The men quickly ran through the forest, making their way back to their camp. After their performance back there, they could be reasonably sure that they wouldn’t be bothered. Either that, or patrols would step up big-time. Vasilyev just hoped they had done the right thing. If they had let the guards patrol the area unchallenged, would they have found them? One thing was for sure: Vasilyev didn’t want to find out.

The group entered their camp, setting down their equipment and lying down to rest. It was just after midday, and already they had discovered much about the local residents. Like what language they spoke, which had come as a surprise to all of them. After a few more moments of silence, Petrov spoke up.

“Anyone want to watch me as I spy on them with the SVU-A?” He asked.

“Sure,” Sokolov responded. “It’s not like we had anything else to do.”

With that, the tough sergeant got up, slinging his sniper rifle over his shoulder. The rest of the group watched as he left the clearing, the men immediately switching to his video feed. They saw hum ducking under a branch, quickly finding his spot at the edge of the woods. The team switched the radio channel to that as the bug, immediately catching snippets of chats.

Petrov lay down on the ground, resting his sniper rifle on its bipod. The bullpup design might not make it the best for long-distance shooting, but that didn’t matter, as all he needed was the PSO-1 scope attached to it. He peered into it, his ‘Net’ equipment instantly transmitting what he saw to the other men.

Several dozen ponies, unicorns, and pegasi were wandering around what was probably a ‘Town Square’. Petrov rotated the scope away from there, searching for the spot he had planted the bug at. He found it quickly, the spot easily visible from his spot, as he had intended. Right now, two ponies, one a regular type and one with wings, were standing outside of it.

He dialed to the channel, catching part of the conversation.

“-am sorry, Roseluck, but I don’t know anything else. Whatever’s in the forest could have hurt the guards, and they’re preparing a pegasus flight to find it, or them if there are more: The guard said about six.”

“A shame, Cloud Kicker.” The regular pony said. “I always gathered plenty of flowers near that section of the forest, at least, what I couldn’t grow here.”

The pegasus nodded, rolling its head a bit. “Well, I have to get back to the weather patrol. See you later, Roseluck!”

With that, one of them waved at the other, and the pegasus took off into the sky, quickly flying out of the sight of his scope.

“Damn.” Kozlov said. “I guess it didn’t work.”

Bogdanov sighed. “It was a good attempt. At least it was funny as hell.”

Vasilyev shook his head. “All of you, get back to the camp. We’ve got to get under cover before whatever they are sending out gets here, so pack up your things, and get under the camouflage net. That includes you, Petrov.”

The sergeant grunted, picking up his rifle as he rose off the group. He quickly ran back towards the camp, reaching it in less than half a minute.

The rest of the men were packing up their things and placing them under the netting, the camouflage pattern the safest place in the forest for them. The next four hours passed quickly. By the mission clock, it was eight o’ clock, and the sun was reaching down, almost touching the hilly horizon. The men occupied themselves by playing with a small deck of cards, betting the little rubles that they had amongst themselves.

Sokolov had just gone up slightly when Petrov held a hand to his ear, listening intently to the earpiece. A moment later, he looked directly at them.

“On the bug channel, I heard plenty of marching and a bit of shouting. Needless to say, they’re coming.”

The deck of cards was put away in seconds, Kozlov stowing it in one of his pouches. Each of the men put on their packs, in some cases checking to make sure the missiles or rockets on the back were tightened on. they stood in a half-crouch, waiting, at the slightest moment, to react to any stimuli.

Petrov suddenly cocked his head for a moment, before turning rapidly towards the rest of the men.

“They’re coming in by ground!” He hissed. “Stow the camouflage netting, and quickly!”

Bogdanov quickly took two of the ends down while Sokolov tacked the other two. They dumped the material on top onto the ground, handing the large, thin cloth to Bogdanov, who packed it away quickly. Vasilyev gave the ‘follow me’ gesture before running off into the woods, the rest of the men following shortly behind him.

Petrov pulled up a tactical map on his HUD, and saw that they were moving around the town through the forest, in a small arc, heading approximately south. Vasilyev was in the lead, eight meters in front of him, with the rest of the men visible as blue dots on his HUD.

“Where are you headed, Lieutenant?” Petrov asked as they ran.

“The train tracks outside of town.” He answered. “Right outside, we try to catch a small passenger train, take it over, and commandeer a locomotive and a car.”

“How do you know there are trains?” He asked.

“The radar shows them clearly, as well as a train that had partially pulled in at the time.” Vasilyev replied.

The group quickly emerged from the forest at the other end of the town, well away from the patrolling guards, and more towards the gigantic mountain about eighty kilometers away. They moved towards the train tracks en-mass, hardly visible now that the sun had finally set. They finally stopped in a clumping of trees, two hundred meters away from the town, well-hidden from any ponies that might have been out.

Now all they had to do was wait.

Author's Note

Originally finished on 6/24/2013, at 7:42 PM.