Tanks moved forward on the open plains, with earth ponies and unicorns galloping and cantering alongside them and pegasi flying above, guns at the ready. Pony-pulled artillery followed, lighter guns ready to be deployed on short notice.
General Rolling Barrel grinned. The war was almost as good as over. The plains beyond Ragna Fortress were excellent tank country, and nothing the griffons had left could slow him down much. Oh, they still had an army; what was left of the army that had been beaten at Ragna had reformed, but it was in full retreat; there wasn't much - actually, there wasn't anything - they could do to stop him, or even slow him down.
A village loomed up ahead. He saw it easily as his tank travelled over a hill. It had a wooden wall, as most griffon villages did; they fought amongst themselves, and each village and clan had some sort of grudge against its neighbor.
Their army better not try to fight us there, he thought. If Ragna Fortress couldn't stand up to a billion tons of TNT, what are the chances wood is going to keep out tank and artillery shells? He scoffed at the very idea. Send a few shells in, and we could just watch the defenses burn down.
The farmland around the village looked to be almost ripe for harvest. In a couple of weeks, it would be ready to be bundled up and brought to market, or else be used by farmers for their own meals. Of course, since Emperor Blackmoon had taken over, the wheat might have been destined for the army.
it's not gonna get there now, that's certain.
He remembered being on a farm himself; of pulling the heavy plow, almost always with horseshoes nailed to his hooves to give him an extra grip on the ground, of swinging sickles - with great care - to cut the wheat, and gathering vegetables from the gardens. His family weren't apple farmers and had no relations - biology-wise - with the Apple clan, but that didn't mean they didn't do business with them.
Where would I be if I weren't in the army right now? he thought to himself. Probably feeding pigs and making and repairing barrels, as well as tending to farm chores and things. Some farmers in foreign countries would brew a ton of alcohol for themselves and their family and drink their way through rough winters. He again scoffed at the idea. Being drunk all the time means not being in control, and I never liked that idea. Say what you will, but I have no intention of killing anypony because I decided to chug down beer to the point where I could cry the stuff. Actually, I don't have any interest in drinking at all. Drinking was - generally, and with some exceptions - not a pony vice.
There were no vineyards; most griffons lived too far north to even think of growing them. Barrel didn't miss them at all. He did approve of the occasional farm house he could see. Most of the houses, though, were constructed in the village itself. In some places, here probably included, provincial peoples would build houses in a village, usually around the market square, and go and tend fields that were outside the city walls, rather than living on a farm in the traditional way - or at least, traditional in Barrel's mind. They sometimes kept their livestock in their own houses. While some "livestock" - cows and sheep included - were just as intelligent and capable of speech as ponies, others - like pigs - were most decidedly not. Those houses had to be either really dirty or else needed constant cleaning. Barrel made a disgusted face. Not that he was a germophobe, but he wasn't the kind of person who liked being dirty for the sake of being dirty.
"General, sir," one of the crew said, causing him to jerk - he'd almost forgotten about them. "We're almost out of fuel. We'll need more once we get to that town."
Barrel sighed. "I hear ya. Let's get there first, though." How far could we go if fuel wasn't an issue! Regardless of what he wanted, though, if a tank ran out of fuel, it would stop and not go anywhere until it was refueled.
That got him thinking about how things might change regarding transportation after the war. Some civie would likely think that engines would allow for even greater transportability. That made him uneasy. Pegasi flew, and unicorns and earth ponies usually walked, unless they used trains, ships, or airships. To replace hoof work with wheels and steam or diesel... he shook his head. How long before everyone became fat and lazy from a lack of exercise? There are reasons we use ourselves to pull carts and cabs around instead of motors. We've done it since dirt. We shouldn't change that much. Okay, so we're had to upgrade the military - and upgrade it a lot. Doesn't mean Equestria should make any other big changes.
A loud crack split the air and shook the general out of his reverie. A bullet ricocheted off the tank to the left of Barrel's. He needed a moment to realize that the village wasn't going to be taken without a fight.
"Load the gun," he ordered the gunner. More bullets from the enemy lines whistled in, some bouncing off the turret. "Get this thing moving!"
"Yes, sir!" the gunner said, already loading a round.
"Sir!" the driver chorused, setting the tank into a faster gear.
More bullets coming in convinced Barrel that continuing to sit with his head outside the turret was a bad idea. Reluctantly - having your head outside the tank provided a much greater view than anything on the inside - he ducked down and closed the hatch.
The enemy line wasn't very strong; he could tell. If it had been a major attempt to block his advance, more gunfire would be coming in. He got a good look at the enemy fighting him...
'They're peasants from the village!" the gunner exclaimed.
Barrel had come to that conclusion himself. He shook his head. These weren't the guys he wanted to crush; he wanted to crush soldiers and officers who were truly loyal to the Emperor. Sometimes, life didn't go they way one expected.
The peasant defenders couldn't have known how good the attacking force was. No doubt, until the tanks had crested the hill, they'd though that a few brave kids and a dog would be able to run off the Equestrians... as if they could, when their entire army had failed. Still, they were shooting at Equestrian soldiers. A few screams here and there said that they weren't all missing, either.
With the greatest regret he'd ever known, he sighed and said, "Fire at will."
The tank's gun fired. The shell went wide, passing over the heads of the defenders and landing somewhere beyond them. Equestrian soldiers were already firing; rifle fire was pouring into the enemy position.
The peasants weren't drilled soldiers. They might have known how to fight the village or clan next door; they had probably been expecting that the fight would be something like that. They had no idea how to fight against a professional army. Some of the attackers suppressed the defenders while others enveloped their position. Cries of dismay came from the defenders as they began receiving fire from three directions - four, if one counted the pegasi firing from above.
The fight didn't last long. There may have been a hundred or so griffons who had thought they stood some chance against the allied juggernaut; the Equestrians easily had many times that in the area, with many, many more available to reinforce in case this fight had developed into anything worse than it had. It didn't. The Equestrians rolled over the defenders.
Soon enough, no more bullets were coming toward the allied soldiers. Barrel felt it was safe to come out of the turret. Ponies were already collecting prisoners and tending the wounded of both sides.
Barrel raised an eyebrow. Some of the peasant griffons were very old, some teenagers, and others in between. None of them could have had any idea what they were getting into by choosing to fight the Equestrian army.
One of them, an older fellow, shouted something in another language at Barrel. "What did that fellow just say?" he called to a regular trooper nearby.
The pony stiffened. "I'm sorry to tell you, sir, but he just used an archaic word in Germane to cuss you out."
"Oh, he did, did he?" Barrel hadn't expected anything better. "Do all of them speak that tongue?"
"Yep, all of 'em do," the soldier replied. "They might have surrendered faster if they could understand more of our lingo."
"They're one of those villages, then?" Barrel sighed. "Bring that old rooster over here and see if he speaks anything in Equestrian." English, James would have called it. And German for theirs.
When they had, he asked the griffon, "Why on earth did you try to play soldier with us?"
The old griffon - probably sixty or so - did prove to speak English... after a fashion. The first words he would have used would probably been bad words had he known them. he apparently didn't. "You not telling griffons what to do," he replied, fury in his voice. "Not without fight, you not. We not doing what ponies saying, only griffons."
"Your village doesn't have much of a choice now," Barrel responded. "And if you resist further, we'll tie you up before sending you to a prisoner of war camp. You should also know that the Emperor has done more to damage your autonomy than Equestria."
The griffon shrugged. "Not knowing much of that. We not obeying Celestia-" Here he used what had to be an insult. Numerous ponies growled angrily; they'd understood what the old griffon had meant, even if he hadn't said it in a language they could understand. "Them not ruling here. Not hearing moon witch either."
Barrel felt anger rising. "Listen to me. You just did a good job of smashing up your own town by choosing to shoot at us. The fact that we're not going to burn it down for this and that we'll allow you - or those of you not stupid enough to play games with us - to live your lives as normal is a mercy."
"My son and daughter spitting on you when you go through," the griffon retorted.
"They can do that. I don't care how much - or whether - you and yours dislike me. If your people try anything more to resist our advance, we'll do what we have to in order to crush their resistance. And we'll arrest anyone who tries playing games with us after we're on our way. Like it or not, your village is going to be occupied. How much suffering it has to endure depends on whether or not more of you pick up guns. You can insult - you can despise - us as much as you want, but anyone attacking allied troops is to be considered an enemy. We'll deal with them as we have to."
"We not living under you. We rebelling."
"We're not here to conquer you, you blundering fool!" Barrel thumped his hooves against the turret, in lieu of screaming that the Equestrian had it well within their power to raze the village and leave it a burning ruin behind them, as well as how foolish rebellion against the occupiers would be. "We're here to make your Emperor give up the blasted war. Your village is only occupied to keep resources and soldiers from aiding the Emperor in resisting us; it will be released after the war, and you get to keep all your money, property, and crops."
"You lying!"
Now it was Barrel's turn to shrug. "Think whatever you want." He jerked his head. "Take him and his buddies away. Deal with them gently, unless they try something."
Other ponies took away the rude elderly griffon and other defenders. Some of the surviving peasant warriors had to be carried on stretchers. Others were left on the ground. Barrel grimaced. They were surely dead. Looking behind him, he saw a few Equestrians lying ominously still in the dirt. The villagers had inflicted some casualties. What it had cost them, however... It would be about a generation before the losses were made up.
On the Equestrians moved toward the village. Some more villagers with weapons, most archaic and practically useless in this age of modern weaponry and tactics, were standing on the wall. None of them were firing as Barrel and his force moved toward them. As he got closer, he could see that most of them appeared to be in shock; they hadn't expected the Equestrians to defeat their fighting force. Barrel would have laughed had the situation not been so serious... and if many griffons and some ponies hadn't ended up dead already.
As the tank approached the wall, he raised a hoof, as well as motioning to the driver with a hind leg. His tank and all the others stopped in front of the town gate, as did the regular soldiers.
"Drop your weapons, open the gate, and you will not be harmed," Barrel shouted. "Don't make us do to you what we had to do to them," he added, jerking a hoof behind his head.
Some of the would-be defenders whispered among themselves. "How we knowing you telling truths?" one of them yelled.
"How? We just smashed the idiots who tried fighting us. If they hadn't, they'd still be alive right now. Even so, we've treated the captives we've taken well."
"You being invader," the same griffon shouted. "Not obeying invaders."
"Last chance, fool," Barrel said.
He would have gone further, but what happened next cut him off.
It went by too quickly to properly describe at the time. One of the tanks to the left revved its engine, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the gun on the machine tilt slightly upward. Half a second later, a round object was thrown from the wall and rolled under the tank in question. An explosion came a second later; the tank blew sky high; the crew must have died before they could have known it. Some of the defenders started shooting, as much in shock at what their own warrior had done as for any good it might have done.
Before Barrel could even say anything, three tanks and most of the soldiers were firing. Shells blew apart the wall; splinters of all sized flew everywhere. Rifle bullets and canister shells tore into what hadn't been blown apart. Immediately, what was left of the blasted portion of the wall caught fire.
Barrel's tank rolled right through what was left of the gate, smashing it down. Other tanks didn't bother to go through the official entrance; they smashed through the wooden wall as if it had been made of cardboard.
Defenders who had survived the barrage immediately threw their claws up. Given the circumstances, Barrel was surprised that none of them wound up shot.
"Who's next?" he shouted. "Anyone else stupid enough to fool around with us?"
No one answered. There were a few insults, but griffon words weren't going to blow up tanks and kill soldiers.
"Anyone speak Germane?" he asked a squad of regulars.
"I do, sir," a bespectacled private in the group answered.
"Order everyone out of their houses. Now! Arrest anyone who doesn't come to the market square and bring them outside the town."
"Yes, sir." The private began bawling in Germane immediately and fluently.
For once, the villagers obeyed. No one tried to remain indoors after watching the Equestrians destroy two attempts at resistance. The entire village poured out as Barrel drove his tank into the market square.
As soon as he was sure that the entire village was assembled, Barrel turned to the private who knew Germane - or German - so well. "Translate for me," he commanded.
"Yes, sir." The private saluted.
Barrel nodded in approval, then dragged himself out of the tank before shutting the hatch and standing on the turret. "We're occupying this village," he announced. "You'll be allowed to go about your daily business and lives as long as you do not resist us. Once we've dealt with the Emperor, we'll leave and release the captives we've taken, all of which will probably be within a couple months."
"You being liar!" someone in the crowd yelled.
"Shut it," Barrel said under his breath. This encounter had taken virtually all of his patience. "Other than the occupying soldiers, nothing will be different from before, expect for those now dead because they tried fighting us. We will not hold that foolishness against the rest of this village, unless an active attempt is made to rebel. Do not try it. Remember what happened today."
"You killing patriots!"
"You can view the dead however you wish. But I'd advise not trying to play the game they did. Now, we're leaving. More soldiers will be coming through here, and some will be living in and around the village. Other than that, life should go on as normal, assuming you don't play fool."
Barrel got back into the turret and tapped the driver with a hind hoof. "Take us out of here," he said.
"Yes, General."
The rear gate was opened by Equestrian soldiers. None of the griffons in the town lifted a claw to do it. Perhaps, having had enough death and destruction, they'd decided to lower their resistance to a passive level. Barrel nodded. That was acceptable, as long as passive didn't become active. With any fortune at all, the Equestrians wouldn't be here - or anywhere in the Griffon Kingdom - for very long.
He knew he would have nightmares about this, perhaps the rest of his life. Once the town began to fade in the distance behind him, he shivered. While he usually didn't have any qualms about battle - he'd been through much, much worse without so much as batting an eyelash - he felt sick fighting peasant folk who just wanted to protect their property and families. The only thing he could see that was at all positive about the situation was that no children - no one below the age of fifteen - had been killed or injured in the fighting or its aftermath. Even so, he despised what had happened more than anything he had done so far in the war.
May it end soon, before something like this happens again, or something worse.
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James fired the rifle he had acquired at a defending griffon soldier. The bullet struck the ground near the enemy, but didn't hit his target. He growled with disappointment.
A pony, light blue with a yellow mane, threw himself down nearby. "A bit of hot work today," he said.
"Yeah." James fired again, but missed once more. "How is my aim so bad today?" he asked no one in particular.
"It happens," the pony replied. As a unicorn, he was able to fire beams of energy from his horn as well as bullets from his rifle. He elected the first option; a beam of energy lanced out toward the griffon soldiers. He grunted, apparently having hit his target.
"They're breaking," James said. And the enemy were. They were falling back; not panicking, as they had just a few days ago, but without the spirit they'd had through much of the war so far. "After them!" he yelled.
He got up and ran forward. The allied forces were making rapid progress. The enemy army hadn't made serious stands, but they kept trying a lot of littler ones in an effort to slow the attackers. It wasn't working very well; the army the enemy had been able to maintain wasn't organized enough - or numerous enough - to halt the allied forces.
The enemy didn't try to halt the Equestrians again, not until they came to a small town in the plain. It was larger than a village and had a taller wall than any he'd seen. It wouldn't make a difference; James might have been impressed with these walls if he'd been stuck with medieval weaponry. After having blown Ragna Fortress, or a good deal of it anyway, off the map, he wasn't afraid of them. Artillery alone could punch through these, of that he was certain.
Large numbers of guns behind the line began to pound the wall. It began to crumble as cannonballs - better for smashing things than blasting formations of soldiers - struck it.
One of the towers up ahead looked weird. James didn't like it; just looking at it made him feel worried.
That worry exploded into outright fear when the top of the tower suddenly fell apart.
The object that had been inside was round and transparent; a griffon in red uniform sat inside, clutching a couple of levers. A tube of some sort connected it to something behind the wall. Most ominous of all was a rod pointing outward... straight at the advancing Equestrian army.
James threw himself into the dirt; he'd had a lot of practice at it these past few months. The rod on the sphere began to glow as it rose, elevated by a lever-looking thing. It was clearly able to turn and angle in almost any direction, except, perhaps, straight down.
James shut his eyes as the beam lashed out at the incoming army. A sound - if it had been a voice, James would have described it as raspy - that might have come from a science-fiction movie laser came as the beam hit the ground; the sphere began turning, and the beam began to burn across the landscape. An explosion came from behind, and he winced.
He aimed at the sphere and fired. The bullet did no damage that he could discern, but he fired again and again until the magazine ran out. He reloaded quickly, even though none of the shots had penetrated the sphere; the glass, or whatever it was, had to be bulletproof.
The beam continued its destructive work; screams and exploding tanks announced the damage it was doing. James couldn't bring himself to turn his head and look. It was all he could do to keep shooting at the thing.
A second tower collapsed the same as the first, and another sphere rose and fired its beam, scorching the grasslands within James field of vision, crossing under the first beam. James couldn't help but see what it did to the soldiers and tanks ahead of him. He buried his face into the ground, horrified at the sudden slaughter and devastation.
A shell burst directly on the first sphere. The war machine was protected from common soldiers' bullets and unicorn beams. It had no such protection against artillery and tank shells. Two more struck in close succession as every soldier on the field concentrated on the spheres. The thing staggered; the gunner, pilot, or whatever he was surely had to be dead, but his machine reeled like a drunk who had been punched in the face. The beam began firing erratically, lancing out here and there. There was an explosion behind the wall; whatever generator had powered it couldn't sustain the weapon, which abruptly collapsed. James cheered as the thing expired, as did thousands of ponies and zebras on the battlefield.
The second device met its end with the second shell that hit it; the first hit the part of the tower below the weapon and did no harm, but the second struck right where the rod - the gun - connected to the sphere. There was a burst of light; and explosion brighter than any so far on this battlefield - louder, too - almost blinded James. he buried his face in the dirt again, rubbing his eyes with his hands.
When the light subsided, he looked up again. the second sphere had collapsed in on itself and melted; smoke and liquefied metal were all that remained of the device; James didn't want to think about what had happened to the operator in the last moments of his life.
Whatever the beams had done and however they had come into existence, they hadn't damaged the Equestrian army badly enough - anywhere near badly enough - to halt it. James got up and ran forward.
Many of the Equestrian soldiers - and zebras, too - were too shocked by what they had just seen to immediately advance. Belated, most of them began to move forward again, as did the tanks. Some, though, lay in the dirt or just stood.
Don't know how I'm not shell shocked, either, having seen what just happened, James thought to himself. He tried to shake it off, the but the memories remained burned into his mind.
Cries of terror arose from the griffon soldiers defending the town; they must have thought that the weapons they'd conceived were either invincible or wouldn't be broken this soon, nor that so many of their foes would survive the onslaught. Tank and artillery shells slammed into their positions, and soldiers advanced, some firing, others running forward in a leapfrog pattern, one platoon or company suppressing the enemy while another ran forward.
A griffon took aim and fired two shots at James. One went wild, the other tore at his left sleeve. James didn't waste time replying. His shot knocked the enemy soldier down, and left him lying in the grass.
All over the battlefield, the Equestrians were routing the enemy out. The griffons, having lost their terror weapons, had lost most of their morale with them. They began to flee again. Ponies and zebras took off after them. Cannons knocked the walls facing the attackers flat, throwing a considerable number of defenders to the ground while they were at it.
James ducked again under a large tree and sat behind it, clutching his rifle tightly. He got a good look at what had transpired with the first beam, and wished he hadn't. Melted slag and burning stretches of grassland were what remained of an unknown amount of the assault force.
Almost as bad and horrible as that 'battle' in the 1953 War of the Worlds he thought, shaking. Almost; we were able to destroy their machines here. But how many more do they have in store, and what else do they have?
That question, unfortunately, he couldn't answer, and he doubted any Equestrian soldier could tell him. He looked northward once again as Equestrian troops broke into the town against light resistance. He doubted the enemy could stop the Equestrian army entirely. But he didn't feel exultant over the victory, not here.
We have to get to Gryphos, and end this war before they come up with something bigger... and worse.
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