The Splendid Panzers of Miss Harshwhinny
For Miss Nagatha Harshwhinny, the war began years before the invasion of Equestria.
Three years, one month, and eleven days, to be exact. Such was the way her mind worked: tracking details and fully forgetting nothing she saw or read, instinctively noticing the patterns of piecemeal knowledge and gluing them to form an uncanny prescience which always loomed in her mind. She then dedicated her present to the future, armed with those dispassionate observations to bring success to her ventures and guide her career ever onward. Some fancied she could see the future, to which she scoffed that everyone could. To think about what comes tomorrow, to plan and predict using awareness of the very past which created that future – that was just intelligent observation.
Always thinking and acting towards her next step, Harshwhinny climbed swiftly up the corporate ladder to find herself chief inspector and executive manager of the Equestria Games Committee. Where others might see a weeping mare in their office, she saw an incompetent to be fired. Where others saw a tempting bribe, she saw unacceptable risk to the Games’ reputation. Streamlined success bloomed wherever she touched, and it seemed for a time she would have a long and excellent career supporting the athletics of Equestria. That she had no friends and worked every day was not something she felt lessened for. The grapple of endless problems was satisfying, as was the power she held to tackle them properly. It was enough, back then.
Those who did not know Miss Harshwhinny might attribute her sudden change to chance or fate, for it came from a single letter the pony resources department forwarded two weeks after delivery. But if the abrupt resignation of a talented manager had not gleaned her attention, then she would not have been Harshwhinny. Such could be a sign of corruption, bullying, or even inefficiencies within the committee exploding into frustration. There was no sign of these in the brief letter, yet her instincts rose to cool, passionless worry. It was a deer who left, a frankly brilliant manager of foodstuffs for the games. His letter was an unvarnished three sentences expressing gratitude for opportunity and a ‘duty’ to return home to Olenia.
Memories of the deer kingdom rose in Harshwhinny’s mind, though it was all second-hand and never a great focus of her attention. A corrupt king, a debate on succession – were these questions of ‘duty?’ Recently there was a skirmish with the changelings, or so she heard. But that was weeks before, surely it had been resolved? The word used was ‘skirmish,’ after all.
Oddly, another memory returned, and at the time she did not know why she thought of it. Every day she passed by the guard station on the way to work, and every day there were two soldiers outside with spears of polished silver.
She stopped at the library and instructed them to order some Olenian newspapers for her. It would need accounting in the budget as soon as possible if the northern race were to miss the Equestria Games. Such were Harshwhinny’s thoughts, or at least those at the front of her mind. So perhaps it could be more accurately said her war began a month later, when the library sent notice they had amassed several newspapers and bulletins. Included were some from the changelings for ‘context.’
She collected the bundle on her way from the office, leaving a little early to be home before dark. The last moments of her innocence passed pleasantly, her always-busy mind anticipating to tackle the question before her like the jigsaw puzzles she turned to in her rare hours of rest.
Instead, the answer was printed in stark black as she opened the paper wrap and saw the first headline of the first newspaper.
INVASION
Harshwhinny read the whole pile that night, silent and stern as the shocked awakening which would soon come to all ponies passed through her mind. It wasn’t a skirmish, not a misunderstanding or brawl or even a coup like the changelings had tried in Canterlot. Industrialized war had befallen the deer. Changeling newspapers cited an idiotic pretext with barely any interest in convincing themselves – a halfhearted few lines of self-defense followed by promises of wealth and glory under the inevitable oncoming Pax Chrysalia. The deer for their part never spoke of retreating, but ‘withdrawing,’ ‘redeploying,’ ‘maneuvering,’ while the changelings boasted of fallen cities and oncoming triumph.
Harshwhinny settled back halfway through the stack. She closed her eyes and cast her mind to past and future, trying to see through the printed words for the truth therein.
It lay somewhere in between, of course. The changelings would have won by now if the deer were as utterly collapsed as they claimed. But their foes clung to excuses. One deer paper announced a brief conscription to dig trenches before the capital, another buried an advertisement for a yacht trip to Equestria at criminal prices. Patriotic printings extolled their soldiers to fight to the death. The changelings made no mention of sacrifice – they did not plan to die.
The clock ticked forward in Harshwhinny’s mind. The deer had no allies, never a strong industry, and had already lost much. Could they recover? Perhaps they wouldn’t need to. Perhaps Chrysalis just wanted a few bites of land, and it would end with a silly treaty between monarchs.
No sooner did the theory emerge than Harshwhinny picked it apart. Pax Chrysalia. Changeling papers spoke of utter dominion, a total new order to the world.
Olenia was doomed. Harshwhinny accepted the fact and resumed reading. A changeling recruitment ad caught her eye with a strange image: a locomotive of iron, yet with treads like a bulldozer and what seemed a cannon from its stack. She saw similar drawings twice before and skipped past, thinking them a nod to their industry. Three times was more than coincidence.
Answer came with photographer’s proof in another paper, where a changeling ‘tank’ had fallen victim to a squad of posing, grinning deer. The text proclaimed with desperate joy that the wonder-weapons of the invaders could be felled.
Harshwhinny studied the grainy picture. Then when that did not satisfy she retrieved a magnifying glass and notebook, and did her best to sketch every detail. Not a smokestack, but some elevated platform for a small cannon turned to the side. She wondered at how it could be damaged such, then realized the platform could turn like a boat-gun. Treads to, like a bulldozer, clear mud and rubble. Armor of steel, certainly proof against all but the strongest unicorn spells.
She went back through the changeling papers, finding references to ‘tanks’ which did not make sense at first. Not storage tanks for fuel or such, but armored weapons deployed by the regiment. Kill one with cannon fire, kill two by ambush. But how to kill thirty, a thousand? Changeling newspapers were not shy – the tanks hooked and ripped, punching holes in lines and speeding to the rear. They captured crossroads and bridges, cut reinforcements and retreats, sowed havoc with no real reply. Losses came, sometimes the tanks were even defeated. No matter, more were built every day.
Harshwhinny had initially guessed Olenia would hold out for years. Roughly handled at first, they would rally in the trench lines to bleed their aggressors.
...But wherever that line formed, the changelings would find where the cannons were not ready and pierce through.
Harshwhinny did not sleep that night. She looked at her sketch and at the papers, even those inaccurate propaganda drawings with tanks lined up in perfect rows. Why die for Chrysalis when you can kill for her? Harshwhinny wondered if the snow and forests of Olenia had done more to slow them than the deer.
The clock in her mind turned onward. A new order, Pax Chrysalia. Swaggering, entitled jingoism from the race defeated in Canterlot not five years ago – an event never mentioned in their papers save with vague talk of reversing humiliation and avenging themselves against ‘those who would deny their place.’
A chill fell on Harshwhinny which the furnace did not warm. When dawn came she ate and groomed, then went to work. Her eyes lingered on the guards outside the barracks, standing proud with their spears.
Few in the office even knew of the war, and those that did expressed vague platitudes before steering to more comfortable topics. She purchased three Manehatten papers on the way and found none of them mentioned Olenia.
Harshwhinny left early. Called it illness. Not really a lie. She felt sweaty and frigid. She threw up on her way home, then again in the sink. The clock in her mind never stopped, turning past Olenia’s coming fall. Flat farms and wide roads in Equestria, not so many forests. Spears against tanks. Equestria would rouse, of course, just as Olenia had done. Plans and conscriptions and productions attempted last-ditch without strategy or preparation. It would take the changelings longer for the ponies than the deer. But not very much longer.
Harshwhinny laid in bed, paced, stared, vomited. She saw it clear as the walls in her room, the unalterable future nopony else could see. But they will.
She took to ruminating on the photograph. Using the pictured deer as a yardstick she estimated the tank’s dimensions best as she could, down to the treads and cannon-size. No smokestack – did it run on gas, diesel, magic? How many crewed it, how hard was it to drive?
Merely a distraction. But she needed one. She sent notice to the office, saying she was taking a vacation. Then she went to the telegraph station. Money was exchanged, promises made to collect and deliver her all news from the war. Then to the library, where she checked out over a dozen books: engines, metallurgy, machines, and guard manuals.
The latter were useless. Talk of shield-walls and lance-charges. The others she consumed. Not altogether different from the life she didn’t yet know was done. Over the course of her career Harshwhinny had found herself obligated to quickly become an expert on topics from sports medicine to logistics to stadium architecture, and when those times came she turned her eidetic memory to books and records.
So it became that over the next weeks she gained knowledge of tempered steel, weight ratios, and tractor-building.
She tried to go back once in that time. She left before lunch. The Equestria Games, her single-minded cause for the past ten years, now felt so inane. Useless, worthless. Even a net negative, distracting ponies from the threat looming over their tomorrows. She turned in a three-sentence letter of resignation and went home.
There was no plan in mind, no definitive idea of what to do next. Harshwhinny followed the path in front of her. She set up a map of Olenia, tracking with pins the boasted claims of changeling newspapers – ironically far more reliable than the deer. Passing months had split what was left of their nation in two, though these held out bitterly for now. And every week of those months returned her to the library. Tread-width, industry requirements, proper welding. She needed it all, somehow. She re-sketched the changeling tank four times, each with greater detail either learned or with blanks filled in as logically as she could.
The armor could not be very thick, given its size. Not even enough to protect against its own small cannon.
Her mind turned. A larger tank with stronger armor… pound for pound it would best these like toys.
But there were larger tanks now. She found good pictures of what the deer desperately proclaimed would save their cause: a monstrous machine with two turrets plus a cannon in front. Olenia was never very industrial, how many of these could they really produce? Yes it could kill a changeling tank, but why would they let it? Maneuver, flank, pierce.
No, the changeling model was best. Of course it was. Not an easy balance; bigger wasn’t always better.
...But it could be. Bigger gun, better armor was an advantage. Advantage leads to efficiency, efficiency to success.
The future in her mind brightened – a false glow of easy hope. What if these changelings were greeted by pony tanks with guns to out-range them, and hulls to weather their fire?
Impossible. Harshwhinny didn’t care. She had to try. It was direction, culmination of her long hours in study. Knowledge, in her always-working mind, was useless without application.
New sketches, this time as she tried her first hoof at tank design. She did not think herself particularly creative in it – mere deployment of logic and knowledge to make what seemed an efficient vehicle. All theory, of course. She was at the mercy of her sources, the authors and papers, as well as her own mere deduction on what Equestria would need.
The first sketch was, she confessed, nearly a copy of the changeling tank. Chrysalis’ minions knew their business better than anyone, including Harshwhinny. Treads to endure the mud, a cannon on a turret to maneuver and kill both bunkers and infantry.
It wasn’t a total copy, though. Harshwhinny didn’t flatter herself by thinking her sketch an improvement. Rather, it was a tool built to kill the changeling tanks. Larger in all ways, but barely so. Bigger gun, thicker armor. Not just thicker, but sloped on all sides for deflection unlike the blocky changeling design. And why did they rivet theirs? Welded steel would make stronger armor, and the rivets would be like shrapnel if struck wrong.
Everything about the design she didn’t know, she researched and learned. The best engine, something Equestria was already making. All the better to churn them out quickly. She calculated measurements down to the centimeter, piecing everything needed from the exact amount of steel to how many shells it could store in its belly.
Then she threw it all out and started fresh. New lessons, new ideas, new knowledge from her endless studies to be accounted for.
At her third iteration, Harshwhinny found herself reaching a plateau. There was only so much theory could account for. The frantic pace of study and design gave way to sudden lethargy. Why do this? To what end?
Staring at her final design, the most logically perfect tank she found she could imagine, Harshwhinny resolved to send it and all else she could muster to the government. The changeling newspapers were clipped, with circles around sentences hinting at ambition beyond Olenia. She typed a professional letter detailing her findings, theories, and warnings, and included clippings and the schematics for her tank.
Where to send it all? A hard question. The guard might simply ignore a civilian’s advice. She could ship it right to the palace – right to the bottom of a secretary’s waste basket.
In the end, she sent it to the S.M.I.L.E. headquarters. Equestria’s intelligence service might at least acknowledge her unconventional counsel. And if they dismissed it… well. She had done all she could.
The next month was hard. Unemployed and morally adrift, with no idea if her labors and research amounted to anything at all, Harshwhinny prodded about for other outlets and came up short. At least Olenia’s collapse finally made the papers, finally got ponies’ attention. In cafes and parks she heard them talk about it, often then to press on to hoofball scores and the weather. A few looked scared, although not nearly scared enough. And one wise stranger noted that Olenia’s vast resources combined with the changelings’ industry had turned the victor into a fearsome power.
Chance brought a ‘Manehatten Preparedness Society’ to Harshwhinny’s attention. She attended one meeting, left early. Old mares who wanted to gossip and knit scarves. She wrote letters to the guard and to newspapers as ‘a concerned pony,’ noting the trouble in the north and advocating stockpiles and emergency planning. Nothing seemed to come of it.
She exercised. She read. And she kept endless track of the news. The deer now mined and sawed for their conquerors. Changeling papers boasted of new factories and future triumphs. She managed to acquire a few propaganda reels, which showcased very good looks at their tanks.
And she threw up almost daily. Her endless thinking, her frantic drive at a standstill for the first time in her life. Locked in endless fixation upon the future: spears against tanks, the fast-coming doom of Equestria, invisible to all but her.
It wasn’t enough to learn and know. She had to do.
A knock came.
Not a salespony or electrician. A cream-colored mare with a two-tone mane, wearing a crisp black suit and sunglasses.
“Agent Sweetie Drops of S.M.I.L.E.,” she said around a lackadaisical grin. “May I come in?”
Harshwhinny set tea on the stove. Her guest sat at the table. Over the sunglasses, her eyes fixed on the defunct map of Olenia before snapping to Harshwhinny.
“How long do you think?” Sweetie asked, as though in casual conversation. “Until we’re invaded. Don’t tell me you haven’t pondered it.”
“Two or three years,” Harshwhinny replied at once. “They can’t hit us with what they hit Olenia with. We’re too big. They’ll want to digest the resources, the lessons, grow the army. Turn the infiltrators from the deer onto Equestria.”
“Vanhoover,” Sweetie muttered, then shook her head. “I didn’t say anything. Go on.”
“They’ll attack with everything as soon as the north mud clears. May or June. They’ll want to be in Canterlot by Hearth’s Warming. Don’t give us a chance to fight them for real. That means taking their time now, building and training as much as they need to make it sure and fast.”
Sweetie Drops leaned back in the chair, one side of her mouth twisting up in a smile. “Some in Canterlot say the changelings bit off too much already, and they’ll be tied down with the deer until they pack up and quit.”
Harshwhinny gave a light huff. “Then they are fools. The changelings don’t want Olenia, they want it all. Have you read their papers?”
“More than you,” Sweetie shrugged.
“Then I assume you know we have two choices,” Harshwhinny said, bristling under the seeming indifference. “Equestria can ready itself for war. Starting now. Meet them with tanks and armies of our own. If not, Miss Drops, tell me now so I can learn to speak changeling.”
“Heh. You’re as nice as they said.” Sweetie took off her glasses, meeting Harshwhinny’s gaze. “Ponies aren’t like your little tank drawings, waiting to be measured and produced. Run outside, yell at them to start training for war. What? Why? Run to the factory, tell them to stop making pistons and start on rifles. How? They’ll need schematics, equipment, supplies, and someone ready to buy them. Best case is nothing happens, worst is you start a panic.”
Sweetie held up a hoof as Harshwhinny almost snapped. “Wait a tic. Point is, this takes time. Especially since half the government doesn’t see a need and the other half thinks a two-percent budget increase for the guard will cut it. You know war is coming. So do I. We have a few friends in high places and have to convince the rest. Then when we do get funding, we actually have to figure the inputs to get those piston factories making guns. It’s not just politics, not just blind stupidity. The boulder is moving in our favor. But it’s slow, and we can only push it so fast.”
“You sound like a politician yourself,” Harshwhinny sneered. “Action is needed, not excuses.”
Sweetie gave a dry laugh. “Rousing a pacifist nation to readiness isn’t easy, Harsh. Case in point: if you think the politics are bad, you should see the guard. We’re hiring Olenian refugees to train us, and they’re the guys who lost. Modern rifles, artillery, planes, tanks, and how to use them. New tactics are being made, new doctrines to try and reform the guard. Just a few test units for now, but they’ll be able to take those lessons and train the rest.”
The tea began to scream. Harshwhinny took it off the heat, but did not pour. The mare’s smile annoyed her.
“If everything is so well in hoof, why come to me?”
“Because it’s not.”
Harshwhinny turned to her guest. The grin remained, though now she saw the long worry behind it.
“It’s not good,” Sweetie said. “But it’s what we’ve got. An uphill struggle against our own complacency against the first enemy in a thousand years who can’t be bested with a couple spells. Maybe we’ll win if we push as hard as we can. Maybe it’s already too late. You ever see anyone win a race who started five years after the other mare?”
The smile curled at its edge. “Anyway, I want you to build tanks.”
“I’m certain I misheard you.”
“You definitely didn’t.”
“Then it is a joke in poor taste,” Harshwhinny said.
“Cosmically, yes, but here we are.”
“How am I to build them?”
“By hoof.” Sweetie Drops slapped the air with her hoof. “With a factory, dingus. We’ve got one set up to be a test case, they’re getting together steel and riveters and such as we speak. Build your tanks, work out the kinks, and give us something we can start cranking out from here to Las Pegasus.”
The response was obvious, at least to Harshwhinny. “You of course are aware that I have never run a factory nor joined the guard?”
“The guard thing is easy,” Sweetie said. Both had forgotten the tea. “We’ll make you an officer, it’ll grease some wheels. As for running a factory, I don’t care. You’ll have a manager to help and somehow I think you’ll pick it up fast.”
Harshwhinny again made to speak, and again was cut off. “You have ideas, Harsh. And you know the stakes. Right now that’s better than anything.”
By the time she got off the train in Appleoosa, Harshwhinny had read twenty books on her newfound profession.
The place used to be a tractor factory. Tools were already in place to build treads and assemble engines, though all was in dire need of an update. It was a new factory, at least, down south where land was cheap and there were plenty of ex-farmers to fill the role call.
Most of it wasn’t so different from running the Games. Workers needed coffee and oats whether they built stadiums or machine-guns, which in turn needed vendors, wagons, and budgets. She imported steel instead of rally-flags, sparred with budget-minders for the crown instead of the corporation, fired and replaced troublesome laborers instead of office incompetents. Ins, outs, purchases, plans – not so different from the Games at all.
Except the last part. Presenting the Games was ultimately an orchestra, wherein Harshwhinny labored to keep a massive team pulling in one direction. The finale was a question of everypony doing their part, not her alone. Here, steel was cut to precise instructions, treads built to her ordered width. Yet it was not the welder or machinist who decided how they fit together.
Every mistake – death. If all went just poorly enough, her mistakes would end Equestria.
An idle fear. Harshwhinny tried to ignore it, though as far as this factory went it really did all come down to her. An overall manager kept things moving without imagination, and a pair of Canterlot engineers checked her math. They played at tank design too, boasting of invincible weapons with two turrets and a mortar of all things. She wasted no time setting them straight: their goal was a tank built to beat the changeling tanks. No less. No more, either. Fewer whistles meant more tanks.
Success brought with it the same cool pride as the finale of each Equestria Game. A moment to take in the built hull, the finished turret, the first prototype. The real ones would be welded instead of riveted, and have a machine-gun in the hull. But there was her sketch, brought to life by her own will and months of ceaseless effort.
She rode in it, rocked within the smelly steel as the engineers made its second test. The fury of its cannon, shot at practice targets. The jerk and rumbling as they climbed the test ground’s hill. That was a day of silent glory, kept with rigid discipline from her face. Her telegram to Canterlot was entirely professional, and they sent her one of their few guard officers with actual tank experience.
The name ‘Fizzlepop Berrytwist’ did not ring any bells. Her sight, however, was familiar enough. The slim, scarred unicorn exchanged brief pleasantries with Harshwhinny. Fizzle only tried to hold back disdain at Harshwhinny’s lack of credentials, who in turn referred to her as ‘Tempest Shadow’ more than once. With what seemed a lifelong enmity now established, Fizzle took the tank out for her own test and came back with… not a friendly smile.
“Your tank is shit, Harsh.”
She accepted the silly nickname from a S.M.I.L.E. agent. No one else. “It’s Miss Harshwhinny.”
“No, it’s ‘Colonel Harshwhinny,’” Fizzle replied. “You’re in the guard, get used to it. This isn’t your little notebook project anymore. Your horn-ups will get ponies killed.”
“I am entirely aware of that,” Harshwhinny replied sharply. “I need no lecture from one like you.”
“Ooh, that sounded personal. Were you involved with the Storm King event?”
“No. I suppose I’m an Equestrian patriot, despite itself.”
“Yeah, same, nice to meet’cha.” Fizzle hoofed over a copy of the official blueprints, with a lot of added red ink. “First off: wooden seats? Tell me that’s a placeholder.”
Harshwhinny raised one eyebrow. “Did you get a sore bum, Miss Berrytwist?”
“‘Colonel’ Berrytwist. And yes, I did. Ponies are going to be in that thing for hours and days and weeks. They’ll need harnesses and Celestia-given padding.”
“Pillows and blankies, too?” Harshwhinny almost said. Her mind interrupted, gazing inevitably to the future: Comfort was more than grown ponies being coddled. It let them drive further without rest and rest more efficiently. They would be less inclined to cheat on their own safety by getting out to stretch. It brought them to the battle in better condition to fight it. Yes, leather and wool would drive up the cost of each tank, but the addition was negligible.
Paradoxically, it seemed efficiency did include a few whistles.
Fizzle went on. “The engine’s too small. It took us forever to get up that hill. You’re in Appleoosa now, but try driving this by Vanhoover with all the mud and snow. And did you even include a suspension? This thing lurches like a drunk trying to ice-skate.”
“There’s no room for a bigger engine,” Harshwhinny replied.
“Because everything’s slanted! There’s no room for anything, you have the crew stowing shells beneath their seats. What do you have against right angles?”
“Physics, Miss Colonel. Perchance read more books? Buck a plank and it breaks, but buck it at an angle and your hoof skids. It keeps the crew protected.”
“You also want them with plenty of ammo in shape to shoot the gun quickly, and a big enough engine to get where it needs shooting.”
Harshwhinny felt pride heating her head, and forced it from her voice. “Yes, yes, and it needs to be everything-proof and carry a cannon big enough to hit Chrysalis from here.”
“Well it does need a bigger gun.”
“No, Miss Captain, you’re wrong on that part. We’ve chased that tail to Zebrica and back. There is no room in the turret for a larger cannon without sacrificing too much. There must be space for the commander to do his job efficiently, and there’s the placement of the sights to consider.”
Fizzle shrugged. “All the aim in the world doesn’t help if the shell bounces off.”
“And a shell the size of a barn does no good if you can’t hit one.”
“Fair, fair.” Fizzle raised her hooves, smiling like an idiot. “You’re the tank designer, I just design how to use them. But you said I’m wrong on ‘that part.’ Does that mean I’m right on the others?”
“Get out.”
Fizzle left without complaint. The door closed behind her, but Harshwhinny’s window to the hallway was open and she heard the mare’s last comment to herself.
“I like that girl,” Fizzle mused. “She stands her ground.”
A compliment. Harshwhinny didn’t care for them. She sat down, pondering the encounter and finding most of Fizzle’s concerns to be sound.
Of course, it was silly to get so attached to her theory-crafted design. Silly to take the criticisms personally and get worked up. This was a learning experience.
It was… a little hard. Harshwhinny held herself to a standard of absolute perfection. That was something learned, too: it was not that kind of job.
With a few strokes of her pen, she changed the marked blueprints Fizzle turned in. Flat edges to the sides and rear. More room for ammo, engines, suspension. Ponies would die from the weakened armor. She tried to not think of it.
The factory moved. The tank wasn’t perfect, but future guard visits pronounced the next prototype worthy. A few other secret factories had submitted their own designs, but Harshwhinny’s hit all the right beats: turret, cannon, speed, armor, intangibles. It looked very much like the changeling tanks, and they of course knew what they were doing.
There were just a few annoyances before larger production began, and two of them sat across from Harshwhinny.
Fizzlepop asked a question. Agent Sweetie Drops snickered into her hoof.
“Of course it has a name,” Harshwhinny said irritably. She gestured to the form before her, and one specific line in the ‘name’ box. “Equestrian War-Fighting Armored Vehicle Mark One.”
“Say that three times fast,” Sweetie joked.
Fizzle rolled a pencil forward. “Just give it a real name, Colonel.”
“That is a real name.”
“I swear you’re doing this on purpose,” Fizzle grumbled.
“Ten bits says she’s not,” Sweetie chimed in.
“No deal.”
“Smart.” Sweetie leaned forwards. “It’s your baby, Harsh. Name her. We need something catchy for the film reels and short enough for conversation. Nice as it always is to see you, I’m a busy mare who needs to get this form to some very soon-to-be busy factories. If you could not be you for one second and give us a name, that would be splendid.”
A waste of time, to be minimized. Harshwhinny scribbled “Splendid Mk. 1” onto the form and pushed it over.
Flat hulls would be penetrated. Harshwhinny never could gather enough welders – the steel was bolted together, and the bolts would break. Necessary weak-points which meant more tanks. She was at peace with it, most nights.
Sweetie Drops still visited, now and then. Maybe in the greater scheme this was more a S.M.I.L.E. factory than a guard one. Maybe the mare just liked her – in the last visit she asked Harshwhinny to call her “Bon Bon.”
She brought the first reel featuring the Mark 1 some months later, and wouldn’t leave until Harshwhinny agreed to watch it with her. Bon Bon’s motives became obvious within the first minute of jaunty narration.
“All from the smallest filly to Celestia herself may rest easy tonight, for our royal guard now ride to battle in this splendid tank: The Splendid! Sporting a splendid turret with a splen–”
“He makes that pun seventeen times,” Bon Bon managed through her smirk.
“Damn you.”
“You named it.”
“We shouldn’t be filming them,” Harshwhinny groused. “There’s a changeling somewhere watching and taking notes.”
Bon Bon popped a piece of candy in her mouth. “One, if you think we can hide that we’re building tanks by the hundreds from Queen Meanie you’ve got a much better opinion of Equestrian counter-intelligence than I do. And I am Equestrian counter-intelligence. Two, we also need to let ponies know they’re not helpless if push comes to shove.”
“‘When’ it comes, you mean.”
“Eh? There’s always a chance.” Bon Bon cracked the hard candy and began to chew. “Who knows, maybe Chrysalis will blink when the time comes.”
“I haven’t kept up with the news,” Harshwhinny confessed. “What with production and officer studies...”
“No one asked you to do that second one.”
“I’m a colonel, Miss Drops. For all I know I will lead soldiers when things really begin. I must be prepared.”
“Won’t happen, but you do you.” Bon Bon hoofed over a folder, its shadow breaking up a projector-shot line of splendids. “If you think you’re busy now, wait five minutes. Nothing like doing good work to earn you more.”
Harshwhinny accepted it. “What’s this?”
“Shit the changelings haven’t put in their reels.”
She opened the folder to a jumble of photographs. Photographs of photographs, in fact. Large tanks, angled armor, heavier cannons. Pieces of blueprints and rows of hulls without turrets awaiting the final touch.
Bon Bon swallowed. Her eyes remained on the screen. “Help me make sense of it. Fizzle said the Storm King only ever used small tanks – thank stars he hit us with airships instead. The changelings beat Olenia with small tanks. Small tanks means fast tanks and lots of tanks. So why are our enemies building these steel-hungry gas-guzzling clunkers?”
Harshwhinny turned the revelation in her mind, letting a few minutes of droning propaganda fill the silence before she answered. “They know we’re building light tanks. Pit small tanks against heavy tanks, we won’t have more small ones for long.”
“Celestia damn it.”
“I doubt she has that power.”
Bon Bon reached for her pocket. “You mind if I smoke?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I’m tired of being behind, Harsh.” Bon Bon tossed in two pieces of candy and began chewing viciously. “You wanted news? Good news is we’re moving. New officers, couple of sisters with really good ideas plus Fizzle. Drills and planning and draft numbers being distributed. Some politics going on with the Thestrals but don’t you mind that. War industry is kicking up. It’s all pretty popular, though the mantra there is that we’re preventing a fight by being prepared.”
“But we’re not,” Harshwhinny said.
“No baby, we ain’t. Changeling diplomats are howling that we’re just provoking them and now they have to build more to stay safe. Some idiots believe them. Faust-on-a-bike, Harsh, I… next week is Hearth’s Warming. Maybe six months, wait for the weather to dry. I think they’ll hit us then.”
Harshwhinny nodded. “I agree. They know we’re waking up. The gap will close every year if they don’t move soon.”
“Sounds like you need to design a Splendid Mark 2.”
“Prototype a Mark 2, you mean.” Harshwhinny hoofed back the folder. “I have many designs for a heavier tank in my office. I will select the most promising and build prototypes. I couldn’t get approval before but I trust you’ll arrange for that.”
Bon Bon eyed her out of the side of her sunglasses, first in shock and then with a grin. “You cuntwagon, you knew what they were building before I did.”
“No, but it was a contingency to account for.” Harshwhinny stood and smoothed out her suit. “Now: my approval, yes?”
“No.”
Weeks had passed. “‘No’ what, Miss Drops? And do learn to knock.”
Harshwhinny glanced up, then did a double take. Bon Bon was without her suit and sunglasses for the first time Harshwhinny ever saw. The curly two-tone mane was messier than usual, and one hoof pushed an envelope onto her desk.
“I ran out of favors,” Bon Bon sighed. “Scooped this from the post office. Wanted to bring the bad news myself.”
“Sentimentality suits you ill.”
“Just open it, Harsh.”
Harshwhinny moved to comply. “What am I opening?”
Bon Bon flopped onto the chair opposite her. “This factory is a S.M.I.L.E. op, but now civilians and the guard are building factories just fine. The bean counters see you as redundant.”
The official wording took two pages to get there, but it was indeed the proverbial ax. An official notice from the Department of Resources to cease operations and begin forwarding all workers and supplies to a new site by Trottingham.
“A full new tank factory? It’ll be months before they finish building it.” Harshwhinny blinked, staring dumbly at the words before her. “This makes no sense. We have an efficient production of splendids here, why don’t they just take over this one?”
“Because lots of factories have gone up in the south and loud, rich ponies in Trottingham say that’s not fair. Harsh, I’m sorry, I just can’t win ‘em all.”
A familiar chill crept into Harshwhinny’s chest – helpless, adrift. Just as she was before Bon Bon knocked on her door.
Not this time. Her eyes focused.
“Miss Drops,” Harshwhinny said primly. “Our supplies come from S.M.I.L.E. books, yes? How will they get re-routed?”
Bon Bon shrugged unhappily. “Technically, on receiving the letter you report its contents to me, and I tell our bookers to start sending it all onward.”
“Excellent.”
Harshwhinny crumpled the letter and dropped it in her waste basket.
A smile tugged at one corner of Bon Bon’s mouth. “You can’t just throw it out.”
“Throw what out?”
“The letter.”
Harshwhinny pulled out the factory timekeeping folder and laid it on her desk, beginning her review of the week’s schedule. “I received no letter. Perhaps there is one on its way, though if it was lost in the mail it would hardly be my fault.”
“They’ll just send another.”
“Perhaps that will be lost too, and perhaps a month will pass before they realize the factory is still in motion. Then of course I will have to send letters to the coming factory to have detailed exactly what they need, and request clarifications and appropriate authorizations for all matters. All in the spirit of obedience to government orders, naturally. They can’t blame me for letters being lost or for ensuring an orderly response.”
“Wait out the clock until the war starts.” Both of Bon Bon’s eyebrows raised. “Only problem is it’ll be obvious what you’re doing. You’re about to make enemies, and they’ll turn you into a scapegoat if the war goes bad.”
“If the war goes bad, I do not wish to live.”
Bon Bon didn’t answer. Harshwhinny glanced from her lists to see the mare’s idiotic smile back in its rightful place.
“I knew you were right for this job,” Bon Bon said.
A rare moment of quiet found Harshwhinny after Bon Bon made her exit. The factory worked in two shifts, shutting down after midnight though she often remained. This would be a sleepless night of design and sketch and management to keep the system running on oil. If she was going to slow-walk a changeover in bad faith, she may as well make it worth while.
Rarer than the quiet came the introspection – Harshwhinny existed in and for the world around her, not at all one for examination of her own beliefs. Action was to be logical, competent, and directed to a productive end. Opinions were to be sound and informed, not something taken out of a hat to steer her any which way.
Yet was she being steered, after all? She was never one for patriotism, least of all silly boasts like what she made to Bon Bon. Sacrificing her old career at the Equestria Games was a move of seeming necessity, fueled by the perception no one else at all could see the looming danger. More did every day now, and the future no longer seemed so inevitably doomed. She maintained the work because she was good at it. And if mere legal troubles allowed her to churn out another few hundred splendids against orders, then that was an excellent price regardless of personal consequence. It wasn’t mere empty patriotism to admit there were things of greater importance than her own well-being. If the world could indeed furnish a cause worth dying for, it was Equestria’s – birthplace of sacred Harmony. What now seemed tragically like an old-fashioned notion that peace and cooperation were superior to war and grasping dominion.
Harshwhinny’s mind moved instinctively to the future. What if Canterlot fell and everything was in vain? She pulled her thoughts away from all that. Plenty to anticipate and work towards now. At any rate, she did not think she lied to Bon Bon.
The work called, and she answered. Protoyping of the Mark 2 began apace – a good tank with lessons learned, neither as small as the Mark 1 nor huge like the Olenian attempts. In documents she began describing it as a ‘medium tank.’ Captain Berrytwist had no complaints when she came to test it, only wanting to know how fast they could be produced.
Not fast enough, of course. There was a limit to how much things like this could be rushed. Harshwhinny barely had a test line in production when news arrived of chaos and riots in Vanhoover.
That same day, she announced the factory would change from eight to twelve-hour shifts. The workers booed as she turned away.
Three days after, a rushed telegram informed her a short artillery barrage had struck several border posts. Changeling tanks were streaming south between them, and thousands of soldiers were marching in their wake. Equestria’s entire border army was overrun within the week.
Harshwhinny only read of the parades, the speeches, the rally to the princesses as Equestria at last came awake. The endless clank and grind of the factory suited her fine, and would have for the entire war had a message not been delivered for her to report to Canterlot. She arrived, expecting to be arrested – instead she was made comptroller of all tank design and production. Both the output of her factory and the performance of the splendids apparently made an impression.
The palace office, in glittering Canterlot – such a change, and she barely looked around. No time, not with news coming in every day. Most was bad. Like the Olenians before them, ponies on the front lines found themselves cut up, outmaneuvered, overwhelmed. Even the best of their leaders only had theory, while their foes had practice. The splendids and other tanks were oft as not ill-used by everyone from generals to half-trained crews, and anyway were outclassed by the new changeling tanks. Their designers had been a step ahead, even from Harshwhinny.
Yet the changelings did not have it all their own way. Wherever terrain or preparation halted their blitz, the Equestrians held out with guns and bitter courage. Surrounded strong-points fought until the deathly end. Blown bridges and even dams and fields spoke of Equestria’s fast awareness to its own capacity for ruthless will. While outmatched, the splendids were nimble and quick, and their cannons were not so small that the aggressors had nothing to fear. Threats and counter-blows trimmed some of the sharpness from the blitz, though every day they drew closer to Canterlot.
All this, Harshwhinny only grasped in bits and pieces. She spent more time on trains than in her office, shuttling from factory to factory. Incompetents to fire, supply lines to smooth, even the rare fit of worker agitation to bribe or crush. Her scope began to expand: tanks needed steel mills, munition factories, rubber. Where these fell short, Harshwhinny put in her hooves and fixed what was needed. No more time for tank design, but already other teams were correcting flaws with the Mark 2 and plotting what came next. Equestria had learned the same lessons she had earlier – no reason to stay involved on that end. Not with so much else to do.
She did the best she could as months turned to weeks and days until the changelings reached Canterlot. Mark 2s were brought in without headlights or machine guns. Anything for one more hull to mass in Berrytwist’s infant tank corps as the changelings reached Unicorn Range and began inching east to the city.
As Canterlot’s mood darkened, however, and bombs woke her up each night, Harshwhinny found herself… curious. Fearsome though it was, the changeling advance was wheezing, slowing. Their straight road to Canterlot was a concrete hell of mines and pillboxes, manned by ponies surely prepared to give it their all. Mobility was the changelings’ strength – why were they grinding down the hardest path, driving precious tanks into killing fields? They should turn far east or west instead, against fewer soldiers defending flatter ground. Take as much of Equestria as possible, setting themselves up to crush it in the coming years.
Harshwhinny did not care to ponder it when she worked. But as she laid in the palace basement one night, she turned the thought in her mind and found the answer.
The changelings – no, Queen Chrysalis – wanted Canterlot. To end the war brilliantly in a single year, a dream so bright it blinded her to better options.
A mistake. With no one around to see, Harshwhinny smiled very thinly before she fell asleep.
Of course, it was only a mistake if it failed.
After months of expanding, Harshwhinny’s world grew small. Supplies were delivered right to Canterlot, sometimes to be stored in her office. She took brief sky chariot rides to where Fizzlepop was readying her corps in the shadow of a nearby mountain. Fizzle told her what was needed, and Harshwhinny made it so.
Harshwhinny didn’t ask Fizzle’s plan. She knew it already – wait til the changelings battered themselves on Canterlot’s defenses, then hook around and take them in the rear. Nor did Fizzle ask why Harshwhinny handled everything herself – they had no room for incompetents or delays. Systems and supply chains could fail, but Harshwhinny did not.
The day came. Fizzle needed nothing more. Only her head poked from her Mark 2, with a helmet hung jauntily above her broken horn. They had to shout to hear each other over the sound of so many engines coming to life.
Harshwhinny grew weak, just in that moment. “General Berrytwist?”
“Yeah?”
A deep swallow. “Let me ride with you.”
Fizzlepop was at her strongest. “Use your big brain, Harshwhinny. What can you best do for us?”
Harshwhinny already knew. “I can’t go back. Not now.”
“Then do the next best thing and keep the supplies moving. The better you do, the harder and longer I can push.”
Their eyes met. Fizzle saw the rare look of worry on Harshwhinny’s face, and grinned without fear. “These are splendid tanks, you know. You did good.”
And she was off, in the very vanguard of Equestria’s armored hope. Harshwhinny saw white-toothed soldiers with smoked faces riding on the backs of many tanks. She took charge of the logistics, funneling ammo forward and wounded to the rear, all as distant cannons echoed between the hills.
Fizzle wasn’t perfect – the attack turned in too quickly, slamming the changelings’ side instead of hooking past the rear. But that still meant tanks and exhausted soldiers frantically turning, fighting in ones and twos against squadrons of assaulting splendids. Even the injured soldiers were elated, boasting that the Mark 2s were smashing every foe. The surprised enemy were fleeing or fighting a desperate rearguard. Whole changeling regiments were pinned and surrounded, and a few splendids were among their supply dumps wreaking havoc.
Harshwhinny drove a truck full of things for the hospital though the night, managing others by radio. Morning brought still more good news. The changelings had overextended, over-confidently pressing a strong position with their flanks in the air. Fizzle’s punishment was brutal and ongoing.
The first snow had begun when Harshwhinny returned to the palace, though it always snowed first in Canterlot. The plains of Equestria were turning to mud. Canterlot would not fall this year.
But what of the next? Harshwhinny set her thoughts to the future – the changelings remained huge, powerful, dangerous. Over the winter they would consolidate, replenish, and recruit, and when the roads cleared they would blitz once more.
They wouldn’t go for Canterlot. The lesson was learned, and with Equestria roused there would be more than enough to protect the city. The changelings would veer east or west, seeking to again make massive gains and cut Equestria from its resources, ports, and factories. With flat ground and still many tanks, there would again be rout and destruction among the defenders. But after those first months… the direction would be known, the invaders again spread out and strung out. Then it would be their turn to have lines punctured, and Equestrian tanks among their crossroads and rails. The changelings had no choice but to lunge – Berrytwist and the other generals could use that.
She had a memo to write. Fizzle and Bon Bon would read it, if no one else, and they would see what she meant.
It was no full victory. Even if that happened, even if all went well, there were years still to go. And the danger was not all passed. Yet things did not seem as grim as they did a week ago, or six months, or the day Harshwhinny returned to that old apartment with a package of foreign newspapers.
For the first time in a long time, Harshwhinny looked to the future and saw hope. And as she did, a stray thought found her mind: the soldiers riding the tanks had it right. Speed and protection, getting them to the front to help the tank as fast as it could drive. But it would be far better to send them in an armored shell of their own. More room, less risk, more cohesion, bringing platoons and companies up alongside the tanks to bring action that much faster.
Alone in her office, Harshwhinny sat upon a crate of spare dials, pulled out her notebook, and began to sketch.