Chapters “Captain Matthew Wood, four-three commando, service number 365917501, reporting as ordered sir,” I saluted as I opened the door, standing to attention before the three officers sitting behind the desk.
“Thank you Captain, you may stand at ease,” the man in the centre said, making a quick note before staring straight at me.
The fact that I didn’t even know these officers names made me slightly nervous, but I’d been in this situation before, so it could have been a lot worse. Standing at ease, I waited for the officers to speak, keeping my eyes straight forward, before one of them finally spoke.
“How many years have you served Captain?”
“I enlisted in 1998, with a two year secondment to the Special Forces, so eight years sir,” I replied after a brief moment of thought.
“And you were an officer all this time?”
“Yes sir, Captain for the past three years,” I nodded.
“That all seems to check out,” one of the officers nodded slowly, checking over a sheet of paper. “Your record shows that you have an ease in staying calm under fire, and making decisions based on current events. Very easy to anger given the right circumstances, but all in all a fine soldier.”
“Thank you sir,” I nodded, scratching the back of my neck nervously.
“As you know, the first company recently lost its commander,” one of the officers began.
“He’ll be missed,” I cut in, before cursing inside my head and shutting up.
“Yes,” the officer continued, “the fact remains though that we need a new officer to command the first company. Your promotion review was set to be soon anyway, so being brought forward a few months is neither here nor there. Now, do you have any questions Major Wood?”
“N-none sir,” I stammered, wrapping my head around the unexpected outcome.
“Very well then, you are dismissed Major.”
“Thank you sirs,” I quickly came to attention, saluting, before marching towards the door, not stopping till I was outside and letting out a slow sigh of relief.
“So, what’s the damage?” a familiar voice chuckled from behind me, and I turned to see my Colour Sergeant standing against the wall.
“What, no salute?” I asked with a slight smile. “I’m a much higher rank than you Colour Sergeant.”
“Yes, but I’ve seen pictures of…” he began with a sly smile of his own.
“Jenkins, shut up,” I ordered, fighting off a blush. “I swear, you’re the most insufferable moron I know.”
“And you love it,” Jenkins laughed, before giving me a lazy salute. “So, what’s the damage Captain sir?”
“The damage is you have to learn a new word Jenkins, I know you’ll struggle with your mental capacity, but learn the word Major and start using it Colour Sergeant.”
“Wait, promotion?” Jenkins asked.
“Major of the first company,” I nodded with a smile.
“Well then, I think we both know what this means.”
“Beer?” I offered.
“Beer,” Jenkins agreed.
***
Six Weeks Later
***
01:00
I slowly weaved my way through the throng of personnel on-board the HMS Oceans’ rear deck, cutting the crowd and walking towards the Hanger where the rest of my men were waiting. Even after six weeks, calling them my men was still a little odd, considering the fact I had served with most of these men since I first graduated from Lympstone. I’d built up a rapport with them, but being in overall command of a company was still a daunting prospect.
“Listen up,” I yelled over the din. “We’re heading out in one hour. Get your gear ready, check your buddies and be ready in forty back here. And Private Rick, remember to charge the battery in your bloody radio.”
“That was one time sir,” One of the soldiers called out from somewhere near the back of the hanger.
“And that’s one time to many,” I called back with a smirk, before dismissing the men.
I watched as the Men fell out, moving below decks to grab their gear. Truth be told, they would have had their kit ready hours ago, and would have done multiple checks on it throughout the day just to make sure it was ready, but it never hurt to check again.
After briefly checking with a mechanic working on one of our insertion vehicles, I too made my way below decks, angling myself towards the Barracks I shared with my men. Truth be told, I could have probably got my own cabin on-board thanks to my rank, but anything the men went through, I went through right beside them.
I glanced down at the patch on my arm and smiled. Royal Marine Commando. A Green Beret. They didn’t just give those things away, and just getting through training as a grunt was hard enough. Factor in the 30 extra weeks that officers had to go through to earn their Berets, and you could see exactly why Royal Marines were respected around the world as one of the most elite amphibious forces.
Walking over to my bunk, I pulled my Bergen and began to go through the contents or it, laying them out on the mattress. When I had finished unpacking my Bergen, I surveyed the contents, checking that everything was in order.
Two ration packs, enough for two days without resupply.
Two First Field Dressings - Check
One Cam Cream container - Check
Four glow sticks - Check
Two full water bottles - Check
Sleeping bag, two ponchos, a roll-mat, some bungee cords and some tent pegs - Check
I mentally went through my list, before repacking everything back into the bag and hoisting it onto my shoulders.
“Colour Sergeant?” I called out.
“Sir,” Came the reply from one of the Marines.
“Are you done checking your gear Jenkins?”
“Yes Major?”
“Good. Go and check with the quartermaster and make sure the ammos ready.”
“Sir,” He said, saluting, before turning and quickly making his way out of the cabin.
“The rest of you, make sure your back on deck in half an hour.” I said, pulling on my assault jacket and grabbing my rifle, before leaving the cabin to go and check on the rest of my Company.
After twenty minutes, I had made sure that the remaining Platoon commanders had checked their squads, which unsurprisingly they all had, before heading back onto the deck. Infront of me stood my company, two hundred marines from Four Three commando milled about the deck at the rear of the ship, most talking with their squad ICs or applying some last minute cam cream.
“Jenkins,” I yelled out, “Ammo?”
“Here sir,” Came Jenkins voice, and after a brief moment of searching through the crowd in front of me, I finally caught sight of him moving between the squads and distributing bullets, grenades and other mission appropriate kit. Eventually he got to me, opening the rucksack he wore and proffering it towards me.
Reaching in, I drew out a cluster of boxes, before getting handed eight magazines and a couple of grenades.
“Major,” He nodded, before running off to the remaining squads.
I looked around as the rest of the Marines as they began bombing up their magazines in preparation for the raid ahead. I spotted a few other Marines doing a last minute cleaning on their weapons, and I looked to my own weapons.
While the majority of the Marines used SA80s, all equipped with the new American ACOG sights, or carried the companies support weapons, ranging from the FN Minimi to the designated marksman rifle, I on the other hand had earned the right to use the weapon I had used in my two years Special Forces secondment, a Canadian-made Diemaco C8 SFW carbine, complete with ACOG sight and a foregrip. Even if it was based on an American design, I loved my rifle, and I wouldn't go back to the SA80 for anything. I knew my pistol, a Gen four Glock 17, was safely secured in the holster on my assault vest, and after a quick check that the four grenades I had were secured properly, I walked over towards the ORCs to check on the last minute preparations there.
02:00
“Listen up,” I called from the front, silencing the company. “We’re moving in ten minutes. We’ve got a fifteen minute journey by ORC, before dismounting and making our way through the jungle to the mission objective. All in all it should take us three hours to reach it. Any questions?”
As expected, no hands went up. The company had already been briefed before they left and they knew exactly what they needed to do. This was a fairly standard slash and burn mission to be honest Go in, take out a known pirate stronghold before meeting up with the rest of the battalion for new orders. It wasn’t exactly rocket science. Everyone had a job to do, and every one of them would do their part in it, or die trying. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but better to be over prepared than caught with your pants down.
“Good. Get to the boats then,” I said, making my way over to my squad.
At this, the deck once again exploded into motion. Naval personnel launched the rigs that were going to be taking us the last few kilometers to the river mouth that was our entry point.
Standing with my squad, I waited patiently as our rig was lowered into the water. As soon as it was ready, I made my way onto the ladder and entered the small boat, watching as my squad followed suite, before signalling for the driver to cast off.
The small boat pulled away from HMS Ocean, speeding across the ocean towards the shoreline just visible on the horizon. All around me, I could see the rest of my company following behind.
02:15
Eventually the boats pulled to a halt, and the entire company dismounted, moving with practiced ease into the dense cover that the jungle held. Doing the same with my squad, I turned on my radio and began to whisper orders to the other section ICs.
“All squads check in with platoon leaders then maintain radio silence. Prepare to move to the first rendezvous point,” I whispered, before silently signalling for my squad to follow.
As one, the company spread out, the various sections beginning to move deeper into the undergrowth. If I didn’t know that there were two hundred soldiers around me, I never would have believed it. I smiled, as I knew that this would mean that the enemy would never see us coming.
04:50
I signalled for my squad to halt behind me, as I took out my map from my pocket and activated the red light of my head torch. Giving the map a quick glance, I confirmed that we were still on the route that I had originally decided to take to get to the mission point, before putting the map away and switching off the torch. The river that my squad and I were currently standing by ran all the way to the Al-Shabaab stronghold, and we once again began to slowly wade through the waist deep water.
“Ten minutes up river,” I whispered as we began to move, falling into the second position in the line, keeping within eyesight of the man in front, making sure that I didn’t lose sight of him.
05:00
Glancing down at my watch, I smiled as I noted the time. Exactly five o’clock by my watch, which the other squad ICs had synched theirs to, meaning that if everything was going well, they’d be in place too. Looking in front of me, I could see a village, opening directly onto the river I was hiding in with my squad. As I watched three men walked out of one of the larger buildings, one of them smoking a cigarette, heading onto a wooden jetty nearby my position. Each was holding an AK-47, and all three were chatting loudly with each other. I couldn’t actually work out what they were saying however, partly because of the distance of them, but mostly because I didn’t understand a word of Somalian.
Holding back, I watched as three of my own squad members advanced forward, only their heads visible above the water as they slowly got closer to the men until they were standing just below them. Even from the distance I was watching from, I could see the group get into position and count down, before all moving at once.
Pulling themselves out of the water slightly, the Marines grabbed hold of the men, dragging them into and under the water. All three men would soon be dead, and that was without so much as a whisper from any of them.
Moving through the water, I reached the jetty and hauled myself out, bringing my rifle up and scanning for targets. Finding none, I turned around and grabbed hold of one of my men, helping him out of the water, before going back to searching the area.
As soon as my squad was out of the water, we began to move into the village, searching for targets. Although I couldn’t see them, I knew that other squads would be doing the same thing in other areas, while others still were setting up sniping positions or firing arcs to cover the assault.
I found the building I was looking for, and quickly signalled for my squad to advance towards it. Forming up outside, we prepared for the most dangerous part of the mission, going loud. Gritting my teeth, I nodded at my point man, who placed his hand on the door of the building, while another man readied a grenade. With a final nod, the point man threw the door open, before turning away as the grenade was thrown in. A loud ‘CRACK’ resounded around the village, and my squad quickly moved into the building, scanning corners and checking the dead men inside. Five men were most certainly dead, that was obvious without even checking them, while a further three men were rolling around on the floor, clutching various injuries.
“You, get on that,” I pointed at one of my squad, before pointing at a radio set in the corner. Already I could hear shots coming from the rest of the village most being the single shots of the marines, while some were fully automatic fire, most likely from the pirate forces, and I could only hope that everything was going according to the plan.
Rushing over to the window, I looked out, taking aim at a man running across the. I breathed out, before squeezing the trigger and watching as the man dropped, a hole punched in the back of his head.
“Major,” Came the voice of one of my men, who was clutching a paper map in his hand. “You’ll want to look at this.
Running over to him, I grabbed the map off him, and quickly surveyed it, while the rest of my men began to lay down covering fire.
“Fuck,” I whispered to myself as I looked at the map in front of me, and the red circles around most of the villages around the area. If my gut was right, which it usually was, there were a lot more Al-Shabaab bases in the area than the Intel he had been given had suggested.
My fears were confirmed as soon as the unmistakable sound of a sniper rifle firing reached my ears, followed by the chatter of heavy machine gun. Our sentries were pinning down a large force by the sound of it, but only time would tell how long it would last for.
“Keep it tight, check your corners and watch for friendlies,” I said as we made our way out of the building and began to move through the village, my rifle at the ready. I could hear a lot more gunshots coming from around the village now. As we moved, I put my hand up to my ear, and tried to get in contact with any of the rest of my men around the village.
“Is anyone reading this?” I asked, my voice staying calm as I spoke directly into the microphone. “Does anyone see the enemy? Someone.”
“Enemy approaching from the North West,” Came the hurried reply. “Johnson’s squad’s engaged now, snipers are providing them long range support.”
“What sort of numbers are we talking about here?” I asked the man on the other end of the radio.
“Unknown. Looks like a lot. More than us that’s for sure though.”
“Of course there are.” I muttered, shutting off the radio and altering my course so my squad and I were angled towards the northern approach. Eventually I saw the edge of the village, and could see muzzle flashes everywhere in front of me. Some were coming from within the buildings which squads had already cleared, while more still came from men who were previously hidden in the jungle undergrowth.
Running over to a section, I began to ask questions.
“Who’s in charge here?” I all but yelled, finding a target and squeezing the trigger, causing another scream to rip across the battlefield.
“Sir. That would be me Sir,” A Corporal grunted.
“Situation?” I asked simply.
“Shit loads of Al-Shabaab militia are pushing into the village. We already lost two men falling back.” He said solemnly.
“Who?” I asked urgently.
“Private Rutford is defiantly KIA, and Colour Sergeant Jenkins went down. Don’t know if he’s alive or not, we had to pull back.”
Instantly, I began to form a plan in my mind as a tightness gripped my gut at the mention of Jenkins predicament.
“Where did he go down?” I asked as I squeezed off two more shots.
“About sixty meters that way. There’s a clearing, I think he’s in that.” The Corporal pointed.
“All right.” I said, addressing my men. “We’re going to push forward. You three take Delta fire-team, you two stay with me as Charlie. We’ll pepper pot up to where Jenkins is and recover him, and Rutford if we find his body. Rick, you stay here and try and get command on the radio. Tell them that intel was off and we need reinforcements here, get the rest of the battalion here now.”
After various signals of acknowledgement came from the members of my squad, we began to move, smoothly breaking down into two small teams and preparing to advance.
05:20
The rest of my squad was lying down next to me, taking shots at the enemy.
“Prepare to move!” I shouted over the roar of the gunfire. “Move!”
Before the word had even finished coming out of my mouth, I was on my feet, running with two other members of my squad, weaving and dashing forward before throwing myself back to the floor. Instantly, I brought my rifle up and began to lay down covering fire for my second fire team.
“Prepare to move!” Came the voice from behind me. “Move!”
In a few seconds, I saw the three Marines throw themselves to the ground next to me.
“Prepare to move! Move!” I shouted, as once again I found myself running towards the enemy. A sharp crack resounded from my left, and I silently thanked my luck that the enemy were shit shots.
Slowly, my squad and I advanced forward, taking our time and neutralising anyone who popped their head up who wasn’t a Marine. Eventually, I spotted the clearing I had been informed that Jenkins was in.
Holding up one fist, I signalled for my squad to stop behind me as I surveyed the clearing in front of me. What instantly caught my eye was the prone form of Jenkins.
He was lying almost directly in the middle, his rifle clutched in one hand as he pulled the pin on a grenade before lobbing it into the undergrowth, the action causing multiple screams to emerge from the jungle.
“You four, you’re in charge of carrying him back to the village. We’ll cover you,” I called out, kneeling beside Jenkins as I pointed out the men who I was assigning to the various tasks. “Jenkins hang in there, we’ll get you out of this.”
“Sir,” they quickly replied in confirmation, Jenkins grunting as he nodded.
As the remaining unassigned Marine and I began to lay down as much cover fire as I could without simply blindly spraying the forest with bullets, the four Marines stooped down beside Jenkins, and prepared to move him onto a makeshift stretcher
“The Colour Sergeant ready to move,” Came the shout from behind me.
“Ok, start taking him back, we’ll cover you,” I shouted back.
Slowly, I began to move backwards, staying low all the time and continuing to fire into the jungle ahead of me. My efforts were met with the odd scream, but for the most part, the covering fire succeeded in keeping the enemies’ heads down. I was about half way across the clearing, when I heard a burst of fire from the jungle in front of me, followed by a short scream from behind me.
Cursing, I glanced behind me, looking at the body of the other Marine providing covering fire, before grabbing hold of his Jackets collar and dragging him back towards the clearings edge. I knew he was dead already, but that didn’t mean I was going to leave his body for the enemy to find. If I could, I’d get him back to the village, and hopefully back home for a decent burial.
“Anyone read? We’re getting our asses kicked out here, we need some sort of support now,” I grunted into the radio.
“We’re trying,” Came a crackled reply. “Enemy have got you surrounded. Not sure how quickly we can give assistance, we’ll need to break a hole.”
“Great,” I yelled, before crawling back to my squad. “Reinforcements are coming but the enemy have got behind us, defensive positions, wounded in the middle.”
“If they don’t hurry we’ll be needing body bags instead of stretchers,” one of the Marines grunted as he braced himself and unleashing a torrent of bullets from the LMG he carried.
“Stow it and keep firing,” came the reply from another Marine.
Forming a circle around Jenkins’s’ prone form and the dead Marine, we began to fire at the enemy, making them pay for any steps they tried to take.
“Just a bit…Ahh!” Screamed another Marine, three bullets ripping through his chest.
“Fuck. I’ll get…” Cursed another Marine, raising up slightly and trying to move towards the screaming solider. He was silenced by a shot that impacted with his jaw, tearing it almost clean off and covering me in blood. Slowly, almost as if he was in slow motion, he fell to the ground, landing on top of the Marine he had been trying to help, who now also lay still.
“We are leaving NOW!” I shouted desperately, trying to formulate a plan to get my remaining men out of there. All of them revolved around leaving the wounded form of Jenkins and bugging out ourselves.
Should I do that?
Could I even bring myself to abandon him?
Every time I thought about doing it, I was met with the same response. Absolutely fucking not.
Jenkins and I went back a long way, all the way to before CTCRM in fact. We had come through basic training together, before he got the Green Beret and got assigned to this company. It had taken me fifteen gruelling months to achieve my commission, while he had only taken thirty two weeks to pass out and start fighting. By the time I had got my own command, he had risen through the ranks to the Sergeant in command of a squad. As luck would have it, I was given overall of the section he was in. Throughout that time, he had always been a friend to me. I could no more leave him behind while he still drew breath than I could cut off my own head with a rusty spoon.
Turning back to the two remaining Marines, I started to give orders, but was cut off by a loud stream of bullets. Turning round, I watched as ten Militiamen rose up out of the Jungle, wielding various weapons. The two Marines behind me hadn’t seen them, and my frantic warning and covering shots only served to allow them to turn their heads slightly, before a barrage of shots cut them down.
I felt myself go numb, as I watched the last members of my squad fall. Sure I’d lost men before, but that many in such a short period of time? This was something else entirely. The fact that this was my first major command since my promotion was just the last nail in the coffin.
A pain erupted in my side, breaking me out of my self-pity and I shuddered as I felt a bullet graze through the muscle round my right hip. Slowly, I crawled over to Jenkins and Grabbed hold of him.
“We’re going to make it through this, you hear me?” I almost snarled into his face.
“How…many?” He asked, coughing slightly.
“A lot,” I replied bluntly, grabbing the dropped LMG and firing into the man in front of me, the bullets ripping through him instantly.
“We can take a lot. We did it before.”
“What? Syria?” I asked, continuing to fire. “Yeah, come on, you me and our swinging cocks. They won’t know what hit them.”
“Then we get to go down swinging?” He coughed with a slight chuckle, reaching over to grasp at the GPMG he carried, but groaning at the effort, and not managing to assist in what was fast shaping up to be our final stand.
“Damn straight,” I replied with a smirk.
The cocking handle on the LMG shot back and clicked, signalling that I had run through the box magazine. Dropping the weapon, I grabbed my rifle back up and scanned for targets, taking a shot at the few remaining militiamen.
“You know we’re not going to get out of this, don’t you?” He asked, a strange feeling of seriousness taking over.
“Not true,” I grunted. “We just need to hold out a little longer.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we do the company proud, and we take as many of these sons of bitches with us.”
I scanned for targets and found one. Taking aim, I watched as he took aim with his own weapon, aiming the RPG straight at us. In a second, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to get him before he fired. Instead, I grabbed hold of one of the bodies of my dead squad and chucked it over Jenkins, before hauling another on top of me. The idea of using the dead was not comforting, but it was necessary if I wanted to survive, which right now I really did.
I watched, as if in slow motion, as the man fired his weapon, firing the explosive towards us. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable.
My world went white as my ears threatened to burst, and I wondered if this was how my world ended.
***
Major Matthew Wood, CiC first company, four-three commando battalion, three commando brigade, Royal Marines.
Reported MIA on the 27th of July, 2018, after leading an assault on an Al-Shabaab extremist force in the Somalian Jungle.
No next of kin or immediate family on records.
Major Matthew Wood is recommended for a posthumous Military Cross award after personally leading an attempt to rescue a fellow Marine.
Colour Sergeant Alex Jenkins, three section, first company, four-three commando battalion, three commando brigade, Royal Marines.
Reported MIA on the 27th of July, 2018, after participating in an assault on an Al-Shabaab extremist force in the Somalian Jungle.
Two brothers on record, currently serving in Afghanistan, both parents deceased. Dispatch copied to brothers company commander.
Dispatch to CTCRM, Lympstone, Devon, England. Received 1st August 2018
“Ahhh.”
The scream echoed through the jungle, reverberating around the trees and causing leaves to fall from the trees.
“Uhhh,” I groaned, pushing the corpse off me and propping myself up on my elbows. “Jenkins?”
“M-Matt?” Came the faint reply.
Looking over, I could see Jenkins moving weakly beneath the body of the Marine I had thrown on him. Crawling over, clutching at numerous cuts and gashes on my stomach, I rolled the body off of him, revealing the blood stained form of my Colour Sergeant.
“Warning…next time please,” He wheezed, giving me a weak grin, revealing multiple gaps in his mouth where teeth had been chipped or knocked out completely.
“I’ll let you get hit next time shall I?” I replied sarcastically, before unsteadily getting to my feet, groaning as the action put stress on the bullet wound on my shoulder.
Slowly, I looked around for any of my men, or for anyone at all for that matter. Instead, all I was met by was the unending jungle that surrounded us, the odd sound of an animal call breaking up the near silence.
“Where are we?” I asked, sounding dumbstruck.
“I assumed you knew,” Came the strained response, Jenkins shakily lifting his shirt to look beneath it, able to take a bit of time to deal with wounds now the immediate danger seemed to have passed.
Crouching down, I crept up towards the edge of the clearing and began to search through it. Finding nothing, I went to the other side of the clearing and repeated myself. I repeated the action five times, before returning to Jenkins, who was grimacing as he grabbed hold of a trauma bandage and shoved it onto a wound in his stomach.
“This is odd,” I began, taking the bandage from him and wrapping it round the wound. “There nothing here. No casualties, no buildings in sight. Hell, there isn’t even any brass lying around.”
“Think the explosion could have tossed us around a bit?” Jenkins grunted as I pulled the bandage tighter.
“Possible, but surely someone would have found us by now. Either a Marine or one of the Militia.”
“Could have only been a few minutes?” Jenkins suggested, slapping my hands away as I tried to apply a second bandage, before wrapping it round himself.
“Well for one thing, I can’t hear any sort of fire or sounds of talking. And for another thing, the raid started at five in the morning.”
“So?”
“Look up Einstein,” I replied with a grimace.
Jenkins cast his eyes upwards, and for the first time actually took in his surroundings. The entire area was surrounded by massive trees that seemed to stretch on until they reached the sky. The conspicuously light blue sky.
“Ahh,” Jenkins said, realisation dawning on his face.
“Yeah. I’d say it’s about four, five, maybe later, I’d tell you more specifically, but I think my watch is broken, it’s still reading the same time,” I sighed, shaking my digital watch and cycling through the features, confused as it all seemed to be working fine, before turning back to Jenkins. “Someone should have found us by now. So either we died, and this is some shitty excuse for an afterlife, or we’re really, really lost.”
Taking a signal from Jenkins, I moved towards him quickly, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and slowly helping him to his feet. He grunted in pain as the bandages shifted position over his wounds, but still pushing my arm off him, standing up under his own steam.
“Course of action then?” Jenkins asked.
Raising my hand, I silenced Jenkins, while I fiddled with the headset still around my head.
“This is Blackhawk, calling any friendly forces in the area, myself and one friendly are requesting immediate extraction. Friendly is injured and requires medical attention. Please respond, over.”
I was met with nothing, save for the feedback from the proximity of Jenkins radio. Undeterred, I tried again.
“I repeat, this is Blackhawk, calling any friendly forces in the area, myself and one friendly are requesting immediate extraction. Friendly is injured and requires medical attention. Please respond, over.”
Once again, I was met with nothing but a small crackle of static. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the radio again.
“Any allied forces in the area, RESPOND!” I shouted, but was met again with static.
“FUCK!” I roared, tearing the headset off and tossing it away from me. The gesture was largely symbolic, as the cord simply made it spring back to my side. Sighing, I picked the headset back up, strapping it over my head once again.
“So. That failed. Next course of action?” Jenkins asked, grunting as he prodded his stomach.
“Take inventory, make sure you’re stabilised and then attempt to link up with any friendly forces in the area. Failing that we find a secure area to rest for the night and try and work out what to do in the morning.”
“Sounds like a plan. What do we do with these guys?” Jenkins asked, swaying slightly as he gestured at the two dead Marines.
I stood still for a second, contemplating what I could do. On one hand, the idea of leaving them was adherent to me, the idea that they deserved to be returned to Britain as heroes, not left in some mosquito infested jungle to rot, was partly the reason I was now in this situation, and my views hadn’t changed. On the other hand, neither Jenkins nor I were in any condition to be lugging around two corpses as well as our gear, through possibly hostile territory, and trying to save the dead was a likely way to get the living to join them.
“We’ll bury them here. I’ll make something so we might be able to find them again later, but that’s all we can do,” I sighed reluctantly. “I’ll dig the holes, you sit down and rest.”
“But…” Jenkins began.
“Order,” I cut him off with a slight smile.
“Yes sir,” Jenkins replied sarcastically, limping over towards a tree and sliding down it, using it to prop himself up so he could still cover me if need be.
I began to slowly scrape away the top layer of plants and grass, before grabbing an entrenching tool from one of the dead and setting to work on the rough earth beneath.
Before long, I had managed to dig a pair of shallow graves for the fallen soldiers, and after stripping them of their weapons and gear, I rolled them into the holes and began to push the earth back on top of them. The work must have taken at least an hour, but eventually both of the corpses were buried under a few feet of mud, their equipment and dog tags in a pile next to the two mounds. Taking a pile of rocks he had collected, Jenkins hobbled over and began to arrange them on top of one of the makeshift graves, marking it so we could come back and retrieve them for proper burial later, unless of course we were still in hostile territory.
After the ad hoc funeral service had been held, Jenkins and I turned towards the pile of equipment and began sorting through it. After a few minutes, we laid out everything that was useful in a single pile, while the rest was pushed to one side.
“Okay, we’ve got my C8 carbine, a GPMG which is helpfully chambered in 7.62 rounds, thirteen frag grenades, sixteen smoke grenades. Eight days’ worth of MREs, Six full bottles of water, two half full ones, six remaining field dressings, four weapons cleaning kits, four tubs of cam cream and sixteen glowsticks, two pistols with two magazines each and a pair of broken SA80s which may be good for parts,” I listed off, surveying the pile of equipment. “How are we doing on ammo?”
“Three full boxes for the GPMG and another one with twenty three rounds left, twenty four magazines of 5.56, so let’s say six hundred and fifty rounds at a conservative guess,” Jenkins replied, looking at the array of magazines and metal ammo boxes around him. “Good thing we were ready for a long deployment, extra ammo may come in very handy.”
“Yeah, I suppose that’s as good a way of looking at it as any,” I nodded, before beginning to pack up some of the equipment into mine and Jenkins Bergen’s. We would have had more gear from the dead, but using their bodies as cover had rather shredded anything on their back, making their bags and anything within functionally useless. “I’ll take a couple of the jimpy ammo boxes for you and most of the gear, if you’re still up to carrying the GPMG that is?”
“Major, look who you’re talking to,” Jenkins smiled, although it turned into a leer as he grunted in pain, before stooping down and grabbing the GPMG, slinging it over his shoulders. “I’m not going to let you down now.”
“I know you’re not,” I nodded, finishing packing my gear away and hoisting my Bergen onto my back, before straightening my assault vest and webbing. “I’m set.”
“We ready then?” Jenkins asked finally, picking up the GPMG and attaching the half full ammo container to it, grunting slightly and grasping at his stomach, before waving it off and standing up straight again, strapping the remaining ammo container to his belt.
“Almost. Here,” I said, holding out four grenades, two frag and two smoke.
“Thanks,” He replied, hooking the grenades to his assault jacket. “Should we get moving then?”
“Depends, how good is my cam?” I asked, looking over Jenkins face and kit. “I’d say you’re as good as you can be without taking kit off and reapplying.”
“Same with you, maybe a bit more on your ears,” Jenkins replied, passing me a cam cream tub. “The original plan was to meet up with friendly forces twelve kilometres east of the raid position wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I replied, reaching for a map that was tucked down my combat smock and beginning to look it over. “Problem is I don’t know where we are, can’t see any similar markings from the map and the land.”
“So…I guess the best plan would be to head east and see if we can find friendlies?” Jenkins asked with a smile, which turned to a grimace as he put the cam cream away.
“Yeah, sounds good. And keep it down Jenkins, I’d prefer not to attract any hostiles in the area. Subtly is the name of the game here, think you can do that?” I joked, checking and cocking my own rifle, allowing the working parts to go forward slowly to reduce the noise it made. “I’ll take point and keep it slow for you, you’re not exactly in the best condition at the moment.”
Moving forward, I began to slowly move into the undergrowth in front of us, scanning the area with my weapon as I advanced. Sticking close to me, Jenkins advanced as well, scanning the rear arcs for any sign of movement. As we moved through the jungle, I took time to think about the equipment we actually had.
Sure the pair of us had weapons and enough rounds to survive for a while, we didn’t have too much in the way of food, and more importantly, water. If the rest of the Marines that had been waiting for us had already moved off thinking we were dead, it would take us a lot more time to get to an area where we could call for extraction. Finding food and water would become a necessity, and that would just make us easier targets for anyone who wanted to kill us, which to me was everyone in this godforsaken country.
To take my mind off the possibility of starving, dehydrating and/or being found by pirates, I began to flick through the channels on my radio, mostly getting static, before finally finding one that seemed to be clear.
“Major? Is that you on the comms?” Jenkins whispered softly, putting a hand over the mic.
“I hope so,” I nodded, before speaking into the mic. “This is Blackhawk.”
“Yeah, luckily for us you didn’t just broadcast our position to the entire world,” Jenkins chuckled. “At least it means we have comms between the pair of us.”
“And hopefully only us,” I nodded.
After that, Jenkins and I lapsed into an easy silence, focusing on the simple act of moving forward, checking our arcs and doing what half of our training was teaching us to do efficiently. For hours upon hours, according to my watch at least, which left me slightly sceptical about the accuracy of the time, we walked, before I finally held up a fist, dropping to a knee and peering through the trees into a clearing ahead.
“Jenkins,” I muttered over the radio. “You may want to come and look at this.”
From the rustling from behind me, I knew Jenkins was coming, and he was soon crouching beside me, staring out at the clearing with an almost identical look of confusion on his face.
“Matt. Somalia doesn’t have a population of indigenous Mayans that someone forgot to tell me about does it?” Jenkins asked wryly as he looked at the huge stone building before us, rising up like some Mayan or Aztec temple.
“No.” I replied. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that while they were similar to the actual ones in Mexico, there was something off about them as well, almost as if the proportions were all wrong. “Wherever we are, I don’t think we’re in Somalia anymore.”
“So we’re dead then? This is the afterlife?” Jenkins asked, looking crestfallen.
“I don’t think so. Shitty afterlife if it is,” I shook my head. “I honestly have no idea Jenkins. Maybe we are dead, maybe we’re not, but until we get conformation, assume hostility from the natives. Just, you know, don’t open fire on them unless we know they’re trying to kill us.”
“Got it. Plan of action?” Jenkins asked with a wince.
“I’ll take point again and we can go check the temple out. At the very least we may be able to find a good position to bunker down for the night. Looks defensible at the least.”
“As long as it only has the one entrance.” Jenkins said with a nod, before moving slightly to the side and allowing me to make my way out of the jungle and towards the temple.
Quickly reaching the stairs, I began the short ascent to the temple on top, keeping my rifle trained on the top in case something came down towards us. I finally reached the top, stopping just at the large entrance and allowing Jenkins to catch up with me, taking cover on the opposite side of the doorway from the one I was on. By now it was getting late, and the sun was already beginning to dip below the treeline of the forest. I had anticipated having to light some glowsticks to find our way inside, but two rows of lit torches meant the light up here wasn’t too bad. Whatever this temple was, it had had visitors, and recently.
“Looks like someone’s home.” Jenkins said, looking at the burning torches.
“Yeah.” I nodded, trying to see how far the corridor went. “Where the hell do you think we’ve gotten ourselves to this time?”
“Hell?” Jenkins offered helpfully. “At least it’s not the first time we’ve got lost together.”
“I don’t think wandering off drunk when we were eighteen and winding up in Manchester the next morning compares to this,” I shot back.
“True,” Jenkins nodded, grunting as he readied his weapon, holding it by his waist by the top handle. It wouldn’t be accurate, but in the confined tunnels that we were about to enter, filling the room with bullets would more than suffice. “I’m ready to move in when you are.”
“You sure you’re ok?” I asked.
“Stop asking Matt, I’m fine,” Jenkins shot back in reply, trying and failing to hide yet another grimace. I knew he wasn’t ok, but I also knew that I’d have better luck swimming back to England from Somalia than getting him to admit he wouldn’t be able to serve at his peak in this sort of situation.
Nodding, I began to advance down the corridor, looking nervously at the floor and the ceiling, my rifle pulled tight into my shoulder, ready to engage and eliminate any threat as soon as it presented itself. If this was a Mayan or indigenous temple, it would most likely have some sort of booby traps dotted around the place, and regardless of the age of them, I’d rather not set them off, especially with Jenkins in a less than ok state, no matter what he told me.
Eventually, we reached the end of the corridor uneventfully, which was a welcome relief, and meant we had hopefully found a place to set up for the night.
“Sir,” whispered Jenkins from behind me. “I can hear voices.”
“You sure?” I asked, straining my own ears.
“Completely.”
Edging forward slightly, I began to make out the voices Jenkins had been talking about. I began to make out a few snippets of the conversation.
“Sir, I didn’t know you were visiting us,” one voice sounded, carrying across the still air of the temple.
“Now you do Lieutenant,” came another voice, who I assumed was the commanding officer of whatever army these people belonged to. “Report.”
“Yes sir. Four Minotaur Witch Doctor’s and a detachment of Griffon outriders were defending the temple. The Witch Doctor’s seemed to be trying to complete some sort of rune arrangement. You can see what they had done before we got here sir.”
“Hmm, looks like some sort of transport runes, and…” there was a brief pause, followed by a loud pop and shimmering sound, before whoever it was continued talking, his voice getting quieter as he moved further away, heralded by what sounded like hoofsteps. “By the sun, this is powerful. I don’t know how far this could…”
I lost track of the voice, it getting to far away for me to hear properly. Instead, I turned to Jenkins, moving closer so I could whisper directly to him without whoever was around the corner hearing.
“What the hell is that all about?” I all but mouthed.
“No bloody idea,” Jenkins shook his head. “I would have said just some weird tribal names or something, but then they started talking about runes as if they were real. The voices were talking to a superior officer, so they sound more advanced, but…I guess they could still be a tribe?”
“I guess that makes as much sense as anything,” I nodded. “God there are just too many unknowns here. Alright, best case scenario in your eyes?”
“Drug addicts?” Jenkins suggested.
“I was going to say I hope they’re just a few local tribes and they won’t be that much of a problem. After all, I don’t know many tribes that can stand up to 7.62 rounds.”
“And worst case scenario?” Jenkins whispered.
“Actual Minotaur’s, Griffons and whatever the speakers are,” I shrugged, before allowing a soft chuckle to escape my lips. “I know unarmoured tribals can’t stand up to bullets, but surprisingly I’ve never met a mythological creature. It will be an interesting test if nothing else.”
“So much for ‘Subtly is the name of the game here’” Jenkins retorted. “So, think we should go in for a closer look then?”
“Yeah. They’re speaking English, so maybe they can help us a bit, you never know,” I nodded. “You stay here, I want to look at them before you come out ok?”
“Fine, just don’t do anything stupid,” Jenkins smirked, leaning against the wall.
Nodding, I slowly made my way into the room, before darting across the open space and into an alcove on the other side. Peering round the corner, I searched for the source of the voices. It didn’t take me long to find them, causing my jaw to drop to the floor in record time.
Just around the corner, stood a group of horses, of all shapes and sizes, ranging from a few massive hulking brutes to scrawny looking ones, although just from here, I estimated that the tallest one was possibly up to my chest. What was even more impressive and bizarre though, other than their technicolored coats, was the additions of various mythological add-ons. I spotted at least a handful of Pegasus, and even a Unicorn in their numbers. Each one was wearing a gun metal chestplate, and carrying an assortment of weapons.
How a creature with no hands could make use of a sword or a spear was right up there with how in the hell they had been talking and where the fuck we were. Still stunned, I managed to dart back across the hall, looking at Jenkins then around the corner again.
“So? Who’s in there?” came the whispered voice of Jenkins from behind me.
“I have no idea how to even begin to explain it. Something tells me we’re not in Somalia though,” I whispered in a stunned voice.
“Oh come on, what are they? Stupid kids? Pirates? Tribals? What?” Jenkins pressed. “Whatever they are can’t be that hard to explain.”
“Take a look for yourself and you’ll see,” I gestured with my head.
“I will then. Give me a sec,” He said, edging past me and glancing out around the corner as I had done.
As I had predicted, his reaction was almost identical to mine, his jaw dropping and working is disbelief at the scene before him. Eventually he pulled his head back and stared at me in disbelief.
“You seeing this?” He all but mouthed.
“Yep. Still working on believing,” I said uncertainly.
“What do we do?” Jenkins asked.
“You tell me. There isn’t really a training scenario for coming face to face with talking horses.”
“Do we at least assume hostile?” He asked uncertainly.
“No,” I said after a moment’s deliberation. “First of all, and I know this is going to sound cheesy, this is a first contact scenario, and whenever they’re brought up in history or in any sort of fiction, they never go well if you go in guns blazing. Secondly, you’re wounded badly, and I’m not in top shape either. For all we know they could be the only things around here capable of offering assistance.”
“So we ask nicely?” He asked with a nod of agreement.
“We’ve got the upper hand in weapons, better armour when it comes to ballistics and in all likelihood, better training, so yes, we can ask nicely. Unless they try anything that is.”
Nodding in agreement, Jenkins pushed himself off the wall, loosely holding the GMPG and looking at me. I nodded back, allowing my weapon to hang by my side in a non-threatening way. It was still close enough that I could reach it quickly if anything did happen. Taking a deep breath I took a step out from the corner, Jenkins following
“Movement!” Shouted one of the horses, and in an instant, all of them were on their hooves looking at the pair of us as we walked, well limped, around the corner.
We must have looked a right state to them, especially if equines were the only form of intelligent life on this planet. Two armoured and armed bipeds walking towards a group of soldiers that must have number at least thirty with our weapons slung at our sides, while sporting various wounds. They simply stared at us for a moment, probably trying to work out if we were idiots for approaching them with so few men to back us up, or if we were simply that confident in our own abilities that we didn’t need back-up.
Truthfully, it was probably a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Nothing moved on either side, both of our groups too shocked by the others presence to actually do anything. Eventually, the spell was broken as one the Unicorn horses moved, a semi-transparent haze surrounding the horn atop its head. At the same time, an identically coloured haze surrounded the scabbard of its sword, pulling it from its scabbard and pointing it at Jenkins and I. The rest of the horses instantly did similar things, either holding weapons in their mouths, in their own hazes, or sporting bizarre blades along their wings, all pointing threateningly at the two of us.
With a snarl, Jenkins braced himself, the weapon forced against his hip as he gripped the pistol grip of his machine gun, his finger ready to pull the trigger at even the slightest sign of danger. I too was ready, my carbine pushed into my shoulder as I aimed at the unicorn who had first drawn his sword, his armour looking a lot more embellished than the others, donating a possible leader of this group.
“Lower whatever you’re carrying and surrender,” the Unicorn who I was pointing my weapon at said calmly, taking a single step forward. “You’re outnumbered, make this easy on yourself.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Jenkins growled through gritted teeth. “You get out of here and I wake up from this bloody nightmare. I am not going to be threatened by talking horses.”
“I’ll repeat, lower whatever it is you’re carrying and I assure you as Lord Militant of the Equestrian forces that you will be treated fairly in accordance with our laws as prisoners of war,” the unicorn repeated. “If not we will be forced to terminate you. We have the upper hoof, don’t throw your lives away.”
“No. You really don’t,” Jenkins grunted, tightening his finger around the trigger as a trickle of blood began to leak from beneath the bandage. “We have the upper hand in this fight.
“Jenkins. Stand down,” I called, placing a hand on the barrel of his weapon and forcing it down, before allowing the barrel of my rifle to point towards the floor as I took a step towards the horse in charge. “You too. Put your weapons down unless you’re prepared to use them. I don’t want this to end in bloodshed, and I’m sure you don’t either. If you’re in command here, listen to reason and we’ll get through this, on my word as a Major in the British armed forces.”
“I have more troops than you do,” the unicorn reiterated. “You have no bargaining power to speak of. You will surrender.”
“Put down the weapons and we can talk this out,” I replied firmly.
“Matt,” Jenkins wheezed from behind me. “Don’t think...I’m going to be…much help…at…moment.” He all but whispered the final words, before falling flat on his face, more blood oozing from around the bandages on his stomach.
Suddenly, I forgot all about the armed horses in front of me, and turned back to Jenkins. Kneeling down beside him, I rolled him over and ripped the bandage off, revealing the wound underneath. A glint of metal told me that there was still a bullet in there, and I desperately began to apply pressure to the wound while reaching into my webbing to pull out another FFD.
“Give me a hand here!” I shouted, hoping that somepony would lend a hoof.
When nothing happened, I turned around and looked back at the group, staring at them as they all simply looked at me in a mixture of confusion and shock. Growling, I took my weapon off my shoulders and dropped it on the floor, looking up at the unicorn.
“Please, I’ll do what you want, but you’ve got to help him. I’m begging you.”
“What do we do sir?” asked one of the hornless and wingless ponies, mumbling around the spear that was in his mouth.
“Stabilise that one,” the unicorn said finally, gesturing at Jenkins, before looking at me. “You, step away from him now. My ponies will stabilise him, but you’ve surrendered to me. You have my word you’ll be safe, the pair of you. Now, don’t fight this.”
Instantly, the unicorn’s horn lit up once more, and I felt an odd warmth in my head. In an instant, I felt all my weariness and pain from the day’s events suddenly catch up on me. It was painful, but at the same time, it was kind of relaxing, and I slowly sank to the floor, my eyes getting heavier and heavier as I fought tooth and nail to stay awake, watching as the horses, no the ponies, got to work on Jenkins.
“Why don’t we just kill them?” Came a voice from the group.
“Because Celestia and Luna will want to question these two…things,” the Unicorn replied. “We don’t want our prisoners dying, especially the injured one. I doubt we’d get much out of the other one if he was allowed to die. Plus we don’t kill prisoners when they surrender willingly. Do you understand private?”
“T-Thank you,” I whispered, before slipping completely into unconsciousness.
***
Celestia & Luna.
Their eyes only
Two strange creatures were found and captured in the jungle temple at approximately 2230 today while we were investigating the magical fluctuations in the Great Southern Rainforest. Both exhibited civilised tendencies and are were akin to Minotaurs in appearance, yet were armed and armoured with equipment unlike anything I have ever laid eyes upon.
Transferring the creature to a secure facility to await your judgement.
Dispatch to the Equestria army headquarters from Lord Militant Greave. Received 1st August, 36 AD
I cracked my eyes open slightly, groaning slightly as I tried to roll over and get back to sleep, but the damage was already done. Grumbling, I stretched my arms out to the side, only to find them stopped about halfway, the clinking of chains coinciding with the cold pressure of metal cuffs around my wrists.
My eyes instantly snapped open all the way, peering into the near pitch-darkness. For a second I was confused by the lack of light I’d been expecting, before regaining my senses and looking at my wrists. As I had feared, both of my wrists were secured to thick chains by heavy metal manacles, the chains giving me some movement, but not the full range that I usually enjoyed.
After a few minutes of tugging fruitlessly at the chains and trying to slip my hands out of the cuffs, I finally leant back against the wall, taking in my surroundings as best I could. The cell wasn’t massive, but it wasn’t tiny either, and I could quite easily lie down on the surprisingly soft floor. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t like lying down on concrete back on earth either. I was also the only occupant, Jenkins being nowhere to be found. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried, but I couldn’t exactly do anything about it at the moment anyway, and the Lord Militant…horse had seemed to take it on board that Jenkins needed help. I just hoped that they knew what they were doing medically.
Next my attention turned to my own body, and I got yet another, much more annoying shock.
“Why the fuck am I naked?” I asked the darkness, before shivering slightly. I could see taking my gear, but did these horse things, take my clothes? The worst part was I couldn’t even cover myself up thanks to the chains.
Sighing, I began to try and process some of what had happened between being blown up on Earth, and arriving here, wherever here was. The horses had said something about a set of transport runes, and that the Minotaur’s had been trying to complete them when they were interrupted and presumably killed or driven off by the ponies. The leader had also said they were powerful, and that it could possibly have a long reach. Could that be why Jenkins and I were here? If so, it added ‘being pulled from our world by weird talking animals’ to the list of possible reasons why we were here, right beside this being an afterlife. I still didn’t know which one I preferred.
That lead me to another series of thoughts, mostly what I knew about the species on the planet so far. I had thought that the Griffons and Minotaur’s were just tribes, but I was now inclined to believe that they were the actual creatures, and the horses were at war with them. As for the horses, I’d seen three types, Unicorns, Pegasi and normal ones, if normal was still usable for multi-coloured equines who could talk and wield weapons.
I assumed the Pegasi could fly, and the normal ones had all looked like they were better built physically, so maybe they were stronger, but it was the unicorns that really interested me. They seem to be able to manipulate objects from a distance, as well as apparently knock me out. They would probably be the most dangerous if it came to a fight between me and them, something that I hoped wouldn’t happen, as without allies, even Jenkins and I fully armed, armoured and fighting fit would be quickly eliminated.
Becoming wrapped up in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the sound of keys scraping in the lock of the cells door. The first thing I knew about my captors coming to find me was when the door was flung open and my body was bathed in light. I instantly scrambled to my feet, before realising I was naked and trying to cover myself up again, only to be stopped by the chains, leaving me open for all the world to see.
“Don’t suppose you’d give a guy a little privacy would you?” I asked, looking up at the three horses that had just walked into the cell. The central one was a unicorn, while the other two were some sort of massive cart horses, towering over the unicorn, looking like they came up to my chin. All of them were wearing gleaming gold armour, a sun stencilled into the front and on the flanks.
The two cart horses looked between themselves, before looking at the Unicorn, who I assumed was in command.
“I’m sorry, I’m only authorised to move you between here and the throne room,” the unicorn shook his head, the voice giving him away as a male.
“If I’m going to a throne room, that means you’re taking me to meet royalty,” I pointed out. “Allow me some common decency, one soldier to another.”
“Very well, go and retrieve some of the prisoners clothing,” he ordered, looking at one of the horses, who nodded and walked out of the room.
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what’s going on here?” I asked.
“No,” the unicorn shook his head.
I nodded with a sigh, before watching as the cart horse returned, bearing my trousers, combat shirt and my assault vest. With a gesture from the unicorn, the clothes were but down before me.
“Only what you need to cover yourself,” the unicorn ordered. “I wasn’t told to do this.”
I nodded, before running a hand over the assault vest. Most of the pockets had been searched and emptied, but there were two zipper pockets that looked like they hadn’t been touched. Through the fabric I could feel two pistols, one on each side, and I momentarily thought about drawing one on the guards. I knew I could do it before they could react, and getting off three shots would be easy, but that would put Jenkins at even more risk, and I couldn’t do that.
Grabbing my trousers, I awkwardly slipped them on, before handing back my shirt and the vest. “Here you go, only got what I need on.”
“Thank you,” the unicorn nodded, before his horn lit up, and I felt the chains around my wrists tightening, before they moved towards the cart horses, locking onto loops in their armour. “Now, follow us.”
The two horses began to walk, and I quickly caught up, walking in between them with the chains held slack, making sure they knew I wasn’t going to try anything.
We passed by numerous horses who I assumed were acting as guards on the way down the corridor, all of whom stopped whatever they were doing and stared at me. If I had been anywhere else, it would have made me nervous, but considering the fact that they were horses and I was a human, a species they didn’t seem to know anything about, that was hardly surprising. Eventually, the four of us reached a massive door flanked by two Pegasus, clad in the same golden armour as the others had been. As we approached the door, they quickly pulled the door open, allowing us to enter the room beyond.
Without missing a step, the three guards walked inside, prompting me to follow their lead. As soon as I passed through the door, I found myself in a huge room, hundreds of horses of all three types lining each side, while at the very front stood two thrones, both occupied by a single pony, one an alabaster white, and the other a midnight blue.
At first I thought they were just larger than any other unicorns I had seen, looking like they were at least the size of the cart horses, if not bigger, their horns actually looking sharp, rather than rounded, but on closer inspection I saw that they also had wings as well. This raised all sorts of questions in my mind, mainly if there were more of these Pega-corns, and if not, were they only in charge because they had both horns and wings? Maybe this was the mark of royalty in this weird place, a physical symbol of their right to rule.
As I advanced down the centre of the room with my guards, I took in more of the features of the two rulers, making even more distinctions between them and the common ponies. Unlike the others, their manes and tails seemed to flow naturally, as if they were caught in some sort of invisible breeze, and both of them were flanked by four ponies, armoured in gold armour for the white horse and purple armour for the blue one. Both had two unicorns guarding them, and the white one had two Pegasi with it as well, but the darker one had a pair of thestrals with her, opening up a fifth species for me to think about. At this rate I would have to make a list.
I was eventually jerked to a halt as the two cart horses stopped, standing at attention, a pose I decided to copy, standing upright as I looked at the two Pega-corns. A second later, they both rose from their thrones, and as one, the assembled ponies fell to their knees, their heads resting on the floor. Unsure of what to do in the presence of royalty, I made to bow, before realising how awkward it actually was, and instead opted to simply salute, the chains just about allowing me to.
“RISE, MY PONIES,” the white one spoke in a ridiculously loud voice, causing me to recoil slightly as I let my arm fall to my side.
“You have the honour of standing in the presence of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Diarchy of Equestria,” one of the Golden armoured unicorns spoke, taking a step forward and indicating the princess he was talking about, and I suddenly recognised him as the one who I’d been knocked out by.
“Thank you Lord Militant,” Celestia nodded, her voice becoming a much more normal level as she looked down at me with a mixture of interest and stern determinations written across her face. “What are you creature? Dost thou have a name?”
“Royal Marine Commando, Major Matthew Wood, first company, four-three commando battalion, three commando brigade, service number 365917501. I’m a human.” I responded automatically, before remembering I was addressing royalty. “Your highnesses.”
“Clearly thou knows how to address royalty,” the dark one, Luna, spoke. “Your nation has royalty as well?”
“It does,” I nodded. “Her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, soverign monarch of the British Isles and the Commonwealth. If I may…where am I?”
“You stumble across an armed patrol on the boarder of two warring nations, and thou expects us to believe you don’t know where you are?” Celestia asked.
“That’s correct princess,” I nodded. “My colour sergeant and I have no idea where we are, what’s happening in your land, or what you are. I’ve travelled all over my world, and I’ve never seen anything like you.”
“Is’t thou trying to tell us you are not of this world?” Luna asked with a disbelieving tone.
“At the moment it’s one of two prevailing theories I have,” I nodded. “That and being dead. I’d rather not be dead your highness.”
Celestia and Luna exchanged glances between each other, before nodding.
“Very well, we will humour you,” Celestia looked straight at me. “Thou are on Aedrides, more specifically thou are in Equestria, bordering the lands taken by the Griffon Dominion.”
“Thank you,” I nodded. “What are you?”
“Remember who you are speaking to human,” one of the purple armoured guards spoke.
“It’s Matthew, or Major Wood,” I shot back, before raising a hand. “Sorry. With all due respect, what are your highnesses?”
“That’s better,” Celestia nodded. “We are Alicorns, the immortal rulers of the Day and the Night.”
“And the other species your highness?”
“You really don’t know, dost thou?” Luna asked.
“I can honestly say I don’t know what any of them are outside of mythological representations,” I shook my head.
“Mythological representations?” Luna asked.
I nodded, letting out a soft breathe as I tried to decide how best to explain this. “Yeah, on my world we had myths, stories that may or may not have been true. They included Pegasi and Unicorns and Thestrals. We have normal horses and ponies, so the cart horses…”
“Earth ponies,” Luna corrected.
“Sorry, earth ponies look similar to horses,” I continued. “I’d like to know if I’m right, if I really am in a world populated by multi-coloured, talking Unicorns, Pegasi, Thestrals and god-knows how many other mythological beasts.”
“The three main tribes are the Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth Ponies yes,” Luna nodded.
“We have answered your questions,” Celestia began. “Now, I believe it is your turn to…”
“Please, one more,” I took a step forward, straining against the chains. “Just one more question your highness.”
“No, you forget your place,” Celestia replied sternly. “Prisoner and captor, we ask, you answer. I have given you liberties, now you will answer my questions.”
“I’ll fight you for the right to ask,” I retorted quickly.
“Pardon?” Celestia asked.
“From what I can see, your county is at medieval time period, which means you probably place more stock on honour than my people do,” I began, taking another step forward. “To quote a great member of a family with very odd bowel movements, I demand a trial by combat. If I win you answer my question then I answer every question you have, if you win, I’ll answer every question you have.”
For a moment, Celestia looked stunned, the rest of the room falling silent, before Luna began to chuckle softly.
“He does know how to bargain does he not? He has the right sister, will you deny him his rights by our own laws?”
“He is not a pony,” Celestia protested. “He has no right to a trial under our laws.”
“Then will he be tried under his own laws?” Luna asked with a smirk.
“That’s not possible and you know it sister,” Celestia snapped.
“Then he is being tried under our laws, and has the right to a trial by combat.”
“Fine,” Celestia snapped. “You can chose the champion sister, and I beseech you to choose well. Do not make a mockery of our country.”
“I understand,” Luna nodded, before turning to one of the Thestrals. “Nocturne, Show my sister why my guard are the elite, not hers,” Luna chuckled softly, shooting a snide glance at Celestia, while ushering a scarred bat-pony into the makeshift ring that had been formed around me by the guards in the room. My chains suddenly fell away, surrounded by a silver aura, an identical one of which was surrounding Luna’s horn, and I gave her a curt nod.
Massaging feelings back into my wrists, I looked at the bat-pony in front of me. Slowly, he started to circle around me, and I did the same, keeping my eyes on him. Without warning, he lunged at me, taking me by surprise and bowling me over. He hit like a freight train, and landed on top of me, drawing a hoof back to strike out at my face. At the last moment, I moved my head, making his hoof impact with the floor and giving me the time I needed to push him off, allowing me to kick his legs out from underneath him, bringing him crashing down. Not giving him a moment’s respite, I lunged at him, grabbing his un-helmeted head and slamming my own into it, dazing him. Instinctively, I reached for my knife, groping around before remembering that it had been taken from me. In the moment I had been pre-occupied, the pinned guard had come to his senses enough to be able to smack me away with one of his leathery wings.
Rolling across the circle that had formed, I sprang to my feet, brining my fists up in front of my face and stared at the bat-pony as he got up. Once again we circled each other, before he launched himself at me. It was a good move, but it was already the same as his previous move, and it wasn’t too hard to counter it now, moving slightly to the side, before sticking both of my arms into his path, grabbing him by the throat as he flew past. The sudden change in momentum was enough to shock him, but coupled with the strain on his neck, he simply couldn’t take it, and collapsed to the floor again. Raising one fist, I slammed it into the stallions’ muzzle, being met with the sound of cracking bone. The stallions’ eyes rolled back in his head, as I let him fall, and stood up, looking at Luna and Celestia.
The room was deafly silent for ages, and I began to get very nervous, as some of the guards were beginning to tighten their grips on their weapons. Curling my fist into balls, I prepared for which ever guard was going to try something first. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the silence was broken by a laugh from Luna.
“Well, if our champion is going to lose, then it is at least in an impressive manner,” she chuckled, before looking at the two unicorns beside her. “Please take Nocturne to the infirmary, and bring back Major Wood’s compatriot.”
“Luna, we did not agree on allowing him to see him,” Celestia pointed out, raising a wing and stopping the two purple armoured guards. “He asked for details, and he shall have details.”
“He fought well sister, allow him this,” Luna shot back, turning to her guards. “Go.”
They nodded, quickly walking towards me. As they approached, I raised my hands up, causing them to flinch back, their swords being grasped in their horns grip.
“Well if you don’t want to put the chains back on, I won’t complain,” I smiled slightly, before I felt the chains roughly snap back into place, Celestia’s horn lighting up. “Thanks, your highness.”
The guards quickly brushed past me, lifting the groaning form of Nocturne behind them and disappearing out of the room, while I stared straight at Celestia.
“If thou really does have royalty, you would know that it is not correct to look straight at them,” Celestia said in a terse tone.
“On my world, it is only the monarch of your own country that you don’t look in the eye, your highness,” I retorted.
“If we could keep things civil,” Luna suggested.
“Civil, your highness?” I asked, before smirking. “When my Colour Sergeant arrives, that may be difficult.”
“What do you…” Luna began.
“Get off me! I will fucking gut you! I will rip of your head and shove it down your throat!” Screamed Jenkins, as he was dragged through the door.
Like me, Jenkins had been stripped of his possessions, clad only in his trousers. Unlike me however, he had been treated for his injures, his entire midriff wrapped in bandages, with only a few spots of red showing through. I did smile at the rest of his predicament however. Like me, his ankles were chained together, hobbling him and making running impossible. However, unlike me, his wrists had been chained directly to a belt he was now wearing, making moving his arms further than his waist.
“This one is…difficult,” Scowled one of the unicorns that had gone to collect Jenkins.
“Explain,” Celestia ordered.
“He didn’t take kindly to being ordered about. He managed to get a few blows in before his injuries allowed us to get his chains attached to the belt,” the unicorn holding the chain said, rubbing a bruise that was forming on his chin.
“Jenkins, report,” I ordered, turning to look at him.
“I’m being treated like an animal by animals, how’s that?” Jenkins snarled, glaring at Celestia and Luna. “Are those two in charge?”
“Yes, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” I nodded. “I’ll bring you up to speed later, right now I’d suggest you go back to the hospital and recover. Now please, don’t hurt the ponies, we are sort of outnumbered, and the last thing I need is you to rip your wounds open and die of an infection.”
“But…”
“Colour Sergeant, this is order,” I cut him off. “And Jenkins, say sorry to the guard you punched.”
“You want me to apologise?” he deadpanned.
“That’s right,” I nodded.
“To a talking unicorn?” he added, raising an eyebrow.
“You’ve got it,” I smirked.
“Fine,” he grunted, before turning to the unicorn he’d punched. “I’m sorry that you were bad at your job and let an injured prisoner punch you.”
“That’s about all you’ll get,” I sighed, before watching as Jenkins was dragged away while an Earth Pony approached me.
“His wounds were extensive, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. We managed to remove some sort of metal from his stomach and stitched the wounds, and we’ve done what we can to stabilise him. Of course, if he keeps fighting with guards, he may do more than split his stitches,” the pony, who I assumed was a doctor, spewed out, looking me over. “I assume that you two are both the same sub-species?”
“Bit personal there?” I snorted. “Yes doc, we’re both humans, there aren’t sub-species. Black, white, male, female, we’re all the same.”
“Thank you,” he nodded, before turning to Celestia and Luna. “With your permission princesses, I would appreciate if he could be brought to the hospital so I can get some accurate medical data on his species.”
“Thank you doctor, depending on how the trial goes, he will be brought to you,” Luna nodded.
“Thank you princess,” the doctor nodded, before trotting out of the room.
“We have fulfilled our side of the bargain Major,” Celestia scowled at me, placing an awful lot of emphasis on the last word. “Now, you will answer our questions.”
“Of course, your highness,” I nodded. “Are we going somewhere more private?”
“Why?” Luna asked, narrowing her eyes.
“This amount of ponies are going to hear information I assume will be classified?” I asked, looking around. “Doesn’t sound like a good way to keep state secrets your highness.”
“Thou has a point,” Luna nodded, looking at Celestia. “We could move this to somewhere more secluded from the eyes of the nobles.”
“Very well. You three, bring him with us.” Celestia snapped, looking at the guards who were assigned to me, before turning to the assembled ponies and raising her voice to the deafening pitch she had used when she had first spoken. “THIS SESSION IS DISMISSED. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR ASSIGNED TASKS OR YOUR OWN CITY.”
With that, Celestia rose from her throne and headed down the central isle with Luna and the eight guards following them closely. I quickly followed behind them with my three guards, ignoring the hushed whispers from the noble ponies as I was escorted out of the room.
I kept pace behind Celestia and Luna as the two Alicorns led me down one of the many corridors of whatever building we were in. I had been mentally trying to map it out in my head, as well as trying to work out what sort of building it was, both of which I was struggling to do. Eventually however we reached our destination, and after Celestia and Luna had passed by the guards and assured them that I was under their watch, I was admitted inside what I could only describe as some bizarre fusion of steam-punk science and the potions classroom from Harry Potter.
“Celestia! So good to see you again,” a voice came from somewhere within the room, the sound bouncing off the various vials and bottles. “And Luna as well, always a pleasure.”
I turned my head to the side to glance at Luna, who simply smirked, before turning back to look for the source of the voice, before jumping backwards and letting out a cry of shock as a pony who had not been there before stared intently at me, a very disconcerting grin on his face.
“Oh what have you brought me today?” he asked, his horn lighting up, and I suddenly found my right arm pulled up and out from my body as the pony looked closer, observing my whole body, rambling all the time. “A new Minotaur? Possible but unlikely, too small and no hair or horns. A Diamond Dog? Also unlikely, but more plausible. Right size, again no hair. Possible hairless offshoot. Maybe ancestors were exposed to some form of radiation. He doesn’t match any species I know, which is odd as I know all documented species on this planet. Two conclusions, mutant of a species or you’re a species from some other planet.”
“Should I be worried about him more than I’m worried about you two?” I asked, my voice unsure as I glanced at Luna again, the dark blue Alicorn still smirking.
“Oh and it talks too! How wonderful,” the unicorn continued, grabbing my head with his forehooves and pulling me down to his eye level. “And you understand me? Even better. Oh this will be good. Just think Celestia, a new species, so much we can learn from,” he paused as sudden realisation dawned on his face, and he suddenly dashed off, before reappearing a split second later with my rifle. “This?! This is yours yes?!”
“Yes,” I nodded slowly, my head still spinning from the sudden unexpected movement.
“Fascinating. This technology is amazing. Brilliant. Stupendous. Fantas…” the unicorn began, before Celestia cleared her throat.
“Thank you Starswirl, but if you could perhaps pause for breath once in a while, this may be a more productive session.”
“Ah, yes. Sorry about that,” Starswirl chuckled in embarrassment, taking a deep breath, before placing the rifle back on the table he had picked it up from, before looking back at me and smiling. “My apologies. Starswirl the Bearded. Who might you be?”
“Major Matthew Wood of the Royal Marine Commandos at your service. And to put your mind at rest I’m a human, not a Minotaur or whatever a Diamond Dog is.” Now that he had stopped bouncing around the room, I got a good look at the wizened unicorn, resisting the urge to sneeze as I wiped some of his white beard hair out of my nose.
“At my service? How wonderful,” Starswirl turned to Celestia. “This human, he was the one you found after the operation wasn’t it?”
“That is supposed to classified information,” Celestia pointed out.
“Celestia darling, look who you’re talking to,” Starswirl gently patted her head. “Do I really look like a classified sort of Stallion?”
Celestia groaned, before shaking her head. “No, I’m sorry. If thou would refrain from talking about classified information in front of potential risks to Equestria though, it would be much appreciated.”
“You can talk normally around me Celestia,” Starswirl reminded her, before looking back at me. “I must say, you are an interesting specimen, but you don’t strike me as a warrior. You remind me of a tiny Minotaur without the natural weapons.”
“Ponies don’t strike me as warriors either, and yet you still have an army,” I countered.
“Touché,” Starswirl nodded. “I would assume that was why you were carrying a knife?”
“A bit more than that, but yes,” I nodded, turning to Celestia. “I said I would answer your questions, and I will, within reason. You have classified information, so do I. I’ll share everything I can.”
“You will answer the questions we ask you,” Celestia shot back.
“Within reason,” I nodded pointedly.
“I will take it from here sister,” Luna stepped forward. First off. What was thou purpose in sneaking into our camp in the jungle?”
“I was searching for a place to shelter, that’s it,” I answered quickly.
“And thou just happened to stumble into our forward outpost?” Celestia asked, raising an eyebrow sceptically.
“Yes as a matter of fact. If I had been meaning to spy on or attack your forces, I wouldn’t have revealed myself quite so easily.” I shot back. “Your forward outpost was set up inside a building, and from what I’d seen of the jungle it was the only shelter around, so yes, it was an accident.
“Tis true sister, the temple did offer respite from my encroaching night,” Luna looked at Celestia. “And considering the fact that he did reveal himself, rather than getting found, I am inclined to believe that his stumbling across us was purely an accident. He could have just as easily fallen into the talons or hands of our enemies.”
“Very well,” Celestia shook her head, before looking at Starswirl. “Starswirl, you can bring the items we confiscated out.”
Darting off, Starswirl quickly returned, bearing with him everything that Jenkins and I had been carrying at the time of our capture, as well as a large table which he placed before me, before laying the items down and sliding my knife forward.
“Clearly this is a knife, sharp, the blade is steel with trace elements of carbon within. It’s very fine compared to our weapons, easily equal of your own weapon Luna, and yours Celestia,” Starswirl held the knife, before pushing it aside and moving over our DPM pattern clothing. “And these are?”
“Camouflage clothing,” I replied simply. “They break up the silhouette of a body, and make it slightly harder to pick out in a jungle environment, and when combined with this,” I pointed at the two tubs of camo-cream, “can make someone very very hard to see unless they want to be seen.”
“Oh, I assumed that was some form of makeup. Hate being wrong,” Starswirl sighed as he placed the clothes and the camo-cream to one side with the knives. “I had theories about these items, I can’t even begin to speculate what these next one are as you wouldn’t allow me to experiment on them Celestia.”
“I wanted to wait until we talked to their owner,” Celestia replied.
“Fine, you’re the one who controls the sun, I won’t argue.”
“That would make a first,” Luna smirked.
“Yes, it would wouldn’t it,” Starswirl mused, before picking up another a smoke grenade and a frag grenade. “So then Matthew, what are these?”
“They’re grenades, other than that I’m not sure I should say.”
“Why?” Celestia glared at me.
“It’s classified,” I retorted, trying to keep a straight face before smirking. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”
“Of course,” Celestia nodded with an ominous smile. “Of course our medical facilities are for ponies only.”
She left her final comment open, the thinly veiled threat hanging in the air, before I finally sighed and shook my head. “No Celestia. Just, no.”
“What, are, they?” Celestia enunciated slowly.
“Fine. The one on the left is a standard issue smoke grenade, I can’t remember the designation number so I can’t give you that. It’s designed to cover an area in smoke to mask movement in combat. It can also be used for a signal flare in a real pinch, but that’s beside the point. The other one is an HG85 L109 fragmentation grenade. It’s Swedish made, weighs in at four hundred and fifty six grams and has a diameter of sixty five millimetres. Inside is one hundred and fifty five grams of Trinitrotoluene or TNT explosive. After the pin is pulled there is a five second fuse, and when it blows can be lethal up to ten meters to unarmoured targets and is almost guaranteed to kill any organic target at five meters.”
“See, was that so hard?” Celestia asked.
“Sister, perhaps in the interest of ensuring that the information that is gained is accurate, it would be wise to not insult him at every single turn,” Luna sighed.
“I agree with Luna in this situation,” Starswirl nodded, looking at Celestia.
“Very well,” Celestia finally responded, still glaring at me, but not saying anything else.
“Thank you sister,” Luna smiled, before nodding to Starswirl.
“Right, next item,” Starswirl began, picking up my rifle. “And this? I can’t even begin to hazard a guess as to what this device is. All I can say is…”
Starswirl turned the rifle over in his magical field, before looking down the barrel. I could see the safety was off, and instinct dug in. Diving forward, I pushed Starswirl away with one hand while pulling the rifle away from his head with the other, the guards who were holding taken aback by my sudden movement.
Everyone seemed to be shocked, before I felt myself being pitched from my feet, slamming into the room as Celestia disappeared from where she was standing, before reappearing directly on top of me, a look of rage on her face.
“HOW DARE YOU!” she roared, using the same voice that she had used to address the crowd in the throne room and causing me to grab my ears in pain, my head ringing as I saw Celestia mouthing something over me. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but judging by her threatening glare and the increasingly glow around her horn, I would guess that whatever she was saying was not going to be good for my health.
My vision was suddenly cut off as Luna leaped in front of Celestia, flaring her wings and rearing up on her hind legs. My hearing was slowly starting to return by this point, and I made out snippets of their conversation.
“…don’t think…”
“…attacked Starswirl!”
“…sure?”
“Yes I’m sure,” Luna nodded, picking up the rifle and holding it away from her. “I believe this is some sort of weapon. Maybe Starswirl was risking activating it?”
“So you think this beast was trying to save Starswirl?” Celestia scoffed. “Why would it do that?”
“Because I don’t want to see someone blow their own brains out,” I grunted, glaring at Celestia. “It’s not a pretty sight, your highness.”
“If you really believe that he wanted to save Starswirl, then you deal with him,” Celestia snapped, before turning and walking towards the door, her hooves making soft clopping sounds on the floor as her horn lit up, the chains sliding off my wrists. “There are things that need my attention sister. You can deal with this creature how you see fit, I doubt the guards will be needed, so they can be elsewhere.”
Celestia disappeared from view, followed softly by the guards that had been holding my chains, and I slowly got to my feet, still resting a hand against my right ear as my head kept ringing. “Thank you Princess, I think that may…”
For the second time in as many minutes I was thrown against a wall, stars bursting into life in my eyes as I found myself held in place, a very angry Luna glaring at me. I could feel something tightening around my neck, but was unable to move to do anything about it.
“What did you do?” she asked, barely containing her anger.
“I thought you knew,” I grunted back, focusing on her even as I became shorter on breath. “Starswirl was pointing a very dangerous and unsafe weapon at his head.”
“Explain,” Luna demanded.
“C…8…carbine,” I struggled, wheezing slightly.
“Luna!” Starswirl snapped, his own horn lighting up, and I felt the grip around my throat lighten. “For Faust’s sake girl, have you learned nothing over the years of controlling your temper? You and your sister are both the same, you always have been.”
“I,” Luna began with a snarl, before taking a deep breath and nodding, her demeanour becoming less aggressive as she turned back to me, her magic subsiding. “I am…sorry for my outburst, and that of my sister.”
“I understand,” I grunted, massaging my head and neck. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
“My question still stands though,” Luna added. “Explain what you meant.
“Starswirl was pointing a very powerful weapon at his head at point blank range. The C8 carbine fires five five six rounds from a thirty round magazine. It’s not especially powerful on my world, but I would hazard a guess that it’s more powerful than most things you have here. At that range if it had fired, it would his brains out the back of his skull, and that’s not a nice sight.”
“Speaking from experience?” Starswirl asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve seen it enough times,” I nodded.
“I still don’t I understand what you are saying,” Luna shook her head. “What does this weapon do?”
“Umm, layman’s terms then. Does your kind have crossbows?” I waited for Luna to nod before continuing. “Well think of it like a more up to date crossbow. Instead of tension it uses gunpowder, and instead of a bolt it uses a bullet, both put together in an easy to load cartridge. You pull the trigger, the gunpowder explodes and the bullet is propelled forward.”
“It’s like our cannons?” Starswirl piped up, realisation dawning on his face.
“Well first firearms were big cannons yes,” I nodded. “You have gunpowder weapons?”
“I’ve got no idea what gunpowder is,” Starswirl shook his head. “Our cannons use specially empowered crystals that can create a massive amount of hot air in a fraction of a second, which propels a shot forward.”
“Well it sounds like the same principle, but a crystal? As in a diamond?”
“Well sometimes, although I personally find that emeralds are more effective at holding a charge indefinitely,” Starswirl nodded.
“Are you sure we should be giving this information to him?” Luna asked.
“Luna, grownups are talking,” Starswirl smiled, shushing her.
“So let me get this straight, you use diamonds and emeralds in your weapons?” I asked in disbelief. “Really?”
“Yes,” Starswirl nodded slowly. “Why are you so confused about this? The propulsion is different, but the method is the same, although the size of your weapon is, it’s just impossible.”
“Clearly not,” I shook my head. “No I understand the idea of your cannons, and I’d be happy to talk about it at length at some point in the future, but what I want to know about is the fact that you have enough precious gems that you can use them in weapons.”
“Enough? Hardly,” Starswirl sighed. “We always search for more, we can’t mine the number we need to both supply our army and experiment on.”
“You supply your entire army with them?!”
“Matthew, how many gems does your country have?” Starswirl asked slowly, considering his words carefully.
“No idea the numbers, all I know is I’ve only seen a few real ones up close, mostly on my mum’s rings when she was alive.”
“I’m sorry for your lose,” Starswirl nodded, before lighting his horn and opening a draw, floating out what I assumed were a few pieces of coloured art. When I realised I was wrong, my jaw hit the floor and my eyes glued themselves to the two rubies and the emerald that were floating in front of me.
“Matthew?” Luna asked, waving a hoof in front of my vacant staring face.
“These…those…” I began, struggling to find my words. “They’re real?”
“As real as they come,” Starswirl nodded. “I assume by your reaction that nothing your world is like this?”
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “Third world countries would fight wars those three stones. I’ve never seen anything like them. They’re big though, most of them are smaller right?”
“These are small ones,” Starswirl shook his head. “I’ve personally seen ones that are bigger than these by, ten? Twenty times?”
My eye twitched as I slowly reached forward, touching the gem and chuckling. “Now I know I must be dreaming. One stone that’s small, and it’s probably worth more than I’ve made in my entire life.”
“If we could more on Matthew?” Luna asked with a small smile.
“Ummm, yeah, sure,” I nodded, tearing my eyes away from the gems and looking at the last few items Starswirl was showing me. “Those are SA80 assault rifles, both broken but fire the same sized round as my carbine, and the big bastard is a General Purpose Machine Gun, fires much bigger seven point six two rounds, which are a lot heavier and more damaging. Finally you have Osprey Body armour, made of a Kevlar weave and I think it’s some sort of ceramic.”
“You use pottery in your armour?” Starswirl asked in surprise, twirling the armour over in his magic.
“Hey it’s beats me, I just wear the stuff. No one ever accused me of being smart.”
“I’m sure,” Luna nodded, gesturing that Starswirl should put the items down, only for the aged unicorn to pick one last thing up and show it to me.
“Last item, this was in one of your pockets in a strange, seemingly waterproof, package. Any reason this was protected more than your other equipment?”
“Because it’s my iPod,” I grinned, taking hold of the small black box and pressing the home button. The screen was cracked, but it still flared into life, allowing me to see the tiny amount of battery life that remained within.
“And what is an… iPod?” Starswirl asked.
“This,” I smiled again, tapping the screen a few more times, before the speakers finally flared into life.
Youtube Video
Just before the end of the song the iPod screen went dark and the speakers went silent. Grimacing, I tried pressing the power button again, only for the annoying power dead icon to flash on the screen.
“What was that?” Luna asked softly, looking at the iPod.
“That princess was Crush 40’s I am All of Me,” I sighed, before putting the iPod down on the table. “And now it’s out of power. Just great.”
“That was…music from your world I take it?” Starswirl asked, to which I nodded.
“I’m guessing by your tone you don’t really approve,” I chuckled.
“No no no no, it’s… nice?” Starswirl offered, before I laughed at his hasty retreat.
“It was different,” Luna nodded, before looking at Starswirl. “That was the last of the items yes?”
“That I didn’t know about yes,” Starswirl nodded. “I could read the other ones, some food and some ‘glow-sticks’ which I assume are like our own glow-stones.”
“Probably,” I nodded.
“Very well,” Luna nodded, before looking straight at me. “There is but one question that remains is there not? What to do with you? I know what my sister would have me do, but I do not believe throwing you in prison would be advantageous to either party.”
“And I’d rather stay out of prison, if it’s all the same to you,” I chimed in.
“I’m sure,” Luna looked at Starswirl. “Starswirl, you know I value your opinion. What do you make of the Major?”
“He seems like a soldier to me,” Starswirl began, glancing between me and the weapons. “And his species does seem to have more technological prowess when it comes to warfare if these weapons are anything to go by. Whether that means that they have had to adapt to defend themselves from an outside aggressor or if they are the aggressors themselves is up in the air.”
“Unfortunately it was usually a bit of both,” I sighed. “Humans aren’t exactly the most peaceful of races, no matter what people say. In the last one hundred and fifty years on my planet there were a lot of deaths from war, tens of millions.”
“Millions?” Luna asked with a cough. “Just in war? Your planet has the population to support that toll of death?”
“Yeah, last I checked there was a population of nine billion on earth,” I nodded. “I think there’s a couple of dozen living on the International Space Station, and I believe there was at least talk of a colony on Mars.”
“Your species achieved space flight?” Luna asked in surprise.
“Yeah, not like major sci-fi colonisation space flight, but we’ve got to the moon and to our nearest planet before.”
“Incredible,” Luna breathed softly. “You humans sound like an interesting people. Are you and Alex…”
“Jenkins,” I cut in. “He dislikes the name Alex.”
“Are you and Jenkins a-typical for your world?” Luna finished.
“There’s no such thing as a typical human,” I shook my head. “Think of it this way. You ponies all have different coloured coats and manes, you’re diverse in that way. Humans are just as diverse in thought. Jenkins and I are completely different people for instance. I doubt he would have been as forthcoming information.”
“Then without trying to sound malicious, I am glad that it was you who was well enough to talk to my sister and I rather than Jenkins.”
“Yeah, well I wish we could both have talked to you,” I sighed. “Any chance I can see him again?”
“It may be possible, but only after we have come to a consensus about what to do with both you and Jenkins,” Luna nodded. “My sister seems to have washed her hooves of the matter, so that makes this decision up to me.”
“What are you thinking Luna?” Starswirl asked, moving up beside the dark alicorn.
“That we’ve been at war for far too long, and none of our projects are seeming to find an answer to how to break our enemy lines.”
Luna sighed as she trotted over to a window in the far corner of the room, staring out into the world beyond. I followed her along with Starswirl, and got my first proper look at the buildings outside. It was instantly clear that we were in some sort of military camp, soldiers trotting to and fro outside of the window. Most of them seemed to be clutching spears awkwardly in their forehooves, or wielding swords in the mouths, and once again I had the sudden thought that it was the most incredibly inefficient way for the ponies to hold the weapons. Another thought tugged at my mind however, and I turned to look at Luna.
“You said you’d been at war for a long time Princess. How long is long?”
“First contact officially started on February the 9th, twenty three years after Discord was defeated, but we believe that the aggressor that destroyed our fleet the day before was also the Griffons.” Luna didn’t look away from the window, and I made a mental note to ask for a few books at some point so I could learn more about this world if getting home was going to be difficult, which I assumed it was.
“And what year is it now?”
“Thirty Six AD,” Luna sighed.
“Thirteen years of war?” I asked in slight shock. “Fuck me, that’s a long time.”
“Please watch your mouth Matthew,” Starswirl cut in, shaking his head. “I will never understand why the young have to add in swear words for no reason.”
“To add emphasis to something Starswirl,” I replied, before looking at Luna again. “You’ve been at war with the Griffons and the Minotaur’s for thirteen years?”
“No,” Luna shook her head. “We have been at war with the Griffons for thirteen years. The Minotaur’s were our allies until six years ago, now they are not, and we are on the back hoof again.”
“Damn,” I whispered softly, staring back out of the window.
“Exactly,” Luna nodded. “Which brings us onto yet another point. We ponies do not know how to fight, other than what we have learned in the fires of this war, our first war. Our enemies have fought for countless decades and they are much more suited to combat than we are.”
“I’m sensing that the point is coming soon.”
“Yes, and the point is this. Thou are a soldier, and by your own admission thou are a good one. The weapons thou wields are better than ours, your mentality seems to be more suited to war than the majority of the army, and what’s more, you seem to care.”
“Care? About who?”
“Everypony, or what do you say? Everyone?” Luna smiled. “You could have been more violent, less helpful, whatever, but thou wasn’t. I believe you care about the wellbeing of others, even if they are different.”
“Being racist doesn’t help anyone,” I shrugged. “Not sure how it applies to ponies as opposed to different humans, but experience has taught me that being an asshole for the sake of it doesn’t really help anyone. Back to your point though, what are you asking?”
“I want you to help us win this war,” Luna replied simply.
“I want to go back to my world, Jenkins will too,” I shook my head. “I can see that you’re struggling in this war, but I have my own wars to fight, and I am needed at home.”
“I understand, but know this, we don’t know how you were brought here,” Luna sighed. “We don’t know that, we will not be able to figure out how to reverse whatever process brought you here.”
“I heard that one pony, umm, Gauntlet? Grave? Greave?” I clicked my fingers as I tried to jog my memory, before nodding. “Yeah Greave. He said something about teleportation runes. They might have…”
“They’re an unproven theory of an experimental magic,” Starswirl cut in. “They mean nothing, just a soldier jumping at a rumour.”
“But they could…” I started again.
“They, don’t,” Starswirl insisted.
“Princess. What are they?” I turned back to Luna.
“I’m sorry Matthew, as Starswirl says, they are just a rumour in the troops, something that has begun to spread about the Minotaur’s.”
“Princess, promise me that they are nothing,” I took a small step forward.
“Matthew, stop,” Luna ordered, her tone turning icy. “You have my word that we know nothing to make this rumour any more than just that. We are working to see if there is any truth to it, but at the moment there is no proof that it is anything more than hearsay. If we do make any breakthroughs that may influence you and your compatriot getting home, you will know about it, but at the moment we do not know how to help you. This I swear on my word as a Princess of Equestria and the monarch of the Moon.”
I ground my teeth slightly, but nodded. I couldn’t really threaten Luna or Starswirl effectively, and I doubt it would really help me even if I did somehow manage to make an effective threat.
“Alright Princess, we’ll play it your way,” I nodded. “What is your plan?”
“You know how to fight wars, and you know how to kill. I want you as an advisor of sorts, your compatriot too when he is ready.”
“I can’t agree to that until I’ve seen Jenkins,” I shook my head. “I’m not the only one affected by this princess. Allow me to talk to him, and maybe we’ll have a deal.”
“If we don’t come to some sort of deal, I won’t be able to help you Matthew. But I can grant you audience with your compatriot. I believe for what I am asking of you, it is only fair.”
“Thank you Princess,” I nodded.
“Starswirl, I must leave now. Do not experiment on the equipment unless told to, and do not pick up things that could be dangerous without either Matthew or Jenkins present.”
“Of course,” Starswirl nodded, before extending a hoof towards me. “It has been a pleasure Matthew, meeting a new species is not something that happens every day. I hope we can talk again at some point. You never know, you may be able to learn something from me, and I from you.”
“I’d like that Starswirl, especially if I’m going to be stuck on a new world for a long time,” I nodded, taking the hoof, before following Luna out of the room, the door closing with a soft hiss behind of us.
The pair of us walked down the corridor side by side, the only sounds echoing around the corridor coming from my bare feet and Luna’s hooves. Eventually I broke the silence, asking a question that had been niggling away at my mind since meeting Starswirl.
“So, what’s the deal with Starswirl Princess?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well everyone else…”
“Everypony,” Luna corrected me.
“Everypony else has called you and your sister princess. He seems much more familiar with you.”
“He is familiar with us Matthew, considering the fact that he trained us in the higher magic’s after we rose to power,” Luna smiled as she reminisced. “He may also be the only pony in the world to be older than the two of us and wield as much magical power.”
“So he was your teacher then?” I summarised. “Makes sense, guy like him. Seems like a cross between Merlin and Mordin Solus to me, perfect teacher.”
“Merlin? Mordin?” Luna asked.
“Fictional characters from my world,” I replied, before stopping beside Luna as we came to a door with an inscribed red cross, instantly identifying it as a hospital. I smiled slightly as I saw that even across worlds, the symbol for doctors and hospitals stayed almost identical. “Am I allowed in?”
“Your associate has been given a separate room due to quarantine reasons and to avoid a panic,” Luna informed me. “I will allow you ten minutes to talk to him alone, please do not waste this chance Matthew. I am afraid if you make a mistake here, my sister will not accept my decision to allow you to help us.”
“I only want to talk to him and tell him about the situation princess, nothing more. You have my word as an officer.”
Luna nodded, before opening the door and quickly ushering me inside, before opening a second door at the side of the room, quickly closing it behind me. Turning away from the door, I walked towards the bed that Jenkins was lying on.
“Nice of you to drop by,” Jenkins muttered softly, not getting up from where he was lying.
“Sorry, other matters ran away with me,” I apologised, before pointing at the end of the bed. “D’you mind?”
“Not at all.”
Nodding I sat on the bed, looking over Jenkins. Apart from the few cuts on his face, he looked fine, yet underneath the covers were clearly going to be bandages hiding his main wound. At the moment though he seemed to be well enough to talk and recovering, which was the main thing.
“So, why the long face?” Jenkins asked finally.
“Really?” I deadpanned, looking down at him. “You’re really asking me that question in that way here?”
“Err, yeah?” He asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Long face. On a world populated by horses and ponies?”
“Oh god,” He moaned, bringing a hand up to cover his face. “I am a terrible terrible person.”
“I know,” I chuckled, patting his shoulder.
“Still, you owe me an explanation. What’s happening?”
Five minutes later I had brought Jenkins up to speed with recent events, giving him the cut down version of the species that inhabited this world, the ongoing war, our chances of getting home and Luna’s offer. Throughout it all Jenkins stayed quiet and impassive, but when I finally finished he groaned, before sitting up and looking at me.
“So we can’t get home?” he clarified.
“Luna and Starswirl both say they have no idea how we got here. I think they’re lying, but I can’t make them budge. Maybe they know, maybe they don’t, but I can’t force them to tell me anything.”
“And yet you want to put us in bed with them?” Jenkins asked.
“Well unless you like rotting in a cell, I would say that taking Luna up on her offer is the only option left open to us,” I sighed. “Luna seems to be more in charge of military matters, Celestia seems more like she’s in overall command and she doesn’t like me. If we’re not in the military, I would say that Celestia would be all over us and we’d be incarcerated for various reasons for god knows how long.
Jenkins growled, supporting his bandaged stomach with his right hand, while grabbing my arm with his left. “Do it then, agree to what she wants. But when we can go home, we leave instantly. We don’t wait out the war. We have our own battle to fight, and they’re not here. And I want to keep my rank, regardless of who I’m fighting for. Ok?”
“Don’t worry Jenkins, I know what colour my blood is,” I nodded, pushing his hand off me and slowly helping him to lie back down on the bed before getting to my feet again. “Rest up, stop attacking ponies and listen to the doctors ok? Oh, and don’t take too long to get better, or I may have to think about replacing you.”
“As if,” Jenkins scoffed. “You know that without me everything falls apart.”
Chuckling to myself I opened the door once again, slipping out of the room and walking towards Luna once more.
“You’ve come to a consensus?” she asked as she led me out of the hospital and back in the direction we had come from.
“We have your highness,” I nodded. “Jenkins and I will help you in your war, but we want to keep our old ranks. Do we have a deal?”
“Fine,” Luna nodded. “You will be my military advisor, your compatriot is a Colour Sergeant yes?”
“He is indeed,” I confirmed.
“Very well, he will also be instated as a military advisor once he is able. The pair of you will act under my orders and the orders of the superiors you are assigned to.”
“That’s fine. I’d like to learn a bit more about this world before I do anything though if possible.”
“Unfortunately I don’t think it will be able to be,” Luna shook her head. “There is a planned offensive that is going to be taking place very soon, and I would like you accompanying it.”
As we talked we made our way back towards Starswirl’s laboratory, entering the room and quickly seeing the unicorn in the corner. Nodding to the pair of us, Starswirl turned back to face the experiment he was working on, carefully pouring a bit of liquid into a box, before covering the hole with a heavy duty piece of metal.
“Working on something interesting Starswirl?” Luna asked, walking over.
“Yeah,” he nodded, before opening the box and pulling out a sandwich, proceeding to take a huge bite out of it. “Lunch.”
Luna shook her head in exasperation, before turning back to look at me. “The Major has decided to help us. For that he needs his gear back, and you are not going to be able to take the other pieces apart, as Colour Sergeant Jenkins has also offered to help us.”
“But…alien technology,” Starswirl pouted, looking longingly at the table as I walked towards it, slipping my shirt on, before picking up my rifle and quickly unloading it, making sure to pick up the round that came out of the breech and placing it back in the magazine.
“Sorry Starswirl, maybe next time,” Luna apologised.
“Tell you what,” I cut in, pulling my body armour on and licking up my helmet, repacking my webbing and assault vest as I spoke. “The two SA80s are broken so they’re not much use to Jenkins or I. You can keep those and look over them, but you can’t keep any ammunition. We need it.”
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Starswirl beamed, rushing towards the table and picking up the two weapons I had indicated.
“No problem,” I chuckled softly. “Do you want me to show you how to take them apart?”
“No, I’m going to run tests on them,” he shook his head, his beard almost hitting me in the face. “I’m a smart unicorn, I can figure it out.”
Nodding, I turned back to Luna, checking over the last of my equipment. “I’m ready, just tell me when and where to go.”
“Thank you Major,” Luna smiled. “Follow me.”
I began to follow her, before remembering something and turning back to Starswirl, taking my iPod out of my pocket and tossing it to the Unicorn, who deftly caught it in his magic field.
“It’s out of battery,” I explained as he looked at me quizzically. “If you can figure out anyway to charge it again, I’ll be in your debt.”
“I’ll do my best,” Starswirl nodded, putting the iPod down and picking up one of the broken rifles, inspecting the bent barrel closely, and being careful to keep the end of it away from him this time.
“Are you fit?” Luna asked as I closed the door.
“Exceedingly, thanks for asking your highness,” I nodded with a slight smirk.
“A joke?” she asked hesitantly.
“Of sorts,” I nodded.
“Odd,” she mused, before trotting down the corridor. “Follow me, I’ll take you to the commanders of the offensive.”
“Major Wood, allow me to introduce you to Lieutenant-Colonel Swift Heart of the Hoofington Line Regiments, seventh regiment. Under his command is Lieutenant-Colonel Forestia, second regiment of the Everfree Hussars and Brigadier Drake, first brigade third regiment of the Highlanders,” Luna announced as she walked into the command tent, looking around the now bowing ponies in the room.
“Your highness,” Swift Heart looked up at Luna. “You honour us with your presence. And who, and what, is that with you?”
“As I said, this is Major Matthew Wood,” Luna turned to face me. “He is a human, a newly discovered race with as of this moment consists of only two members. He is currently acting as a military advisor to me personally, and I am seconding him to your task force. Find him a place and factor him into your battle plan.”
“Is this open to discussion princess?” Brigadier Drake asked, shooting a glance at me.
“It is not,” Luna shook her head. “Major Wood is acting as my agent, and should be afforded the respect both that and his rank deserves. Now, if there are no more questions, I must take my leave, as I am needed elsewhere. Do not disappoint me Major, my sister would not be best pleased if you turned into a liability rather than an asset.”
“It will be done, your highness,” Swift Heart nodded, watching as Luna walked back outside, before he turned to me.
As he began to look over me, I returned the favour, taking in his features, as well as the others in the command tent. Swift Heart was a Pegasus with a black coat and a short brown mane and tail, while the mark on his ass was a picture of a dark red heart. Next was Forestia, a gleaming white unicorn with a flowing purple mane and a winged gem on her flank, and finally there was Drake, a huge red earth pony, and the only one in the room wearing full armour, which covered up his mark. I was about to ask what they actually were, before Swift Heart beat me to the punch.
“So, a couple of days before a major offensive, High General Luna presents me with a new species to act as a ‘military advisor’? I’m not sure if I should be flattered that she believes our objectives important enough to warrant help, or insulted that she believes we need the help.”
“I believe it should simply be taken as a sign that you objective must be completed sir,” I replied, standing at attention before Swift Heart.
“Perhaps,” Swift Heart nodded, sitting back down on the stool that he’d been on before Luna and I had arrived. “She called you a Major? I assume you were part of the military back from wherever you came from?”
“Yes sir,” I nodded curtly. “Is the rank of Major is similar to the ranks you have.”
“A Major is in charge of a Battalion, five hundred ponies,” Forestia spoke in a soft, smoothing tone.
“I don’t have a Battalion to spare though,” Swift Heart continued. “Forestia? Do you have a Battalion in need of a commander?”
“No,” she shook her head, before turning to Drake. “But if I remember correctly, one of your own commanders was killed recently.”
“Aye, but ah don’t think it’s fair that I have to let some new guy lead half of me task force,” Drake shot back. “Even if Luna…”
“High General Luna,” Swift Heart cut in.
“Demanded that he had a place in the army,” Drake finished. “She did not say that he had to have an entire bloody Battalion, and I’m not relinquishing command of the Highlanders to him.” He turned to me at this point. “This isn’t meant as an insult to you,”
“Sure doesn’t seem that way,” I muttered as he continued.
“I just can’t let somepony take command of my ponies, especially if you’re not a pony.”
“I guess I can see your point,” I sighed. “I’ll help in whichever way you see fit Lieutenant-Colonel.”
“I can’t give you anything tangible to command, nor do I overly want to give over troops to somepony on the merit of their word alone, but High General Luna has ordered me to do so, so I am left with few options,” Swift Heart gestured for me to come to the table as he turned back to face the other two commanders. “We have a few days before we will reach our objective, even with a quick march. We’ll use the time to bring you up to speed. Maybe I will be able to figure out where to incorporate you into our plans by then.”
“Alright, that’s a good enough plan,” I nodded. “To be honest, I kind of thought that integrating with ponies in the military might be slightly harder than this.”
“I won’t say I’m best pleased with the appointment, but orders are orders,” Swift Heart replied simply, before drawing my eye to the map. “Our objective is twofold. The first is to force a breach in the Griffon-Minotaur defensive line to the north of Dodge Junction, with the eventual goal of laying siege to the Griffon-held city of Harrongraäd. From there we will have a better staging point for any naval actions in the future. Our second objective is to draw opposing forces away from the Western Front, opening up possibilities to force breeches elsewhere in the line.”
“So at the bottom line, we’re a diversion?” I double checked.
“It’s a rash way of thinking about it, but I guess that it is one way of looking at it,” Swift Heart nodded. “Regardless, these are my orders, and I will use every asset in my hoof to ensure that we succeed.”
“What’s our first target?” Drake asked, tilting his head to get a better view of the map on the table.
“These,” Swift Heart placed a hoof on the map, pointing at a series of small dark dots on the main road towards Harrongraäd. “In the years of Griffon occupation, these thoughts have been springing up to defend bottlenecks such as this. The Minotaur’s defecting has only bolstered their defensive capability. I currently have two wings of Cloudsdale Rangers flying recognisance over the fortresses, and while progress is slow due to heavy Griffon aerial resistance, they have given me an accurate report on the first fortress in the defensive system. Manned solely by Griffons, we should be able to take it back if we act now while surprise is still on our side.”
“And your sure surprise is still on our side?” I checked, scanning the map and folding my arms.
“I am,” Swift Heart nodded. “Is there a problem?”
“Not as such,” I sighed, before pointing at the two nearest dots to the fort Swift Heart had been looking at. “It’s just that these two forts are close enough to launch a counter attack very quickly, and we’ll have to be ready to fend them off almost as soon as we’ve taken the first fort. If we take more casualties than expected or have to heavily damage the walls of the fort, defending the area could become much more problematic. Not to mention that we’ll be forcing a very precarious breech in the enemy lines and risk having our supply lines cut at any moment.”
“I understand your concerns, and they are all valid ones, but it is the only target left open to us,” Swift Heart reached for a crested helmet with a wing as he spoke, tucking it under the joint. “We have artillery and Pegasi at our disposal, and Faust willing, we should be able to take this fort with minimal bloodshed.”
“I wish you hadn’t said that, never a good omen before battle,” Drake scowled, donning his own helmet and looking at Swift Heart. “My Highlanders will lead the Van.”
“Is that a question or a statement?” a thin, icy smile spread across Forestia’s muzzle.
“A fact,” Drake shot back, before turning and trotting out of the command tent.
“Lovely guy,” I chuckled, watching him go, before turning back to Swift Heart and Forestia. “I do share his sentiments though, I’d like to be in the Vanguard of this attack.”
“I’m not sure that allowing the personal representative of High General Luna to participate in the Vanguard is the best idea,” Forestia shook her head.
“Not to toot my own ho…um…blow my own trumpet, but my weapons are better than yours, my armour is probably better than yours, although I wouldn’t swear by that one, and most importantly, I’m an unknown to the enemy. Could be enough of a shock tip the scales in our favour don’t you think?”
“He has a point,” Swift Heart looked at Forestia, who nodded after a few seconds of thought. “Very well then, go and report to Brigadier Drake, I’m placing you directly under his command. I doubt he’s going to give over a large command to you, but take what you can get. We need to win this battle, but something tells me that I don’t have to impress upon you the importance of this campaign.”
“I understand sir,” I came to attention and quickly snapped off a salute, before nodding to Forestia. “Ma’am, it was a pleasure.”
Turning, I smartly marched out of the tent, before scanning the area for any sign of Drake or the Highlanders. It didn’t take me long to see a smaller section of the camp inhabited by ponies wearing the exact same armour as Drake had been, all of whom looked to be Earth Ponies, and headed towards them, ignoring the looks from the other soldiers, while taking in my surroundings.
“Matthew,” a voice sounded from behind me, and I turned to see Drake glaring at me, tapping a hoof on the ground. “Did you take a wrong turn somewhere Major?”
“Yeah, somewhere back on Earth,” I shot back. “I’m joining the Vanguard alongside you and your Brigade, and was told to report to you for assignment.”
“I told Swift Heart I wasn’t giving you a Battalion,” Drake ground his teeth together.
“I understand that sir,” I nodded. “I was ordered to take whatever units you have that you are willing to let an unknown command, as I really don’t want to face the enemy without at least a squad backing me up.”
“Fine,” Drake scowled, before turning and trotting deeper into the camp. “You can have one squad, that’s all I want to loan to you.”
“Well it’s better than nothing,” I shrugged, following after Drake. “This squad, is it any good?”
“They’re not my best, but they’re certainly not the worst in the Brigade.”
Nodding, I remained silent as I walked through the camp, before finally reaching a non-descript tent, Drake holding the flap open as he walked through, while I had to stoop to not get my head tangled up in the canvas.
“Officer on deck!” one of the soldiers within roared, hammering his two left hooves into his right hooves, the other four ponies quickly doing the same in cringing army style drill.
“At ease,” Drake approached one of the ponies at the rear. “Sergeant Firefly, the thing behind me is Major Matthew Wood, a human and a personal representative of Luna. Swift Heart has ordered him to take charge of a portion of the Brigade, and I’ve chosen your squad.”
“Sir, if this is about our recent combat performance I can assure you…” Firefly began, before being cut off by Drake’s raised hoof.
“This isn’t a punishment, your combat skills are not in question. All you have to know is that this is my final word.”
“Yes sir,” Firefly saluted, a frown spreading over his face as he looked me over.
“Good. I’ll leave you to get better acquainted, movement orders will be coming by the end of the day,” Drake replied, looking around. “Where’s the rest of your squad?”
“She wanted to stretch her wings or something sir,” Firefly replied.
“Fine, introduce her to the Major when she returns,” Drake told the room as he left, leaving me alone with the five ponies.
They all slowly got up, getting closer as they looked at me from head to toe, scrutinising every inch of me, before snorting one by one and standing behind Firefly. The Sergeant was still frowning as he trotted forward, stopping when he was just in front of me.
Compared to others, he was positively tiny, although he was still bigger than most of the ponies in the other Regiments in the camp. His dark blue coat was complimented by a pitch black mane, the tangled mess of hair coiling down his back, his unkempt tail almost covering the picture on his flank, depicting a bloodied muzzle of a pony. What the significance of the picture was, or even why every pony I had seen had one, was beyond me. I made a mental note to ask them about it, but right now I needed to make sure the annoyance Firefly was showing didn’t spill into anything else.
“So, we get a new squad member before a major fight?” Firefly asked, looking me up and down.
“So it would seem,” one of the other ponies nodded, moving behind me.
“Look, I understand that this may not be what you were expecting Sergeant Firefly," I didn't break eye contact with Firefly as I spoke.
“Damn right,” he scoffed.
“Nevertheless, it’s the cards we’ve all been dealt,” I continued. “Do you think I want to be here fighting your war instead of on my own planet? Of course not, but I only have one skill, and that’s killing, as morbid as that sounds. I will never be quite as good at anything as I am at ending lives.”
“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because from the looks of you, I wouldn’t say you look particularly bloodthirsty.”
“Neither do you,” I shot back. “Because you look like the smallest member of this squad, yet you’re the sergeant, so clearly the two of us prove that looks can be deceiving.”
Firefly glared at me for a long time, and the thought that I may have pushed him away rather than solidified the bond between commander and squad, before a huge smile broke out over his face.
“Well, when you put it like that you may have appoint,” he chuckled. “Maybe you’re not quite as bad as you could be. Not saying I’m happy about getting usurped from my command, but I’ll follow you, from in front of course.”
“I don’t think you’ve quite grasped following,” I shot back with a smile of my own. “But I do like that word. Usurp. I am the usurper of the squad.”
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. I’ll get it back soon enough,” Firefly smirked, before turning to the rest of the squad and pointing them out in turn. “Ok, roll call. Privates Slugger and Butch.”
The two massive ponies looked at me with equally impassive stares, allowing me to take in the massive muscles rippling between the green coats. Both of their flank pictures were almost identical, Butch sporting a dumbbell, while Slugger bore the image of a kettle bell on his sides.
“Private Castelian, used to be the best shot in the squad and quite good at low level strategy,” Firefly pointed at the pony with a black coat and a black mane, his flank taken up by a picture of a white bishop.
“And finally Corporal Heavy Weight, our squads two IC, now three IC, and…”
“The strongest member,” Heavy Weight finished, stepping forward. “And biggest.”
He wasn’t joking there as his eyes were level with my chin, making him the third tallest pony I had seen, just behind Celestia and Luna. While they were thin and elegant however, he had muscles to put them both to shame, along with everyone else I had seen. He also had what looked like tattoos on his face and legs, along with what looked like a pair of brass knuckles that fitted over his forelegs, a weapon that was also shown on his flank.
“Well you’re certainly not kidding about being the biggest,” I chuckled. “Thank you Sergeant. As Brigadier Drake said, my name is Matthew Wood, I was a Major in the Royal Marine Commandoes back on Earth and I am a human. I don’t know how or why I’m here, don’t really want to be, but I am, so let’s get on past this and get our questions out of the way.”
“Well, if you’re allowing us to ask questions…” Firefly began, smiling as he sat down on his bunk, the rest of the squad following his lead, while I perched myself on the table at the far end of the tent, my eyes being drawn to the empty bed as Firefly asked his first question.
***
“So let me get this straight,” I asked, scratching my head. “The pictures on your ass are called cutie marks, and they appear when you find your calling in life and give some representation to what you’re good at?”
“Yeah,” Firefly replied with a shrug. “That’s really what you’re struggling with? New world, new creatures, and you think cutie marks are weird?”
“They are,” I nodded. “Some of them match your names almost perfectly, and they can tell what you’ll be for the rest of your life? Just another bit of magic that I don’t understand.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Castelian broke in. “You don’t have magic where you’re from. How do you do like…anything?”
“Technology,” I replied simply. “What you do with magic, humans did with machines.”
“But even the Griffons and Minotaur’s have some form of magic,” Castelian pressed. “Not as refined as Unicorns, but they still have magic. How can you not have it?”
“Well, there were always myths on my world about magic, maybe humans just forgot how to use it, or maybe it was just a myth. Who’s to say? But what I want to know is where this last squad member of yours is, and why the rest of you are Earth Ponies yet they’re a Pegasus.”
“Who? Nara?” Slugger asked, letting out a short sharp laugh. “Yeah right, Pegasus. She’ll be back in a bit I’m sure.”
“In fact, I’d say she’s back now,” Butch said, leaning to the side and looking past me, before looking at the others and exchanging a few glances. “Yeah, soon.”
I looked between the squad members, trying to listen in to their hushed whispers, yet I was sure that their ears must have been better than mine, because I couldn’t make out a word they were saying. The near total silence was broken when I heard a sudden whoosh of air, before something landed outside of the tent. I began to slowly turn around, before I heard the tightening of a bow string behind me.
Instantly alert I turned much faster, my hand flying to the holster on my waist, drawing my pistol and locking my arms out in perfect time to acquire a target, coming face to face with what could only be a Griffon, the creature standing on its hind legs, its wings spread wide to allow it to balance as it tensed the bow string it was holding, an arrow nocked and ready to fly.
“What the fuck are you?” she eventually snarled, only increasing the tension between the room. “And why shouldn’t I put this arrow between your eyes?”
“What the fuck is a Griffon doing in a pony camp?” I shot back, my finger itching to squeeze the trigger, before Firefly suddenly popped up between us, smirking as he looked between the two of us.
“Oh stand down. Now.”
“Sergeant?” the Griffon asked, looking at Firefly and causing my aim to drop slightly.
“Sergeant?” I asked, keeping my pistol up for a second longer, before letting it fall to my side. “Ok, now I’m really really confused. Want to fill me in?”
“Major Wood, meet Private Nara. Nara, meet Major Matthew Wood,” Firefly sighed, still smirking.
“Ok, so she’s Nara, next question, and this is probably a bigger one, why is there a Griffon in a pony camp?”
“Because she’s on our side,” Firefly explain. “Now the pair of you, put your weapons down and we’ll explain this.”
“You sure Sergeant?” Nara asked, not lowering her bow. “Diamond Dogs can’t be trusted, mutants even less.”
“I’m not a Diamond Dog,” I said slowly, holstering my pistol and holding my hands up to show I was unarmed. “Human. Now put the bow down and I can explain. Plus I don’t think that pointing a weapon at your CO is a good idea.”
“You’re not my commanding officer,” Nara smirked, pulling her bow string a bit tighter.
“Ummm, he kind of is,” Castelian called out from behind us, Nara’s face dropping as she looked at Firefly, the Sergeant giving her an apologetic look, before nodding as well.
“Oh fuck,” she muttered, untensing her bow string and pulling the arrow out, before coming to attention and saluting. “I’m sorry sir, I wasn’t informed.”
“It’s…ok,” I scratched my head, before glaring at the others. “Thanks for the heads up guys.”
“And miss that opportunity,” Slugger asked. “Fat chance.”
“You do realise I could have killed her yes?” I glared at Slugger.
“I doubt it,” Nara scoffed, slinging her bow over her back and flapping her wings, landing on the empty top bunk I had seen and looking down at us all.
“You shouldn’t,” I shot back. “Now someone tell me what’s going on. I was lead to believe this was a war against the entire Griffon race, and now you’re telling me she’s on our side. Is she the only one? Is she a defector? Are there sects on our side? What?”
“There were three of us,” Nara replied, a scowl covering her face. “My parents fled the Dominion when they had me and asked for Equestrian asylum. They were granted it and died shortly afterwards, and I was given a choice. Sit back and watch as the people who forced my parents to flee ran rampant against the country that took them in, or to stand up and fight. I stood up and was seconded to the Highlanders seven years ago after I completed basic. I have fought against the Minotaur’s, my kind and prejudice alongside Firefly and the others since Stalliongrad, and I’ll be dammed if anyone, even a Major, is going to talk down to me.”
“Alright fine, I didn’t know,” I sighed. “Nara, I am extremely sorry for assuming you were the enemy based on your species. Things have been moving quickly and I made a judgement call, which was wrong of me. I apologise Nara.”
“Fine,” Nara rolled her eyes. “Now, what are you?”
“I am a human, a member of the Royal Marine Commandoes back on my home, and currently acting as a military advisor slash attaché slash new soldier for High General Luna,” I began. “My name is Matthew Wood, I am a Major, I am thirty eight years old, my service number is 365917501, and right now I’m still very uncomfortable with the idea of being here, and hoping that I’m going to wake up any moment to find this is all a dream. Considering where I was before I woke up here though, I still don’t know if that’s the preferable alternative or not.”
Nara nodded, before jumping down and landing on the floor, pointing to my pistol. “So then, what’s that?”
“She seems on her game Firefly, I’d watch out,” I shot a look at the Sergeant, before turning back to face Nara and upholstering my pistol. “This is a generation four Glock, basic terms it’s a pistol which I use as my sidearm beside my rifle. Think of it like a much more advanced crossbow.”
“We’ll have to see how ‘advanced’ it really is,” Nara smirked. “Again, I’m sorry for the confusion with who and what you were Major.”
“Forget about it Private,” I shrugged. “If something had happened, we both would have been in a world of shit, but luckily nothing did happen. As it is, I would say no harm done.”
As I finished talking, a loud horn blast sounded out over the camp, followed by another, and another, before falling silent again. Looking round at the others expectantly, I saw them beginning to get to their feet, buckling the few armoured plates they wore to their bodies and picking up weapons, helmets and supplies. The only one who wasn’t wearing near identical armour apart from me was Nara, the Griffon wearing a series of leather plates riveted together.
“Guessing that signal meant something?” I asked, tightening the strap on my rifle and slinging it on my back, holding my helmet in the crook of my right arm.
“One blast is Friendlies approaching the camp, two for enemies, and three is the order to get your gear because we’re mustering,” Firefly shot back, not looking round as he busied himself, before putting his helmet over his head and awkwardly picking up a spear. “Which means we’re going to be moving out soon.”
“Well then Sergeant, lead the way,” I nodded, following Firefly out of the tent, the rest of the squad following closely behind the two of us.
Nara:
Heavy Weight:
It took the camp roughly half an hour to pack up all the necessary equipment and move out, instantly followed by a two hour quick march. The first hour was quite easy, all on roads and the monotony being broken up by various songs, many of which seemed to have parallels to ones we sang back on earth while training. I made a mental note to tell Jenkins of the various new songs we would have to learn and make dirtier.
The second half of the march however was much more similar to how we marched on earth, everybody keeping quiet as we moved off the roads, advancing across rough terrain as we moved closer to our objective. In a way, the military here seemed to be a mixture between modern and 14th century armies back on earth, with proper ranking structures being supported by antiquated battle tactics, and only time would tell which one they were more similar to in actual battle. I hoped it was the former, but I had a sinking feeling that they were going to prove to be the latter.
Eventually we came to a halt, the Highlanders being the last to enter the clearing where the ponies from the other regiments were already preparing, some sharpening their weapons while others helped to set up the few catapults that the strike force had brought with them. I resisted the urge to slip back into wishing we had some real weapons with us, squatting down with the rest of my newly acquired squad to go through final battle prep.
“You never did tell me what that thing was,” Nara pointed to my rifle as I checked the feed. “You said that the pistol thingy was like a more advanced crossbow, is that the same?”
“Pretty much yes,” I nodded, checking the safety was on before holding it out for Nara and the others to see. “Crossbows work on tension to propel a bolt at high speeds at a target. This uses a substance called gunpowder to propel a small piece of metal called a bullet at much higher speeds. Like I said earlier, same principle, much more advanced.”
“Maybe,” Nara shrugged, checking her own arrows. “I’ll reserve judgement until after I’ve seen it in use. Until then, I’ll use my bow.”
“You know you’ve got to be one of the only soldiers in the Equestrian army who can actually use a typical bow and arrow,” I pointed out.
“Only one,” Nara corrected with a slight smirk, her beak somehow allowing her to make such a face.
“That we know of,” Firefly corrected her.
“Do you want to try and use the bow again?” Nara smirked. “Because I’ll let you, Sarge, right after you grow fingers.”
“Maybe our new Major will show you how to do it properly?” Castelian chuckled, before grabbing his sword in his mouth and giving it a few practice swings. “Whff ooo ay aayor?”
“I say that holding a sword in your mouth is a really inefficient way to fight,” I shrugged. “I have no idea how to shoot a bow, beyond basic archery skills I learnt as a kid, and that was more for fun than anything else.”
“Ooh, look who’s better than the new Major,” Nara laughed, slinging her bow across her back, before pulling out a pair of small crossbows that had been holstered on her forelegs, checking their strings before securing them again. “Maybe I’ll teach you one day.”
“Maybe,” I nodded, before standing up and looking around the camp. “I should go and check in with Brigadier Drake, Highlanders are leading the vanguard.”
“You don’t need to check in with me, I’m already here,” Drake spoke as he approached us, his large axe sheathed on his back. “Preparations are made, we’re moving out.”
“Yes sir,” Firefly nodded, slipping his helmet over his head and drawing his own sword and clamping his mouth around it tightly. Taking the signal, the others all drew their own weapons as I cocked my rifle.
***
“Get Down!” I yelled as another rock smashed into the ground next to me. “Get back to the tree line!”
“Major!” Drake bellowed. “What are you doing?”
“Making a judgement call sir!” I called back. “We can’t get through that!”
“We don’t retreat, ever,” Drake snarled.
“It’s not retreating,” I snapped back. “A frontal assault isn’t working against artillery and arrows!”
“I know,” Drake snarled softly. “But Highlanders never surrender. Not since Stalliongrad.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that sometime, but not now,” I grunted, looking up from my prone position. “Right now though we have bigger things to worry about, and if you’re so adverse to retreating, then it’s a good job not all of your squad leaders are Highlanders.”
“Fine, do what Luna thinks you’re here for,” Drake nodded, before drawing his axe.
“Thank you sir,” I nodded, before looking at the rest of my squad. “Firefly, back to the treeline, now!”
Firefly looked like he wanted to disobey me for a second, before he nodded, turning on his hooves and galloping back to the trees, the rest of the squad and myself following closely behind, diving back into cover and staring out at the fort.
If this was what a surprise attack looked like here, then I had grossly over-estimated a lot of things about this world, namely the competence of the pony military, and now I was looking at the results. As soon as the Highlanders had broken the cover of the trees to charge the final bit of open ground before the fort itself, the air had come alive with projectiles, massive rocks hammering into the ground and forcing squads to split up, before arrows began picking ponies off left right and centre. The ponies own artillery had opened up a few moments later, but firing as blindly as they were, they did little more than cause an annoyance for the Griffons.
“Ok listen up,” I spoke up, looking around at the others. “We can’t get through the front, not if we all want to live, but this attack will be drawing the enemy’s attention. With luck, they won’t have seen us, and we can flank around behind them and try and infiltrate the fort from there.”
“That’s a bloody big ‘with luck’,” Firefly pointed out.
“And those are pretty big rocks falling from the sky,” I retorted. “If you really want to try a frontal assault be my guest, but considering the fact that you followed me back here, I’d say that you want to try a different approach.”
"We don't retreat," Firefly retorted firmly.
"We're not retreating, we're just advancing towards future victories," I smirked. "Now, any objections, or are you coming with me?"
When none of them spoke up, I gave a curt nod. “Right then, with me.” With that I got to my feet, staying in a hunched position as I began to work my way around the clearing, the others following silently behind me.
***
It didn’t take us long to reach the rear of the fort, although in the scheme of things it felt like it had taken an eternity. True to my prediction however, there were hardly any Griffons manning the walls back here, which could just make this plan actually work.
“Alright, this is how we play it,” I breathed softly. “Simple plan. Stage one, kill the griffons and get in. Two, stop the catapults and draw the attention of at least some of the archers away from the Highlanders and the rest of the force, and three, try and open a gate.”
“Right, yeah, simple,” Nara chuckled. “Let’s do this. Are you going to show us your weapon now?”
“I’ll take the one currently on the left,” I nodded, sinking to one knee and pulling my rifle into shoulder. “Can you take the one on the right from this range?”
“Major, it will be my pleasure,” Nara nodded, drawing her bow as she rose up onto her hind legs.
“On my mark,” I muttered, my finger tightening around the trigger. “Fire.”
The instant Nara released her arrow, I squeezed the trigger of my rifle. The crack echoed around the trees as the bullet hit home, pitching the Griffon I’d be aiming at from its talons. The sound was much louder than it should have been, and for a horrible moment I thought that it hadn’t survived the trip to Equestria as well as I had thought. By the time I had done a quick examination of the weapon, ascertaining that it was indeed fine, Nara’s arrow had hit her target, and the wall was now bare.
“Right, move it,” I called as I rose to my feet, before sprinting out of cover, darting from side to side in case there were any archers we missed while reaching down to my belt, grabbing a coil of rope and tossing it to Nara. “Secure it to the top.”
“Yes sir,” she nodded quickly, spreading her wings mid-stride and taking to the air, deftly catching the rope in a talon.
In a few short wing flaps she had reached the top, plunging the metal spike on one end of the rope in between the wooden slates of the fort with one talon, while drawing a crossbow with the other, scanning the area.
“Line’s good, sir,” she called down, giving it an experimental tug. “Area looks secure for now, not sure for how long though.”
“Great,” I nodded, before looking back at the others as they reached the wall with me. “Right, get up there. I’ll bring up the rear.”
In short order the squad had managed to climb the rope, and while I didn’t exactly see how they had managed to do it with hooves, I wasn’t about to question the results as I pulled myself over the lip, standing beside the others. It was almost unnervingly quiet here, the distant sounds of battle seemingly muted, even though they weren’t actually that far away, but as long as we weren’t going to be set upon by the whole fortress, it worked well for us.
“Butch, slugger, you two take point,” I hissed, the two ponies nodding as they moved forward, the others falling in behind me as we moved deeper into the jaws of the enemy, keeping our eyes peeled for any Griffons that could give the game away.
Butch suddenly held up a hoof as his brother peered around a corner, before looking back at us with a grin.
“Five catapults, five Griffons ‘pulters each,” Slugger reported, trying, and failing, to hide the glee in his voice.
“We could work around?” Castelian suggested.
“Or we could take them out,” Heavy Weight countered with a smile of his own.
“Seven versus twenty five aren’t the best odds in the world,” Firefly mused. “But we’ve dealt with worse, and they’re only artillery crew, not quite as good as their infantry. Your call Major.”
“We came here to take them out,” I shrugged. “Quick and clean people.”
The squad nodded, before Butch and Slugger rounded the corner, their swords brandished in their mouths as they charged the nearest catapult. I quickly followed, dropping to one knee as I took aim, Nara doing the same in the sky above me. Once again we fired at the same time, two Griffons dropping an instant before Slugger, Butch and Heavy Weight crashed into the remaining crew.
Not wanting to risk firing at enemies in such close proximity to friendlies, I quickly switched targets, aiming at those on the next catapult as Firefly and Castelian crossed blades with the Griffons manning the third. By now the Griffons had noticed us and were scrambling to react to the sudden threats in their midst, but they hadn’t expected an attack to come so suddenly and from their rear.
I fired two more shots, both finding their mark, before my rifle clicked, the cocking handle jammed halfway open as a round stuck halfway out of the breach. After a quick tug yielded little results, I slung the rifle on my back, before drawing my pistol and knife, turning to face the two griffons bearing down on me, their own swords held in their talons.
The first fell as my pistol roared, but the second was on me before I could fire a second time, his sword falling to meet my knife. I struggled to fend off the blow, the sword being a far more effective weapon than my little knife, but I had managed to divert it from a killing thrust into a small cut which ripped through my shirt, barely missing the flesh beneath. Not wishing to prolong the combat, I tugged my knife away, shunting my shoulder forward, before driving the blade home into the Griffons eye, the bird dropping without a sound.
Pulling my knife free, I wiped the blood off on its feathers, before looking at the others, the few remaining Griffons fighting a losing battle against my squad. And then, just like that, it was over. With one last shot from Nara, the last of the Gryphons fell, leaving us alone again with five catapults.
“Bloody…hell.” Slugger panted, trotting back to where his sword was embedded in the chest of a Griffon and tearing it free.
“Not a bad body count,” Butch agreed.
“Mine was larger,” Heavy Weight pointed out, checking a few bodies to make sure no one was feigning death.
“Battle’s still young boys, and we still have a job to do,” Firefly reminded them, before turning to me. “Next step?”
“Secure these, make them inoperable for the enemy and leave before they send a squad to find out why they have stopped firing,” I replied as I cleared the jam, slipping the spare bullet into a pouch and picking up the used casings, figuring that they may be useful further down the line. “We still need to open the gate. Any suggestions?”
“Get close, cut the rope holding it closed?” Castelian suggested, turning to face outwards as he cast his eyes warily around, his body coiling like a spring, ready to leap into action if any Griffons checked out the catapults.
“And if there are forces, I don’t know, guarding it? There is a fight going on over there. I somehow doubt that they're just going to let five ponies, a griffon and a human trot up to the front gate,” Heavy Weight retorted sarcastically, being met by a drawn out sigh from Castelian, before he pointed at Nara.
“We have our own little Griffon, remember? Not to mention we have a few suits of dead bird armour.”
“Fuck, no,” Nara growled firmly, glaring at Castelian.
“It would make a good disguise,” I pointed out.
“And I’m telling you, forget it,” Nara hissed. “I am not one of them, no matter what my species is.”
“Alright fine, we’ll find another way,” I sighed. “We’ll have to attack. Watch your back, they’ll be swarming over there. If we’re lucky then one of us can make it to…”
“I hate you,” Nara cut in, her voice completely monotonous as she glared at me, before grabbing hold of one of the corpses. “Come on, help me drag this thing somewhere less exposed before I change my mind about giving in to a guilt trip. I'd rather not be exposed when I'm putting on the armour.”
***
“I just want it to go on record that I hate this plan,” Nara scowled, pulling on the last piece of the dead griffons armour. “Seriously, I hate it.”
“You’ve said, many times,” Firefly sighed, hoofing her the helmet, before I pulled out one of the few grenades I had and passed it over to her.
“Remember how to use this thing?”
“Pull the pin, release the handle, get away from the blast,” she nodded.
“Good. Try and use your sword if possible, no sense in wasting a perfectly good grenade.”
“If I die doing this, I’m going to haunt every one of you,” Nara growled darkly.
“And when you don’t, I’ll make sure you get put up for promotion,” I countered. “Come on, times burning and I have no idea how many ponies have died in the time it’s taken us to get you all dressed up.”
“Fine,” Nara scowled, slipping the helmet on and sighing, before forcing herself to grin. “Let’s be bad guys.”
Turning on her paws, Nara began to walk towards the main entrance to the fort, adopting a subtle swagger that gave her an air of confidence as she moved. Sticking to the shadows, the rest of the squad followed her, me bringing up the rear, making sure that we didn’t attract any more attention. I didn’t know how long we would be able to stay hidden for, but the longer it was, the higher our chances of success would be.
Eventually Nara came into sight of the gate as I dropped to my belly, lying flat with most of my body under the canvas of a tent. The others were finishing off the solitary griffon who had been inside, silently laying his body on the floor as I aimed at the griffons now surrounding Nara.
None had stopped her so far, and she was already half way towards the rope holding the gate open. I allowed myself a brief smile as she got even closer, maybe for once a plan was going to work out exactly as intended.
Even as the thought escaped my mind, I mentally kicked myself for pushing fate so much, just as a burly griffon stepped in front of Nara.
“Halt,” he demanded. “What are you doing?”
“Err…I was sent here,” Nara mumbled, before puffing her chest out. “My CO told me to come check the gate was holding, you don’t want to get on his bad side, believe me.”
“Oh yeah,” the griffon scoffed. “Who is he then? What’s your unit name? For that matter, what’s your name?”
“My name?” Nara stammered, before growling and rolling her eyes. “Oh fuck this shit.”
In an instant she had drawn her sword, plunging it into the griffon’s chest and driving it through, before pulling it lose in a welt of blood. A second later I fired another shot, a nearby griffon dropping as her head jerked back, a bloody hole in the side of it.
“Nara! Run!” I bellowed, firing another shot into the shoulder of a sprinting soldier.
Nara didn’t need to be told twice as she sprinted the last few meters to the rope, bringing her sword crashing down on it. The rope frayed, but the thickness of it managed to resist the first hack, and the second. With a screech of indignation, Nara pulled the pin on the grenade, laying the now live explosive on the gate mechanism, before diving backwards, working a claw underneath the straps of the claimed armour as she went.
The explosion rocked the battlefield, and although it was small, it seemed to silence everything else around us. Nara was still moving through the air towards us, her beak open in a silent shout of victory as she beat her wings, the dead griffon’s armour falling from her body as the straps were cut one by one.
As quickly as sound had drained from the world, it returned, screams of panic, pain and confusion echoing around as the gate slowly pitched forward, crashing to the floor with a soft thud.
“One heck of a way to start a party,” Firefly grunted, before drawing his sword with his mouth and clamping down hard on it.
Taking his que, the rest of the squad drew their own weapons once more, charging out of the cover of the tent as the first ponies spewed through the gateway, a battle cry on their lips as they clashed with the quickly recovering griffons.
My rifle spat death as I dropped to one knee, taking care to stay well away from friendlies and only taking shots that I knew were going to be kill shots. Ammunition was a premium and that made it a luxury that I could not afford to simply adopt a spray and pray attitude. For the foreseeable future, my rifle was locked onto single shot mode.
My luck had held for the first few moments of the renewed assault, the Griffons either being too shocked or too occupied to focus their attention on me, but finally the sound and amount of death my rifle was causing turned heads, and a squad of Griffons turned to charge towards me, barrelling around my already engaged squad.
I barely managed to dive to the side as the first sword arced through the air, sticking into the ground as I rolled back to my feet, bringing the butt of my rifle into the face of a second Griffon. For the first time in a long time, I wished I had a bayonet, but quashed the thought in favour of spinning my rifle around, grabbing hold of the still hot barrel with one hand and raising it above my head.
A jolt went through my arms as a sword slammed into the rifle, before the Griffon wielding it twisted his weapon, pulling my own from my grasp and leaving it to fall onto its sling. In a practiced movement I reached to my pistol holster, drawing the weapon in one hand while grabbing my knife in the other, driving the blade into the chin of the offending Griffon.
Before I could make another move, I grunted and staggered back as a crossbow bolt slammed into my chest, my armour taking the brunt of the blow, but still allowing the point to dig very slightly into my chest. A split second later a balled up fist hit me in the stomach, sending me sprawling to the floor as a Griffon bore down upon me.
The next thing I knew, the Griffons head rolled off its neck, Nara’s wing blade slicing through it with ease as the rest of my squad clashed with the Griffons. The small fight was short, but it was bloody, and I saw Castelian roar in pain as he gained a new scar, before the last Griffon dropped, earning us a moments respite.
“Thanks,” I winced, taking Nara’s proffered claw I stood up, before snapping the shaft off of the bolt in my chest, the head staying stuck in my armour for now. “Not used to things being this closed to me during a fight.”
“You don’t say,” Nara said as she drew a crossbow with one talon and placing the other around my shoulder, scanning the area as she helped me away from the fiercest fighting, the others keeping guard, lashing out at any Griffon that got too close. “Just, try and stay out of trouble Major. I’d hate to have to explain to Brigadier Drake how we lost you on your first outing.”
“Would hardly impress High General Luna either,” Firefly agreed, his reply muffled from the sword in his mouth.
“I’m fine,” I grunted, shrugging Nara’s talon off of my shoulder and checking my rifle quickly, scowling at the deep cut in the plastic. I would need to look at it a lot closer when all of this was over just to be sure, but to do that I would need to survive. “I still have a pistol, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Nodding, Nara and the others ran forward again, their blades soon slick with blood of Griffons, while I dropped to one knee, holding my pistol tightly in both hands as I scanned for targets that were either getting too close, threatening me or threatening the assault more than normal.
Almost immediately I caught sight of a squad of Griffons high up on the forts wall, each one of them wielding large bows and firing with abandon down at the ponies, who were struggling to get shots of their own off with their large, unwieldy weapons strapped to their sides.
Steadying my aim, I took my first shot, not waiting to see if I had hit before I moved on to my next target, firing round after round, until the whole squad had dropped. As the last round fired, the slide locked back and I instinctively hit the magazine release, catching it as it fell and sliding it into a pouch.
I felt, rather than saw, the Griffon land behind me, and I whirled around, holstering my pistol and swapping my knife into my dominant hand, ready for a fight. Behind me with its wing outstretched was the largest Griffon I had seen so far, two wicked looking blades strapped to its front talons. I instinctively dived to the floor, almost avoiding the swipe from the razor sharp blades completely.
Almost.
The sword shot past me as I rolled across the floor, missing my neck by millimetres, but slashing across my back instead.
“Mother Fucker!” I screamed, attempting to roll across the floor and get back up to my feet. The moment I tried to put pressure on my back however, a flash of pain shot through the cut, sending me sprawling across the floor once more, my knife skittering out of my reach.
The Griffons beak somehow curved into a smile as it bore down on me, placing a neck as it leered down at me. His eyes were wide and crazy, helping to match up with its blood stained feathers as it began to chuckle darkly.
Letting out a strained cough as more pressure was put on my throat, I began to scrabble around with my hands, trying to find anything I could to help me out of this situation, finally managing to grab hold of a piece of fallen debris from the wall, shaken lose by the grenades explosion.
With a roar, and all of the strength that I could muster, I brought the makeshift weapon round, slamming it into the Griffons right hind leg, the blow being followed by a sickening crunch as the knee inverted, popping to turn and face the wrong way.
The Griffon screamed at the top of its voice, falling to the floor and removing the pressure from my neck. Gasping for air, I struggled to my feet, grabbing my knife once before looking down at the Griffon with a mixture of loathing and pity. The crazed look was still in his eyes, but now there was another emotion, this one I knew all too well as fear.
“Make, it, quick,” the Griffon grunted, his eyes falling to my knife.
Nodding I took a deep breath, before driving the knife into the Griffons eye, the bird-lion hybrid going stiff for a split second, before going limp, the life fading from its body. Pulling it out, I wiped the worst of the blood off on the feathers visible through the armour, before searching around for a weapon I could use. My rifle was damaged and had limited ammunition left, as did my pistol, and my knife was far too short to be used against swords. I didn’t have much experience in sword play, and none of it real, but it would be better than nothing.
“Alright then.” I muttered to myself, bending down and grabbing a sword in my right hand, giving it an experimental twirl. “Let’s see if I remember any of this.”
Gripping the sword tightly in both hands, I began to run towards the Griffons, angling towards where I could see the rest of my squad were already engaged, closing the gap between us in a matter of seconds and swinging the sword.
My first attack missed, and I had to duck to avoid the reprisal strike, before dragging my sword through the Griffons stomach, metal screeching on metal before it finally drew blood.
Turning from the still falling corpse, I raised the sword just in time to block a strike aimed at my chest, feeling the shocks travel down my arm, before thrusting with my own blade. Narrowly avoiding the armour the Griffon wore, I slammed it into its chest, impaling it and causing it to drop its own weapon. Not pausing to pull the weapon free, I twisted, dropping to my knee as a sword sailed over my head and imbedded itself in the neck of the still impaled Griffon.
“Since when did you know how to use a sword, sir?” Nara grunted as she lashed out with her own weapon.
“I don’t,” I grunted back, locking my sword up with a Griffons sword, allowing Butch to ram a sword into its chest. “Just lucky.”
“It’s all you need,” Firefly’s voice was sharp and to the point, his mind occupied on the task ahead. “Keep going! We have the upper hoof!”
At his words, I looked around me, taking in the smell of blood and death that was now littering the inside of the fort. The Everfree Hussars, or whatever was left of them, had managed to gain a strong foothold within the fort, and were holding position at the entrance, treating the wounded as best as they could, while most of the Highlanders were still pushing forward, deeper and deeper into the fort.
I was brought back to the fight as an avian screech rolled across the battlefield, heralding the arrival of three Griffons, landing just in front of me and the others. I instantly knew these ones were different, their weapons looking like they were far better quality, while their armour was pitch black. The fighting seemed to die down at their arrival, Griffons and ponies alike watching as the lead Griffon took a step forward.
“I am Turg, a member of the Onyx Guard and commander of this fortress,” the Griffon boomed. “By that authority, I demand to see those you call commander.”
“I am Major Matthew Wood,” I took a step forward, wincing slightly as the crossbow bolt in my chest. “Royal Marine, liaison for High General, Princess Luna. Now that introductions are out of the way…”
“Lay down your weapons,” Turg took a step towards me. “You can’t hope to win, I’m offering you a way out that doesn’t mean your death.”
“As a POW?” I scoffed, tightening my grip on my sword, bringing it into a guard position. “Tried that once, you can fuck your own ass if you think I’m trying it again.”
“I love it when they fight.” He snarled, crouching down and preparing to charge.
Not letting him get the advantage, I sprang forward, causing the rest of my squad to do the same. In an instant, my weapons collided with the Griffons, as the rest of my squad powered into the Griffons two guards, slashing at them and trying to find any sort of weakness in their armour. Just like that the peaceful spell that had fallen over the battlefield broke, and ponies clashed with Griffons once more.
“I will not die here,” Turg spat, pushing harder with his blade, causing me to give ground slightly. “I will not fall in dishonourable failure, and certainly not to some bastard Diamond Dog Mutant.”
“Good thing I’m not a Diamond Dog,” I grunted, falling to my knees under the assault. “So…shut up…and die!”
With a roar, I whipped my knife out sending it whistling through the air, before I embedded it in Turg’s eye.
With a scream of pain that rivalled any I had heard before, Turg dropped his weapon, rearing back as he tried to grasp at my knife, struggling with pain and shock, and giving me opportunity to slide my pistol back out of its holster, slipping a new magazine into the breach and racking the slide back, just as Turg managed to tear the knife from his eye, staring at me with his one remaining eye.
“I assume you saw what this does?” I asked calmly, Turg nodding slowly. “Good. Then tell your men to stand down, I’ve had enough of killing for today.”
“A Griffon…never surrenders.” He growled back, staring down the barrel of the pistol.
“One last time,” I growled softly. “Give the surrender order, or I’ll leave you with nowhere to place that pretty little helmet of yours.”
The Griffon looked at me for a second, before spitting a wad of blood into my face.
“Wrong. Answer.” I sighed, pulling the trigger.
The Griffon leader dropped to the floor, his head resembling a smashed melon. Turning to the remaining members of the leaders’ squad, I took in their fearful expressions, before one by one, they began to drop their weapons.
“Good boys,” I breathed softly, holstering my pistol before raising my voice. “That’s enough! No more killing, ponies or Griffons!”
I watched passively as a stream of ponies rushed past me, making sure that no one killed anyone else as ponies forced the remaining Griffons to the floor and restraining their wrists and ankles. Turning from the aftermath of the battle, I walked over to the gateway and looked out of the field in front of the fort.
The entire field was covered in bodies, most of them were still screaming as they dragged themselves around, while others simply were cowering anywhere they could find. It was a lot to take in, hundreds of dead littered the field, while hundreds more cried out for help. A few ponies were darting around, giving what help they could, must it didn’t take a genius to work out that there weren’t enough medics to save all of them.
I let out a breath that I didn’t even know I had been holding in, before making my way to try and find someone in charge.
I slowly made my way through the fortress, watching as any remaining Griffons were rounded up by members of the Everfree Hussars, making sure that none were treated with any undue aggression. A lot of the ponies looked like they had escaped from injury as they trotted past me, but other bore scars of the recent combat, both on their armour and on their bodies. More still were outside the fort being patched up or having ruined limbs stripped from their bodies. There would be a lot of soldiers being sent home today, be it by medical discharge or in a body bag.
Eventually I reached the centre of the camp, watching as various buildings were checked, and then double checked as clear, before being used as makeshift barracks, hospitals and other such buildings, before heading towards a large tent, three banners flying outside it, one depicting the simple H over a 7 of the Hoofington Line Regiments seventh Regiment, one depicting a stylised diamond of the second regiment of the Everfree Hussars, and the final one depicting a dented shield, a roaring dragon coiled up inside, the iconography of Brigadier Drake Brigade.
Walking towards the entrance, the two earth ponies outside lowered their spears, blocking the way as they looked at me.
“The command tent is off limits to all those who are not on the commander staff of one of the regiments here today, sir,” one of them said, his voice level and calm.
“I understand your orders, but I need to speak to speak to somebody in charge,” I replied with a small smile. “As a liaison of Princess Luna’s, I believe that I will be allowed to sit in on this meeting.”
“One moment please, sir, I will just go and…” the second pony began, before being cut off by a soft, female voice.
“That will not be necessary Private Glimmer, the Major speaks the truth about being the liaison of the High General, please let him through.”
The two guards nodded instantly, moving their spears aside and allowing me to follow Forestia inside. The tent was nothing special, a single room with a series of scrolls and maps laid out on a table, around which were various ponies from the different armies that had taken part in the assault on the fortress.
“If sources are to be believed, we have you to thank for the timely opening of the gate.” Forestia looked at Lieutenant-Colonel Swift Heart and Brigadier Drake as she spoke, a faint smile playing across her lips.
“It wasn’t just me, I had good people watching my back. I know for a fact I would be dead right now if it wasn’t for them.”
“Modest and deadly?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “A rare quality to be sure. To business, Swift Heart, if you would?”
“Thank you, Lady Forestia,” Swift Heart nodded. “Reports are yet to come in about our losses, but we can assume that they have been high, especially amongst my own Regiment. By all reports the smallest loses are within our light attachment under the command of Brigadier Drake and Major Wood, who’s involvement in the success of this mission cannot be overlooked.”
“Aye. I guess that is true,” Drake said, before moving towards the table I had seen earlier and placing a map upon it. “Unfortunately I don’t think that it is necessarily a good thing that we took this fortress.”
Forestia and Swift Heart moved towards the map, and I took this as a cue to do the same, moving up beside the two ponies. The map itself was fairly basic, showing the topography of the surrounding area in great detail. In one far corner, a solid red line snaked around a part of the map, cutting it off from the remainder, and simply ladled EQUESTRIA. Further across the map, and in the area that I assumed we were in was another set of bold writing, this one reading GRYPHOMRY.
“So we are here.” Forestia started, pulling out a small black stone pony and placing it in the map just to the south west of the Equestrian boarder. “And the Griffon city of Harrongraäd is here, making this fort an ideal staging ground for an attack on the city, something we haven’t had in years. I fail to see how this is a bad position.” She continued, placing a stone Griffon on the map about ten miles away from our current position, next to what I assumed was an ocean.
“Because of this,” Drake began placing his a few markers around stone pony, forming corridor between us and Harrongraäd, meaning the only way to get to the city was to run a gauntlet. “A Pegasus scout from the Cloudsdale Rangers just brought this in now that Griffon air superiority has been broken. Four forts, two on either side of the main road to the city.”
“What are the concentrations of troops in each position?” I asked, drawing a sceptical look from Drake, before he consulted a scroll and looked back up.
“Exact figures are yet to be confirmed, but it is believed that each position is a semi-permanent fortress, housing between five hundred and two thousand Minotaur warriors.”
“Minotaur’s?” Swift Heart cut in. “Blast, I thought they were still tied up at their boarder and the Rein river.”
“Clearly more Minotaur’s have been called from the homeland than we previously thought,” Drake scowled.
“And Minotaur ships have always been faster than ours,” Forestia continued. “It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they managed to avoid our fleet and get here, we haven’t been able to lock down all the skies yet.”
“It gets worse,” Drake sighed, pointing to the fort closest to us. “The scouts laid eyes on Chieftain Scrall at this fort, from the looks of things he is commanding that garrison, and potentially coordinating the rest of the forts as well.”
“Skrall?” I asked.
“A Minotaur chieftain wanted on charges of war-crimes against Equestria.” Drake growled. “He led the attack on my lands, blew through us and marched straight into Stalliongrad. Fucking bastard.”
“Drake,” Forestia cut in, taking on a stern tone. “I would kindly ask that you do not use such crass language in my presence.” She turned back to the map and began to look over it again. “Do we know how many troops are garrisoned in Harrongraäd, Drake?”
“No, the city airspace is still commanded by the Griffons. We estimate from supplies going to and from the city though that there is at the very least a garrison of five thousand. Could be more if they are on strict rationing and if they are getting help from the Minotaur fleet.”
“We can make few plans without getting a better view of our own situation,” Swift Heart turned to face Forestia. “Go and find out how many of your own regiment survived, you too Drake. Matthew, please find out how many prisoners were taken during the battle, and see to it that they are treated well.”
“Yes sir,” I nodded, saluting before following after Drake and Forestia as the pair trotted off towards where their own men were garrisoned.
***
I made my way back towards the tent, ignoring the looks I was getting from different ponies, before finally getting back into the tent.
“Ah, finally,” Forestia was the first to speak as I entered, looking across at me. “So nice of you to rejoin us.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am” I apologised. “Getting an accurate figure wasn’t easy, nor was ensuring their conditions, but it’s done. We took four hundred and sixty two prisoners, the majority of them were taken by the Hoofington Line regiment. I have made sure that those watching over them know that they are to be treated properly, just in case.”
“Good,” Swift Heart nodded. “Forestia, how many ponies are left in your regiment?”
“Two thousand nine hundred and three are ready to march, and five hundred and two will most likely recover, while six hundred and two won’t be recovering. One thousand and five have been laid to grass,” she answered, consulting a scroll that hovered before her, held in an identical glow to the one around her horn.
“We lost two hundred and ninety eight ponies,” Drake admitted. “Seven won’t be recovering, twenty may fight again, and one hundred and seventy five are ready now, including all those under Major Wood’s command.”
“My regiment did not take quite as severe casualties,” Swift Heart nodded. “Four thousand and seventy are still ready to fight.”
“So we have seven thousand one hundred and forty eight who could keep going,” I took a moment to double check my math, before nodding. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s right. It’s not enough.”
“You underestimate the power of Equestrian soldiers,” Swift Heart retorted. “You are still new here Major Wood, you do not know the tenacity of ponies.”
“No really, it’s not enough,” I shook my head, pointing at the map. “We started with just over ten thousand men…”
“Ponies,” Drake cut in.”
“We started with just over ten thousand ponies ,” I repeated, perhaps putting a bit too much sarcasm onto the word, before continuing. “In one battle we lost three and a half thousand ponies, and to get to Harrongraäd we have four more potential battles, plus the one to take the city itself. Now I may be new here, but unless Minotaur’s put up a lot less fight than Griffons, we can’t afford to lose that many at each battle, we will bleed ourselves dry before we hit the third fort, and we’ll all be dead long before we get within sight of the city.”
The tent was silent for a few moments, before the silence turned to begrudging murmurs of approval. Swift Heart was the first to speak, looking between myself, Drake and Forestia.
“You may have a point Matthew, but equally well we need to take this city, we need a big victory, and this is the best opportunity we have had for years. Do you know the last time we had a tangible victory? Two years ago when we finally pushed the Minotaur’s out of Stalliongrad. It’s been even longer since we’ve had a victory where we didn’t lose more far more than our enemies. The truth is Equestria is by far the largest land mass on the planet, we outnumber the Griffons and the Minotaur’s armies by hundreds of thousands of soliders, but we can’t hold swords or spears like they can, we’re not as strong as the Minotaur’s and only a third of our army is airborne, unlike the Griffons. Now do you see why we need to press any potential advantage, no matter how slim our chances of victory?”
“What do you suggest then?” I sighed. “Because we can’t go forward and we can’t go back. The only thing I can see is us waiting here, taking the time to rebuild defences and sending small attacks against the Minotaur forts.”
“For how long? Celestia is expecting the city to fall by next spring.” Forestia countered.
“I sincerely doubt that that will happen. Regardless though, we need reinforcements.” I said, standing up straight.
“The sixth regiment of my Legion may have finished their tour on the front line,” Swift Heart didn’t sound wholly convinced by this. “Perhaps High General Luna will release them into my command.”
“All members of my Legion are spoken for,” Forestia sighed. “I doubt my mother will allow for the reserves from the first regiment to be brought up either. That just leaves you Drake.”
“Most of the Highlanders are still on the Minotaur border, there are some reserves held back in our forward command base, but they are only battalion strength and they still need a commanding officer. All my first choices for that position are dead or injured.”
“Battalions are commanded by Majors, are they not?” Forestia asked, cocking her head and turning to look at Swift Heart.
“Yes, they are,” Swift Heart nodded, a small smile playing across his lips. “Would you not concur, Drake?”
“Oh no, no, I won’t allow it,” Drake glared at Swift Heart.
“We need reinforcements, you can get us five hundred ponies, all that stands in our way is finding a commanding officer that you have vetted and approved.”
“I would kind of like a say in…” I began, before Drake cut me off, slamming his hooves on the table as he glowered at Swift Heart. To his credit the smaller unicorn barely so much as flinched as the muscular earth pony bore down on him.
“He is not from my land!”
“Drake, I…”
“No buts! It is my batallion and I will have one of my ponies in charge of it, not a…”
“Brigadier Drake, you will contain yourself or you will be removed from my command tent,” Swift Heart didn’t raise his voice, but his tone had suddenly turned harder than steel. “That is an order. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Lieutenant-Colonel,” Drake nodded, moving backwards and looking down at his hooves.
“Now, will you accept Major Wood as a viable candidate for command of the reserve battalion?”
“Yes, Lieutenant-Colonel.”
“Good, now all that remains is for High General Luna to accept him as well,” Swift Heart turned to face me. “Major Wood, as you no doubt picked up from that I would like you to return to our forward command base on a twofold mission. First, you are to inquire about the whereabouts of the sixth Legion of the Hoofington Line Regiments, and any other units that are currently unaccounted for. Second, you are to appeal to High General Luna to place you in command of the reserve battalion of the Highlanders that Brigadier Drake spoke of.”
“Do I get a say in this?”
“You do, but I would urge you to agree with me. You said yourself, we can go neither forward or backwards at our current strength. The only hope we have of success is for reinforcements. Every pony counts Major, surely as a soldier you understand this?”
“Yes, sir, but what I don’t understand is why you have decided that I should be in command of a battalion, especially since Brigadier Drake is against the idea.”
“Because you are responsible for the fortress being taken with as few casualties as we took, under any other commander we would have lost far more ponies. If you can do that little with a squad, imagine what you will do with a battalion.”
I sighed as I looked at him again, trying to make out any sign of deceit in his face, before nodding. “When do I leave, sir?”
“As soon as you are able,” Swift Heart turned and walked towards a small desk, grabbing a quill in his magic and beginning to write. “I will send word of your arrival ahead of you with a Pegasus messenger, meanwhile I suggest that you and your squad rest up and make ready to march. I do not believe I have to impress upon you that speed is very much of the essence here.”
“No, sir, you do not,” I shook my head. “Will that be all?”
“Yes, Major. You are dismissed.”
“Thank you, sir,” I quickly saluted, before ducking out of the tent, heading towards where the surviving members if the Highlanders were quartered. It didn’t take me long to reach the tent where my squad was resting up.
“Major, nice of you to finally join us,” Firefly didn’t look up from where he was sharpening his sword. “And I allowed to know what you were speaking to higher command about?”
“You can,” I nodded, sitting down on one of the free bunk and pulling my rifle from my back. “We’re leaving the column, heading back to the forward command base to bring back as many reinforcements as we can muster.”
“There’s something else though, isn’t there?” Nara asked.
“There might well be, but that is still up in the air,” I shook my head. “For now, get some food in you and get some rest, we leave at first light tomorrow.”
“Yes sir,” came the multitude of voices from the tent, before they each went back to what they had been doing before, while I let out a groan, tugging my armour off, examining the damage done to my body beneath.
The point where the crossbow bolt was still oozing blood, but it looked mostly superficial, and I was confident that it would heal given a few days. The bruises that were already forming were more of a concern, but again, they would all heal eventually.
Satisfied that I had no serious injuries from the fight, I picked up my armour and undid the front plate carrying section and removed the ceramic plate from within. The plate slid out, or more accurately, half of it did, coming out covered in cracks, which spread out from a single epicentre like a spider’s web. I wondered for a moment why something designed to stop bullets had been penetrated by a simple crossbow, before shrugging. I didn’t know much about the armour, just that it had protected me this time like it always had, the only difference now being I couldn’t requisition a new set.
Reaching into the pocket again, I fished out the remaining parts of the broken armour, before resealing the pocket and placing the armour to my side, slipping the remains of the plate into a pouch on my assault vest, before making a mental note to talk to Luna about getting some new armour. If I was going to be doing more fighting, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to need it.
The night passed quickly and without incident, which was honestly a surprise for me. I had expected the griffons to launch a quick counter-attack against the fort before we could dig in properly, and had slept with one eye open all night because of that. The fact that they didn’t attack just helped to back up the idea that they had wanted us to burn ourselves out here and then rot in the fort.
Silently cursing my paranoia as I yawned, I uncurled myself from the tiny bunk that I had been given and groaned. If I was going to be staying here for the foreseeable future I was going to have to get bigger beds made.
“Foreseeable future,” I muttered softly, slipping my combats on and grabbing my rifle, before slipping out of the tent, watching the horizon as the sun began to crest it. For the first time since I had got here, things had slowed down enough for me to actually think about the precarious situation that I was now in.
I was literally a world away from home, or hell, even from earth, I was surrounded by talking ponies, some of whom seemed to outright ignore the laws of physics, and yet instead of just trying to figure out how to get home, I had managed to get embroiled in a planet wide war so that I could get medical attention for my friend.
“Throne above, what are you playing at?” I whispered to myself, rubbing my temples.
“What was that?” Nara asked from behind me, stretching her wings awkwardly.
“Rough night?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at her.
“Small beds,” she nodded. “Bet you had that problem to?”
“Yeah, haven’t had to sleep in a foetal position like that for a while,” I chuckled. “Not since…well you know what? It doesn’t matter.”
I trailed off as yet another thought hit me. There were only two humans on this planet that we knew of, and one of them was my best friend.
“I may never have sex with another human again,” I deadpanned.
“Glad to see you’re keeping the important things alive,” Nara laughed. “You still never answered my first question though, what were you thinking of?”
“You speak to all superior officers this casually?”
“No, but you don’t strike me as someone who wants all the pomp,” Nara shrugged. “If you’d prefer I barked Major at the end of everything, just say the word.”
“I won’t make you,” I shook my head. “Just remember to keep up appearances…”
“In front of proper company,” Nara finished.
“You got it,” I nodded. “As for what I was doing? Thinking of home.”
“You miss it?”
“Wouldn’t you miss yours? To be honest it’s not even home, it’s humans.”
“Want to tell me about them?”
“Nara, you are going to need to get me a lot more drinks before I start going in to all of that,” I snorted.
“You know, I may just hold you to that,” Nara laughed.
“Yeah, I’m sure you will.”
I turned back around as the bottom of the sun finally became visible. The warmth from it instantly seemed to improve my mood, and a smile spread across my face.
“Nara, go and shake the others out of bed. We’ll eat breakfast and then we’ll be on our way.”
Nara nodded, before ducking back inside the tent. A moment of silence passed, before a shrill shriek emanated from the tent. I winced as I covered my ears, before smirking.
“That griffon is a wild one, isn’t she?” a pony approached from behind me.
“She seems that way, Brigadier,” I nodded, turning around to face the huge earth pony. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I came to apologise,” Drake shook his head. “Yesterday, when we spoke about you taking command of the new battalion?”
“I remember. You didn’t seem too happy about it then, and I do understand that, believe me I do.”
“I do stand by what I said, you are certainly not my first choice for a new commander,” Drake sighed, clicking his tongue as he mulled over his next words. “But…when everything is considered and our chips are down, I suppose you are far from the worst choice I could have.”
He raised a hoof towards me, glancing down at it and letting me know that he was trying to shake my hand. Grasping his hoof, I shook it firmly, drawing an odd look from Drake.
“Something from your home?” he asked, shaking his hoof.
“It’s how we greet, make up, seal a deal. You name it,” I shrugged. “Why? What do you do?”
“Just, tap it,” Drake said slowly.
I let out a soft chuckle as I made a fist, before bumping Drake’s outstretched hoof.
“So that’s your version of a hand shake then? Makes sense,” I nodded. “If there’s nothing else, sir?”
“Just have fun rubbing flanks with the elite,” Drake smirked. “Royalty, the aristocracy, other up themselves ponies? Rather you than me. Oh, and take this,” He pulled a scroll out of the bag he wore on his flank and passed it to me. “Signed documents giving you permission to take charge of the Battalion.”
“Thank you, sir,” I took the scroll, before turning and walking back into the tent.
***
We left shortly after my conversation with Drake, packing up the tent and our sleeping equipment, passing it out so that everyone had a fair amount to carry. It was a long way from the fort back to the Equestrian base, and even though we had left at sunrise, we didn’t come into sight of the base until a few hours past mid-day.
“Alright, form up properly, two ranks.”
The squad moved into two neat lines as opposed to the lose patrol we had been in most of the day as we approached the wall to the camp, the conversations dying down to nothing almost instantly.
As we approached, four ponies moved in front of the gates, pushing the haft of large pikes into the ground, before grabbing hold of a side handle with their mouths, stabilising the weapons. It was the first time I had seen weapons that looked like they had actually been designed for ponies to use, although they weren’t exactly mobile. Still, even with just four of them, they would have presented a very large obstacle for any attackers, and their heavy looking purple armour would likely protect them from all but the heaviest of ranged attacks.
“Luna’s personal guard,” Firefly whispered. “Means Celestia can’t be here or she’d have some of her guard at the gates as well.”
“The Solar Guard are a lot more of a pushover than the Lunar Guard,” Castelian pointed out.
“Not the Dawnguard,” Nara shook her head. “They…”
“Enough,” I cut them off. “It doesn’t matter, plus I don’t know enough about the different Legions to make judgements yet.”
“That’s far enough,” one of the soldiers called out, his deep voice easily carrying across the gap between us even with the full head helmet he wore covering his mouth. “State your name, Legion and purpose here.”
“Major Matthew Wood, advisor to High General Luna, and acting commander of a squad of Highlanders. We have been sent to speak to the Princess by Lieutenant Colonel Swift about the Harrongraäd offensive.”
For a moment the four ponies talked between themselves, before pulling the pikes out of the ground and standing to either side.
“Why is the griffon prisoner still armed?” one of them finally called out.
“Here we go,” Nara groaned softly.
“She’s not a prisoner, she’s a member of the Highlander Legion, first battalion, third regiment,” I called back. “We’ll wait if you have to go and verify it.”
“Yes, you will,” the first pony called back, before looking up at the walls. “Somepony go and find out if this story checks out.”
For almost an hour the four guards remained stock still, their gazes fixed on us with steely determination. In response, the Highlanders and I shrugged off our kit and sat down, leaning against the gear as we started to chat again, laughing as we swapped stories. I stayed out of the story swapping part, content to instead listen to the others.
“So go on then, Major,” Slugger laughed after Heavy Weight had finished telling us about a time he had hoof to arm wrestled a Minotaur and won, before they had betrayed the Equestrians. “I’m sure somepony like you must have a lot of stories to tell.”
“Someone,” I corrected.
“Open the gates,” one of the Lunar guard called out suddenly. “And organise an escort for the group.”
“But that will have to wait, we’re moving out,” I shouldered the gear I had been given to carry, as well as my own webbing, before walking towards the gates, Nara walking beside me.
“You’re good at dodging questions, you know that, Major?”
“I take pride in it,” I nodded. “There’s a time and a place for storytelling, and that’s usually over a few pints down in the pub. Please tell me you have beer here?”
“Never heard of it,” Nara shook her head. “We have ale, is that similar?”
“It will do just fine,” I nodded with a smile, following after the Lunar Guard who was now leading us through the base, heading towards the central building.
“Wait here,” the pony ordered as we reached the door to the throne room, before he disappeared inside. He reappeared a moment later, before beckoning for us to follow him.
The room was exactly how I remembered it, large, long and imposing. This time however it was relatively empty, Luna and a few other armour ponies huddled around a table.
“Major Wood?” Luna asked, looking up, before her horn lit, and in a flash she disappeared, reappearing on her throne.
“You can teleport?” I whispered in disbelief.
“What was that?” she asked, leaning back in the throne.
“I said, thank you for admitting us, your highness,” I replied quickly, approaching Luna and stopping just before her, two ponies moving up beside her. Unlike the ponies that had guarded the gateway, these ponies did not wear full face helmets and heavy armour, instead wearing open face one’s and much more form fitting armour. It looked no less intimidating, covered in spikes as it was, and the ponies within looked like they knew how to wield the blades that covered their bat-like wings, their faces covered in scars.
“You are my aide, it would be hard for you to report to me if I did not speak to thou,” Luna pointed out. “Now tell me, how goes the offensive on Harrongraäd? It would be nice to have some good news after the other news I have heard today.”
“I’m sorry, but no, your highness,” I shook my head.
“Why am I not surprised?” Luna deadpanned, before sighing. “Come then, tell me of thy perils.”
“We attacked and took a fortress of griffons shortly after daybreak yesterday,” I started. “The base was the hub of all griffon air power, meaning we could not send up scouts. We managed to take it after a moderately costly battle, and sent out scouts. There are more fortresses before the city itself, and if each of those results in the same loss of men, we won’t make it to the city and still be combat effective. We believe that drawing us to this fort was a trap to find out our strength without compromising the defensive structures around the city itself.”
“So what is it you expect me to do?” Luna asked, her voice heavy with responsibility.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Swift Heart is asking for reinforcements. He spoke of the Sixth Regiment of his Legion potentially being free from combat duty, and I have been sent to inquire about whether this is true or not, and find out if there are any other troops available for battle.”
“The Sixth Regiment is indeed stationed here,” Luna nodded. “They are helping to bolster the defences in case the griffons try to assault us here. I am not sure I like the idea of committing them to a battle roster without first waiting for freshly trained ponies to relieve them.”
“With all due respect, High General, Swift Heart is stuck where he is for the foreseeable future. Going forward will see everyone…”
“Pony,” one of the ponies cut in.
“You know, I’m getting really sick of that,” I muttered sullenly. “Going forward will see all the troops dying or routing, coming back will have been a waste of lives, and staying still, while probably the best thing for now, will not result in a quick victory.”
“If you are so worried about your ability to take the city, will five thousand more ponies help? If you believe you can take the city with them, then maybe I can think about releasing them.”
“Honestly? I still don’t think it will be quick, and I still think small scale raids will be a better option,” I shook my head.
“Then why reinforce Swift Heart at all?” Luna countered. “He is presumably rebuilding the fort, and I have faith that he can hold it. If thou only suggest small scale raids, why is a large force needed there at all?”
“Because it will pull griffons and minotaur’s away from other fronts. That will allow you to make bigger gains in other theatres, which will stretch them thinner still. Then they’ll be forced to make a decision between keeping a large force protecting Harrongraäd and losing other parts of their territory, or taking troops from the city to strengthen other parts of their line, making it easier for our larger force to move in and capture the city.”
Luna didn’t speak for a long time, a debate clearly going on within her mind. Finally, she nodded slowly, and spoke once more.
“Your logic is sound, Major. The Sixth Regiment of the Hoofington Legion will be prepared for a march to bolster Lieutenant-Colonel Swift Heart’s forces. Now, was there something else?”
“There was this,” I nodded, pulling the scroll Drake had given me out of one of my webbing pouches.
Luna’s horn glowed as she took the scroll from my grip, a slight tingling sensation shooting up my hand when the aura touched it. I filed the information away in case it came in handy later, but kept silent as Luna scanned the letter. Her lips pressed tightly together as she read, before she finally put the scroll to one side and looked down at me.
“Brigadier Drake wants you to take command of a new battalion of Highlanders?”
“Yes,” I nodded curtly.
“Freely? Without being forced?”
“Less so,” I admitted begrudgingly.
“As I thought. Drake is not the sort of pony to allow anypony other than one of his own to take a command position. I doubt he is happy about this arrangement.”
“He’s not,” I shook my head. “But needs must, your highness. Every pony he had short listed for command is dead, and it would take days, if not weeks, for him to find a replacement. None of us wanted to wait that long, so after much deliberation, he agreed.”
“Yes,” Luna mused. “You are aware that as Equestria’s High General, I have the power to veto this appointment, yes?”
“The others may have said something to that effect,” I nodded. “Say the word and I won’t take command, you highness. Truth be told I’m not thrilled about taking command either.”
“Why is that?” Luna leant forward as she spoke.
“Because then I’ll be that much more tied to your military,” I shrugged.
“But thou art a soldier. Surely being in the military is where you wish to be?”
“Being in my military was where I wanted to be,” I countered. “I’m fighting for you because you wanted something in return for treating Jenkins, and I totally understand that. Fighting is what I do well, but I feel like I’m being forced to things against my will just to ensure that my friend isn’t left to die.”
“So you are telling me that given the choice, thou would be content to sit idle while others gave their lives in defence of their home? I do not believe that for a moment.”
“You’re right, given the choice I’d be trying my best to sign up and fight, because like I said, being a soldier is what I’m good at. I fought at home because I honestly believed in England, I believed in the causes we fought for. Hell, I even believed in the Tories when they came into power again, and god knows that was a touchy subject in the country. At the moment though, I’m fighting for Equestria because I don’t have a choice.”
“Then I remove that doubt,” Luna replied simply. “I give you my word as a monarch of Equestria and the warden of the moon, that the human known as Colour Sergeant Alex Jenkins will be treated fairly and properly in our care. I release you from your perceived bond to this country. You are a free agent, Matthew Wood. Now, tell me when you would like to return to the Equestrian heartland and I will organise a chariot for you to take you back to Everfree, far-away from the battlefield and the ponies in your squad, sorry, Sergeant Firefly’s squad, as you no longer in charge.”
I groaned and rolled by eyes as Luna spoke. She was a lot shrewder than I had given her credit for, and I had allowed myself to be guilt tripped. By a horse. Jenkins would have a field day with this if he knew.
“Ok, you made your point, your highness.”
“Good,” Luna nodded, a coy smile spreading across her muzzle. “Then if you see no problems in this, I will counter-sign these orders, and place you in command of the second battalion, first brigade of the Third Highlander Regiment.”
“I see no problems, you highness.”
“Very well then, major, you are dismissed. Sergeant,” she called out, looking at the pony who had escorted us to the throne room, “take the major and his squad here to where the Highlanders are billeted. You are my word and will to ensure that none question the veracity of the major’s appointment.”
“Yes, high general,” the pony saluted, before marching towards the door, holding it open and looking back at me.
Coming to attention, I saluted, before turning and marching after the Sergeant, passing by him and leaving the room. Only once the doors had closed did I let out the breath I’d been holding, relaxing as I looked at the Sergeant.
“I don’t know your name, Sergeant.”
“Sergeant Nocturnal, Sir,” the pony barked. “First platoon, Lunar Guard.”
“Very well, Nocturnal, lead on,” I smiled, falling in behind Nocturnal.
***
“Why the sudden change of heart?” Nightshade turned to Luna as the doors closed.
“What do you mean, Nightshade?” Luna asked nonchalantly.
“When the major first gave you the letter you looked like he’d just handed you manticore shit, and you didn’t exactly jump at the idea after that either,” Nightshade pointed out.
Luna let out a soft giggle, putting a hoof in front of her mouth.
“You always have such a way with words, Nightshade. And no, I didn’t want to sign the order, because I do not believe that Brigadier Drake is happy with this at all. Unhappy commanders are difficult enough, and unhappy Highlanders are even worse. I still don’t think that any in their Legion forgave us for ordering them to fall back from Stalliongrad.”
“So why did you give in? Major Wood seemed like he would have accepted that order.”
“Because like he said, he gets tied down to the military that bit more this way. If he’s only in command of a squad when his friend is healed, he could leave and only abandon six ponies, or five ponies and a griffon technically. Give him a battalion…”
“And he would be abandoning far more,” Nightshade finished. “That’s cold, Luna. You’re manipulating him.”
“I know. But we need him. And right now, having him on our side is more important than giving him the choice. If he’s as good as we believe he could be, it could be the breakthrough that we have been searching for with VOID.”
He’s not going to like it,” Nightshade warned again.
“No, he won’t, who would?” Luna sighed. “Maybe when the war’s over we will address this again, but until then…”
She trailed off, looking at the door, before shaking her head.
“Now come, there is still a war to plan.”
