//------------------------------// // 3, Minty // Story: Pony Tankers // by Michael Spruce //------------------------------// They made good time, or as well as they could be expected to make when confined to a handful of kilometers per hour. At first, the going was off-road, along ground churned by hooves, tanks, and trucks, but Summer soon had them on a proper road, a quaint country lane little more than two tire-ruts in the grass. The road was deeply rutted from all the trucks that had been using it since the rain. The ruts had hardened as the weather turned dry and hot, and now the going was nearly as bumpy as not using a road at all. Minty reclined in the gunner’s chair, her forelegs crossed behind her head, silently craving tobacco and keeping an eye on the woods to the left of the road. Behind her and to the right, Summer sat in the commander’s chair, with the commander’s hatch open as always, looking around at where they were going. Along their right lay a stretch of marshy ground, signaled by the deep-mud reeds that grew thickly there. She spared a glance to check on their new loader. Thrash sat on his haunches on the opposite side of the gun looking both bored and uncomfortable, clearly wishing he had the chair he would normally have had, if Turnip hadn't removed it and thrown it away. Supercharger’s bare minimum of work hadn’t extended to repairing the holes that anti-tank gun had left in the turret last time, and he was able to watch the road easily through the hole in front of his position. The afternoon was hot, and the crew had almost all the hatches and vision ports open for ventilation. Minty alone kept hers closed, because she would rather sweat a little than be left open to shrapnel in case of a sudden air raid or shelling; it had happened before, and their tank was a tempting target, in the open as it was. She had given Thrash a brief lesson in the types of shells they carried on the way. Several times, Minty caught Supercharger looking back at him, but he seemed to be ignoring her. Was he playing a part, or was he merely disinterested? Minty chewed on this. Summer, at least, seemed to be in much better spirits. Minty supposed that she had misjudged; the unicorn didn’t need rest, she needed something to take her mind off of things. Of course, that didn’t change that what served to do that entailed putting all their lives on the line. She shook her head; she should really steer the sergeant to take up some kind of hobby. Cards, perhaps. Then Minty heard the fatal crack, followed immediately by several hollow spang sounds from the halves of the commander’s hatch. Minty grabbed Summer with both forelegs and yanked the unicorn inside. “Close the hatches!" she yelled. As the others scrambled to do so, deep pings sounded in the compartment as more bullets hit the armor. But Summer’s hatch remained open. Minty dropped the suddenly limp commander, who slumped over and fell on Thrash, and lunged upwards to grab both halves and pull them closed. She slid the latch home and heard something heavy clatter onto it and skid off, and a deafening explosion rocked the turret. The force of the blast slammed Thrash’s hatch shut while he was pulling it closed, eliciting a sharp curse from the stallion. Minty took one look at Summer’s slumped form and took charge of the situation. “Supercharger, keep driving as fast as you can without killing the engine. Thrash, stick your rifle out of that shell-hole in front of you.” Thrash had already recovered; this obviously wasn’t his first combat either. He shrugged off Summer’s body and picked up his full-length infantrypony’s rifle from the floor near the right-side shell rack and pushed it through the hole where the machine gun and turret face vision port would normally be. The pings of bullet impacts sounded, but most of them were not as loud, hitting the back of the engine compartment or ripping into the turret box to be stopped by the baggage. Minty slipped out of her chair and crouched to check on something important. She put her hoof to the front of Summer’s neck, fully prepared to not find anything, but not only did she find a pulse, Summer then groaned and tried to sit up. Relieved, Minty patted her on the cheek and slipped back into her chair. Two heavy objects clattered onto the engine deck and exploded. “Grenades!” Minty swore. The enemy was able to keep pace easily; there was no way they would outrun ponies like this. “Supercharger, turn us around to face them. We’ve got to fight.” The tank swung around slowly. The small arms fire increased in intensity, hitting near vision ports, trying to blind them. Minty closed hers and hoped the others had the sense to do the same. The bow machinegun rattled off a burst, and Thrash fired a shot, then cycled his rifle and fired again. “I need a high-explosive shell,” Minty yelled. Thrash started and dropped his gun and rushed to grab one. The rifle fell inside, the brass buttplate hitting the floor with a loud clang, the barrel still projecting up through the hole. The bow machinegun fired again. Something much heavier hit the front of the hull with a thunk – an anti-tank weapon. While Thrash fumbled with the cannon breech, Minty cracked open the left turret face vision port and swung the turret around, triangulating her target based on how the hit had sounded. She quickly spotted the source of the shot. It was a rifle, with a barrel was twice as long as a pony, sticking out of the treeline like a sore hoof. The operator, a dun-colored crystal pony, had rested the gun on a tree branch for a firing rest. She got on the gunsight and cranked around the cannon to the area, adjusting elevation and horizontal travel simultaneously with long practice. Through the sight, she saw the pony drop the rifle and make a run for it. She fired. And nothing happened. She turned to look at Thrash with a snarl just in time to see him close the breech. She looked through the sight again and saw her gun was pointed left and getting farther off-target by the second. “Supercharger, stop turning!” she yelled, “I’m trying to shoot something!” The tank stopped rotating, and she got the turret back on target. Already, some daredevil among them had picked up the anti-tank rifle and was aiming it right at her, or more likely, at the gunner’s position. She rolled the firing switch. The gun boomed, the breech kicked, the tank rocked. The target vanished in a flash and a shuddering boom. The tree he had been using to brace buckled and slowly fell over with a crash. “Shoot at anything that moves,” she ordered Thrash. “I’m going to load the gun myself.” He nodded and picked up his rifle, happy to be back in his element. The machinegun chattered again. She opened the locker on her side of the compartment, pulled out a high-explosive shell from the bottom-left rack, armed it, then awkwardly stoop up on her hind legs and braced her shoulder on the commander’s seat to reach over the bars of the gun cradle and push it into the breech. Several more grenades exploded harmlessly on the outside of the tank, but a bit of shrapnel flew upwards through the crack she had made in the forward left vision port and fell harmlessly where she had just been sitting. Sweeping the metal bits off her chair and sitting back down, she reached forward and closed it and panned around with the turret. Any time she saw two crystal-colored coats at once, she rolled the switch and blew them away, then got up to repeat the process again. After the third shell spent this way, as she was loading another, she stood up and came face-to-face with a slightly unfocused-looking Summer. The unicorn smiled and took the shell from her and began awkwardly fitting it into the breech. When the gun was loaded again, Summer crossed her forehooves together in a “no” gesture. Minty took it to mean Summer didn’t want her to fire the cannon again, and she nodded and sat back down. Summer climbed back into her seat and picked up her microphone. “Ladies,” she began, then, remembering Thrash, continued, “Or, er, crew, I am sorry to have worried you all like that. Corporal Supercharger, I need you to keep us angled in the direction of greatest fire. Enlisted Metal, keep shooting, but load when I say.” Thrash didn’t seem to hear; he kept shooting, cycling, shooting. “Enlisted Cashmere, you are doing good work. And Corporal Twist, don’t fire until I give the word.” She was hard to hear over the sound of bullets hitting the tank and grenades going off around them. Didn’t these ponies ever give up? Even so, Minty was relieved that the commander had recovered enough to take charge. She could see better than Minty where a shell would be best used, and Minty wouldn’t need to worry about directing the tank anymore when she was already so busy working the cannon. Summer pressed her head sideways against the locked hatch, in that odd way she needed to do to be able to see out the cupola slits, and said, “Gunner, target 11 o’clock, 400 meters, down the road!” Minty nudged the turret over and caught a glimpse through the gunsight of a group of ponies crossing, probably a whole squad. “Fire!” The shell landed amongst them and blew their bodies over in every direction. Thrash dropped his rifle and heaved another shell off the rack and began arming it. Cashmere let off another burst. The tank rotated in place slowly this way and that, carving wide ruts on the surface of the country road. / - / - / - / - / Some time later, exactly how long Minty did not know, everything was silent outside the tank. The enemy troops appeared to have all either fled or been killed. From what Minty could see out of her forward vision port, the sun was getting low in the sky. They had run through almost all of their machinegun ammunition, and Thrash had long since shot all of his own personal supply of rifle rounds. The rest of the crew saving Summer, who didn’t have a carbine, kept theirs with their personal kit in the turret box, so they had been unable to retrieve it throughout the battle. That would have entailed climbing outside, and nopony wanted to do that. The inside of the turret hung thick with fumes from the gun. The fan in the roof whirred for all it was worth, but it was just barely enough to keep the air clear enough to breathe. Minty looked longingly over the field of battle, wishing she could grab some of the enemy’s weapons to trade for supplies later. “Let’s be gone from here,” Summer declared, echoing the crew’s sentiments. “Corporal Supercharger, take us…” and she paused to consult her map. “Take us along this marsh, then leave the road and follow it alongside for a few hundred meters. Corporal Twist, rotate the turret to the rear and give anypony you see following us something to chew on. Everyone, open your vision ports fully.” Privately, Minty felt that anypony who wanted to follow their tank could do so easily, and blasting any hangers-on would only delay the inevitable and draw more down upon them. A predator that couldn’t run soon became prey. “What if they ambush us again?” Supercharger asked, from behind them. “I want us to be able to see them first,” Summer replied over her shoulder. They motored on, and Minty shook out a cigarette from the pack she’d taken off Cashmere and struck a match. Summer frowned and looked at her, silently reminding Minty of her private prohibition of smoking inside the tank. Minty looked back and held the match to the end of the cigarette in a silent challenge. Summer didn’t say anything, and Minty gratefully sucked in and blew out a puff of smoke. She needed this. “Can I have one, too?” asked Thrash. Minty glanced at Summer for approval, and though she wrinkled her muzzle, Summer nodded. So she did understand, after all. Minty gave Thrash one of hers, and he leaned in and lit it with the end of Minty’s own. “Thanks,” he said, leaning back against a half-depleted shell rack and blowing out smoke into the thick air of the turret. The extraction fan whirred in the relative silence, drawing out toxic fumes and cigarette smoke alike. Summer slouched over in her seat, studying her map by the light of the turret’s one lightbulb. She took off her hat and mopped her brow in the hot and stuffy compartment; Minty noticed a bullet hole going through the front and out the back. She’s an extremely lucky mare, she thought, taking a reflective drag. “How did we run into all those troops, anyway?” Cashmere wondered aloud, voicing all of their thoughts. “I expect they made a breakthrough,” Summer answered absently, tracing her map with a hoof and squinting. “Yes, I’m certain we’re well behind our lines. There’s no mistake.” “May I see that map?” Minty asked. Summer hesitated, then gingerly passed it over, like it was a precious thing of porcelain. The map was crinkled with water damage, and the ink had ran in a few places, but for the most part, the hoof-drawn lettering and lines were still immaculate. “And where’s the front supposed to be?” and Summer showed her. “Ah.” Minty handed the map back to Summer. “Permission to give my opinion?” “Granted.” “I think that from now on we should consider ourselves to be behind enemy lines.” “Noted, corporal.” Summer looked grave. “Enlisted Cashmere, get on the radio with anyone nearby and inform them that we have met a large party of the enemy well behind friendly lines and beaten them back.” “I can try, ma’am,” Cashmere said, nervously, unfolding a paper in front of her. In the darkness where the roof bulb didn’t reach, all Minty could make out was a list of some kind. “But I don’t think we’re in range of any of the fixed stations.” “What? Give me that,” Summer demanded. She snatched the paper out of Cashmere’s hooves as she handed it back and squinted at it. After a moment, Summer sighed and set the paper down, but did not return it to Cashmere. “It seems you’re right. Still, you should try.” “There could be a friendly unit in range,” Cashmere put in. “There could be…” Summer looked thoughtful for a long moment, then shook her head furiously. “Belay that order, enlisted,” she said. “No radio transmissions.” They rode on in silence for a minute, which suited Minty fine, but then Summer spoke again abruptly. “But if the enemy has staged a breakthrough, the troops we are to support will need armor more than ever.” No one spoke another word as they motored on into the gathering dusk.