes before Sweetie Belle called out “There, try it now!”
Leaping to his wheelhouse, the skipper made his PBR accelerate with such a great speed that every pony on board was thrown off balance for a moment. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the path ahead. Gripping the wheel with all his strength, he gritted his teeth as the boat hit the barrier with a clunk. The PBR slowed down but managed to force its way through the weakened wall nonetheless. Still firing into the forest as a precaution, the ponies of Equestria’s military left the rebels in their wake.