In the Special Operations Community, three tenants denote the most important factors of successful battle: Speed, Surprise, and Violence of Action. If all three are achieved to a sufficient extent, victory becomes a much less costly end state.
Task Force Forager had lost Surprise on the long march up the twisting mountain road. They had lost Speed during the protracted firefight before the gates of S-L-1. All that remained to them was Violence of Action; the level of, aggression used to assault the enemy and seize the initiative. If they could attack aggressively enough, they could dictate the tide of battle.
Task Force Forager ripped into the alien defenders with the ferocity of a feral lion.
Before the rubble from the Gustavs had finished collapsing into the now-damned moat, Moose was up and running. SEALs and D-Boys surged forward, breaking from cover and closing the distance to the wall as fast as their feet would carry them. They ordered themselves into a rough wedge as they ran, no words being needed as their exhaustive training and skills told them exactly where they needed to be.
In seconds they passed the Rangers closest to the wall, temporarily stalled as their Lieutenant rushed to organize them out of their scattered positions and into a coherent formation. Moose found himself on the right side of the wedge three men back from the tip. Lowball was right him, his feet scraping inches away from Moose’s heels. Clumsy and Chainsaw were farther back and on the trailing edge.
The men lost only a step or two as they bounded up the pile of crushed rock that had once been moat. Faster than mountain goats they were over the obstruction and on the desecrated grass on the far side of the wall.
They stormed through with their weapons raised and dealing quick death to those that opposed them. Stunned aliens in golden armor stumbled around on and behind the ramparts, their ears bleeding and their brains rattled from the concussion. In mere seconds they had gone from being in an unassailable position, completely immune to harm, to little more than gilded targets.
Moose’s rifle barked again and again as he worked his way down the line of stumbling guards that lined the rampart’s walkway. In what seemed like no time at all he was forced to swap magazines, momentarily breaking the fast, steady beat of his weapon.
By the time Moose ejected his second magazine and chambered a round from his third, the aliens were already beginning to recover from the explosion. What were most likely officers and NCOs yelled unmistakable orders. Retreat. Fall Back. Run.
The enemy’s position on the wall was untenable, and it didn’t take them long to realize it. Even as the Ranger platoon began to stream through the breach, the horse soldiers were falling back into the city along the central avenue, a lazy switchback that led to what had been simply designated the ‘Government Complex.’ A new shield covered their escape. It was much smaller than the one that had covered the city, barely as wide as the paved causeway. Blue-grey instead of light pink, it shimmered brightly as it repelled dozens of rifle rounds before collapsing under sustained fire from the Rangers’ light machine guns.
They left a trail of crossbows, spears, and bodies as they left, but there was obvious discipline in their movements. The guards weren’t routing, that much was certain. They were moving back to prepare to fight again.
Task Force Forager couldn’t allow that. Violence of Action had carried the moment and given them the initiative. It was time to add Speed back to the equation.
Princess Celestia wasn’t in shock, but she wasn’t far from it.
In mere moments, the Wall of Canterlot had been shattered, her ponies slaughtered, and her sister knocked unconscious. The creatures that had caused her so much trouble defeated the Royal Guard and had begun to stream into her city. Their horrifying weapons had shattered Shining Armor’s shield at its strongest in mere moments and left the former Captain bleeding from the ears and nose across the back of one of her personal guards.
Too bad, the story looked so promising.
From the point of view, it feels the story is almost concluded. The humans take over the city as described in the intro, with ponies & humans dead. The two princesses captured, followed by interrogations. Only to reveal all was a horrible misunderstanding initiated by a good act of compassion when one soldier saved the lives of those three fillies & the destruction of that airliner was just a horrible & horrendous accident.
There is no happy ending, the damage is done & now the two people will look at each other with distrust & hurt because of all the needless meaningless death. A chance for them to open a cordial relation gone to hell for the time being. With all that hurt, it will take a long time for the hurt to go away.
In a side note: The only one that would have been entertained would be Discord. Watching very amused the disaster unfolding before him while eating popcorn.
Thinking more, think of the repercussion of that fiasco. All those American dead, no way the government can keep it hidden. If the Soviets couldn't keep secret that they were losing a lot of young men in the Afghan war, despite they were brutal keeping secrets, to their public & much less the parents. Doubt the US government will.
Now the international repercussion the US will face. What will that say about our country. A boon for any US organization as boon for anti-US activists or country. That will be proof that the US isn't about democracy but in reality a conquering empire. Plus what will tell about the human race, 1st contact with a none human intelligence & the 1st thing we do is promptly do war against them for "our" benefit. the chaos that would bring to the US.
While Discord is watching eating popcorn, enjoying the chaotic drama unfolding before him.
This could be a whole story unto itself.
5451697
I have to agree with that sadly, as they already covered the airplane incident up and couldn't fall back to the "we did this and freed our people who were wrongfully imprisoned and shackled like animals and you kill civilians in retaliation to bringing them home?"
It's a catch 22 in which they would have to acknowledge that they covered it up and that they were hiding the existence for years, or basically state that they found them and they reacted violently towards us and killed a few dozen soldiers which sparked us practically annihilating their capital and a few thousand troops?
Neither would go well when the language is finally deciphered.
7297321 Hi!
Had to read the story again, & again I have to say: Too bad the story ended, it looked promising. Catch 22 indeed!
I have thought in my free time about what would have happened if the US have revealed to the world that it had constructed a portal & are now exploring a rich lush world full of resources & rich minerals. The pressure other governments, say like China & Russia, would put on the US to "share" their discovery. There will be government that will not be so benign to those "animals". Unfortunately history has shown, humans have treat other humans as less then humans, how will humanity treat these "animals"?
The Catch 22 is that keeping it secret bring other dangers, as it was shown in the story. In this story the US kept a hands-off approach, obviously to observe & learn for an eventual contact with the ponies. So it was kept secret to the public in general, to the international community to avoid the above, & as well keeping themselves hidden in secret form the ponies, so to learn (if I dare use that word) about the pony's culture & possibly even decipher their language to at least have some rudimentary method to communicate. But keeping secrets also bring the dangers of misunderstanding once the secret is revealed. Eventually that hands-off approach was violated by one of the soldiers when he saw the three trouble making fillies ambushed by timber wolves. He felt obligated to do something, mostly to mitigate a guilt of what he witnessed in his last deployment. Interfering would unto itself would be a subject of discussion, & as I have been told by US veterans that served in Iraq & Afghanistan, that is a quandary US soldier face in real life. And the distrust, being spied on will not help at all opening peaceful & cordial contact between nations. It could even spark a war.
But we will never find out how the author was going to end the story, there was many possibilities but I think the author saw each & every possible ending too complicated.
I should've come back & proofread my last comment, I always make a mistake here & there when commenting, especially when moving sentences around. I had to reread it to understand myself what I was trying to convey, & the major mistake: Now the international repercussion the US will face. What will that say about our country. A boon for any US organization as boon for anti-US activists or country. it should've have been written: A boon for any anti-US activist in & out of the US (I also remember wanting to add anti- US foreign powers). But I goofed...