The D.S.P.I.

by DungeonMiner

Operation Stone Line

“Here,” Spike said, pointing at the holographic map illusion that was being projected over the briefing table.

The leaders of the three teams, and their seconds sat around the table, listening to the Commander as he explained the situation. Even Chrome was among them, sitting in a wheelchair with three new mechanical legs.

“According to the information secured by Alpha team,” Spike said offering a nod to both Silk and Silver, “Valentine has hold up here, in this mansion just outside of Appleloosa.”

The map shifted, transforming into a 3D topographical image of a lone house on a single hill outside of the bustling town. The house was massive and opulent, perched like a massive bird of prey on the hill, staring down at the skyscrapers not too far away.

“Our plan is to come in, breach the house, and gun down anypony that’s not our own. Capturing them alive is not an option, killing them will be hard enough as it is. All three teams will be coming, and we're going to need every ounce of firepower we have if we're going to bring Valentine down.”

“Is anypony going to be watching the base?” Chrome asked.

“Manticore and Siren will stay behind. She’ll deal with anything short of a full-scale assault,” the Commander answered.

Hunter, the Sniper from Phi spoke up next. “I’m not terribly confident leaving just the two of them behind to protect the base. Maybe Phi should stay behind?”

Spike shook his head. “No, we need every gun we have pointed at Valentine. He’s too strong to bring anything less.”

Ivory Jet, the Gamma scout spoke next. “What about Chrome? Is he staying behind?”

“We’re going to expedite construction on his last leg. We already have a backup AJ Exosuit waiting for Chestnut, Chrome should be able to use that.”

“Glad to hear it,” Chrome said. “This wheelchair’s getting boring.”

“So here’s the breakdown,” Spike said, grabbing a laser pointer. “Phi, you’ll be securing the outside. If Valentine makes a break for it, it's your job to pin him down. Gamma, Alpha, the both of you will be coming inside with me. Gamma will take the first floor, if clear, you’ll follow Alpha team up to the second floor. There, Valentine should be waiting for us.”

“Will we have any special equipment for pinning the vampire down?” Hunter’s second, the agent named Shade asked.

“I’ll see if I can’t get you some sun-blessed nets. It's not the best, but it’ll be better than nothing for stopping him.”

Shade nodded.

“Any other questions?” Spike asked.

Looks went around the table.

“Good. You have three days to prep your teams,” Spike ordered.

The leaders nodded. The plan was set.

===ᐁ===

In exactly three days, the teams moved. All gathered in the DASH-1, Alpha, Gamma, and Phi sat at the ready, crowded as they were sitting between the massive exosuits.

Tinker flew the overcrowded airship with ease, piloting it over the Appleloosa plains and canyons to the lone hill on the south side of the city. “ETA forty seconds! Prepare for drop!” she yelled through the communicator.

“Alright, ponies!” Spike yelled. “You heard the mare! Get your harnesses ready and get ready to fall hooves first into Tartarus!”

Alpha, Gamma, and Phi were already hooking themselves up, with the exception of the massive AJ exosuits that began to move towards the door without pausing to hook themselves up to the rappelling ropes.

“Get ready, Alpha team!” Silver yelled over the rumble of the engines. “We're leading the charge, so we get first pick of the targets!”

“Like Tartarus you do!” One of the ponies from Phi called.

The teams chuckled lightly before Chrome spoke up next. “Well, you heard him, if that's not a challenge, I don't know what is!”

The cargo bay door opened, and the whipping wind slammed into their ears. The pegasi took off first, flying off into the night sky as the DASH-1 began to hover over the mansion.

“Let's go, ponies!” Spike yelled. “Go, go, go!”

The remaining teams dropped to the ground, most rappelling down while Chestnut and Chrome merely slipped into freefall, landing hard in a crater as they hit the ground. Alpha, Gamma, and Phi followed seconds after, landing in a moment and throwing every weapon up to aim down at the lone mansion.

Phi quickly spread out, covering the ground at every angle, while Gamma and Alpha rushed for the main door. Chestnut smashed the door open with a massive, rocket-powered fist, the oak splinted with the single blow and they ponies rushed in after the massive exosuit-ed pointmen. Gamma quickly spread out, checking the first floor while Alpha rushed the stairs.

Chestnut had to climb the wall up, his mass cracking the floor around his massive hooves. They slammed into the rooms, each pony taking a room and clearing it like they had trained.

“Clear!” Silver yelled.

“Clear!” Silk called in over the coms.

“Clear!” Lemon.

“Clear!” Cotton.

“Clear!” Mandible.

“Clear!” Chestnut.

“Clear!” Neon.

A beat.

“Scout?” Silver commed.

No answer.

“Scout?”

No answer.

“Scout, come it!”

===ᐁ===

Tinker pulled the DASH-1 into a hover over the mansion.

If things went south, it was her job to unleash all the big guns on the house to obliterate it. She kept telling herself that she wouldn’t need to do it, that Commander Spike and the team would be fine, but still the idea scared her.

Yes, the Commander had pointed out that if Valentine got out, there was a good chance they were all dead anyway, but the thought of pulling the trigger on the others didn’t feel right.

And then she felt a cold pneumatic crossbow barrel press against her jaw.

An invisible hoof flicked past her ear, and her headphone communicator came off with a gentle push.

“Hey there,” a familiar voice whispered in her ear. “Don’t panic. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Tinker’s jaw clenched.

“I just need you to fly back to the base, and then you can come right on back and save the Commander and everyone else. No harm done.”

“Why?” Tinker asked.

“Because I said so, and if you don’t then I’ll shoot you, and no one will come back to the poor stranded Commander. And trust me, he’s going to need the evac.”

===ᐁ===

“The first floor’s clear!” Chrome yelled over the squad leader’s channel.

“The second floor is clear too,” Silver called, “that and my Scout’s gone AWOL.”

“Outside’s clear,” Hunter said.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Alpha,” Spike said, speaking into his own comm. “Alpha is this AWOL scout the same one that found our intel?”

“Yes, sir.”

Spike sighed. “This is a trap. Everyone pull back. Thundercloud, prepare for evac.”

Silver switched channels. “It’s a trap! Pull back everyone, we’re getting out of here!”

They didn’t hesitate for a second, the team rushed back down the stairs, following Gamma back outside, just fast enough to see the DASH-1 fly away.

“Thundercloud! Thundercloud, come in!” Spike yelled into his communicator. “Thundercloud we need evac!”

There was a beat, a second, and then Spike cursed. “I’m not getting a response. This is not good.”

“It gets worse, sir,” Moonlight, the Gamma Agent said. “I’m seeing shapes on the horizon.”

Silk looked up, using her own eyes. “Sweet Celestia, there’s hundreds of them.”

Spike cursed again. “What are they?”

Silk checked her scope. “Ghouls.”

Spike cursed once more. “Alright, everyone into the house! I want that thing fortified yesterday!”

The ponies rushed in, with Chestnut and Chrome flanking the front door. “Snipers!” Hunter yelled, raising his Thermal Shot Longrifle. “With me on the roof!”

“Demos, get ready to fill that field with as many explosive that you’re carrying!” Chrome yelled.

“Assaults, Supports, and Scouts, get in that house and find a firing position!” Silver yelled. “Medics, get a triage set up, and prepare to receive! Heavies, take the doorway and prepare to lay down covering fire!”

And all the while, Spike growled. Someone was going to pay for this, and they were going to pay dearly. He brought up his hand cannon, his number one assistant, Twilight’s very last gift to him, and kissed it. “He will pay for this, I promise he will.”

With this one last moment and this strange ritual complete, the dragon retreated to the mansion.

It took moments for the highly trained teams to fortify the mansion. They quickly found defensible walls, broke windows for covered firing positions, and set up killing fields for the incoming ghouls to walk into.

The mansion was set, and the teams were ready. All they had to do now was prepare themselves for the coming tide of ghouls.

It started with the Thermal Shot. Red-hot shots fired across the field, picking off ghouls at long range as the Snipers picked their targets.

Yet the ghouls continued to shamble closer.

Not long after that, the demolitions ponies began to fire grenade after grenade into the encroaching crowd. Sun-blessed Molotovs burned white in the crowd, consuming ghouls whole in moments.

Yet the ghouls got closer.

Then the others began to fire. From their various perches across the mansion, they fired into crowd on undead, shooting at everything that moved.

But the ghouls didn’t stop.

“They’re not stopping!” one of the Gamma ponies yelled.

“That’s because there’s a lot of them, Support. Now shut up and keep firing!”

“Do we even have that many bolts?”

“We’ll worry about that when we get to that.”

Crossbow bolts shot through the air, finding their marks in the mob of ghouls, but doing little against the crowd. Wave after wave of ammunition crashed down on top of the Ghouls, but they didn't even slow.

In fact, they began to pick up speed.

The hooves of the undead mob began to thunder in the air as they broke into a gallop. Bolts began to fire faster as a slight panic began to spread through the Department ponies. They kept their cool, they stayed as calm as they could, but the incoming monsters had lit a fire under their trigger discipline.

The snipers were firing as fast as their longrifles would allow, lighting up the sky with brilliant red beams that cut through darkness and ghoulflesh alike.

They were less than ten yards away before the other two heavies opened fire. The sun-blessed auto-cannons mowed down the front line like they were grass, and the heavies continued to fire until they carved a trench out of the enemy mob.

They kept firing until their barrels went red for the heat, but the second they stopped, Chestnut stepped in front of them, creating cover with his massive bulk. His own auto-cannon picked up the slack, firing cannon-ball sized bullets that tore bodies from legs in long lines down the ghoul formation.

Chrome and the other Demos kept firing their own potion grenades, peppering the ghoul line with explosions that thunder against the rolling hills around the town of Appleloosa.

And then Spike left the building. He simply walked out in front building, and leveled his weapon at the oncoming horde. He fired, sending purple crystals of hard magic into the incoming horde, they struck hard and true.

“Where is he?” Spike roared as he fired again. “Where’s Valentine!”

Ghouls dropped like flies, and Spike just kept firing as they popped up.

The teams continued to lay into the rest, firing bolts, bombs and thermal shots into everything thing that moved that shouldn’t be moving, but the ghouls were almost on them now, and there wasn’t much left.

The heavies fired another burst of sun-blessed lead, before Chestnut suddenly yelled. “Get inside!”

Chrome and the other demos leapt into the exosuit-sized hole, before Chestnut turned and wedged himself into the opening, back facing the ghouls. Holding out his arms, he motioned to the other heavies.

It took them a second or two to figure it out, but they quickly climbed up onto the robotic limbs and used them as a platform to fire over Chestnut’s shoulders into the ghouls that now swarmed the house.

Glass shattered, and a scream when up. “They’re trying to come through!”

Silver and the other two assaults answered the call, rushing downstairs with their silver and magically-strengthened obsidian blades drawn. They spread out, ramming blade-first into any ghoul that thought it was a good idea to crawl into the house.

“Heavy!” Silver called. “Where’s the Commander?”

“He’s still outside!” the Heavy on Chestnut’s arm answered. “He’s also doing a real good job.”

“Keep an eye on him!” Silver ordered.

“You got it, Alpha!”

Silver rushed to the next room, bringing his blade down on another Ghoul that was trying to climb into the house, before rushing to the next window.

Above them the rest of the teams were firing down into the ghouls, with the demos rushing upstairs to fill the ghoul ranks with fire. They shot and fired everything they had into the ranks, throwing explosives, fire, and anything else they could grab until their potion launchers were empty.

“We’re out of potions!” Lemon yelled.

“Running low on bolts!” Neon said into the comms.

“Already?” Silver asked as he drew his blade across another ghoul’s throat.

“There are plenty of targets out here, Assault,” Neon said, “and we’ve been hitting a lot of them.”

“Commander!” Silver called. “We’re running low on ammo!”

Spike sighed. “Well we don’t have much choice on the matter. We don’t have a way out.”

“Yes you do!” a new voice called across the channel.

“Thundercloud?”

“I was held hostage by a traitor,” Tinker rolled. “The base is under attack! I can’t support Manticore, so I’m coming back for you!”

“Good to hear that you’re alive at least,” Spike said, leaping over an ghoul before shooting it in the face.

“ETA in three minutes.”

“See you soon then,” Spike said, before rushing for the house. “Alright, everypony! We’re getting an evac!”

Spike quickly began to ready the team for their departure, filing everypony on the roof while still trying to keep the first floor secured.

It took a little bit of work, but he pulled it off, and the teams hadn’t suffered any real casualties. It had gone far better than it had any right to, if Spike were honest.

But these thoughts were overshadowed by the terrible thought of why Sparky had betrayed them? What was he offered? Why let Tinker go so she could pick them back up?

And worse still, what was Valentine doing at the base?

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Which one of your stories is the previous one?

[DungeonMiner]

8643606
There is no prequel to this, it simply is.

[djthomp]

Well, at least the betrayal has happened and there haven't been any significant deaths as a result of it...yet.