"God dammit!" - my shout echoed throughout the clearing. "Why the hell did that happen?! Why did I have to be the only one to get this?" I bellowed, trying to wipe my boot on the grass. An entire platoon of deadbeats is mucking about here, and I'm the only guy who steps in shit. My mom kept telling me to go to university. I should've listened.
"Comrade lieutenant, er, where should we dig?" - A dull voice sounded behind me. I turned around and glared at the red-haired fellow, just under six feet tall with a look of complete boredom in his eyes. One of my two 'corporals'(1) , didn't even flinch, and continued to gormlessly gawk at my attempts to get rid of the foul-smelling substance. Upon realizing that the shit was fresh, I ceased all my attempts to wipe the combat boot and snarled at the soldier.
"Shove it up your ass, at least that'll keep you busy!" I was prevented from saying more, as my second 'corporal' came running to me, blond, tall as a lamp post and skinny as fuck, his gun jingling on his back. 'Fuck' stretched himself 'at attention', and blabbed:
"Comrade lieutenant, permission to report!" Without waiting, he continued. "The second squad is in line as you ordered -- junior sergeant Zamuruyev..." He rattled off his report in three seconds, and froze 'at attention' again. I gave the red-haired soldier a meaningful 'this is how you address your superiors'-look.
"At ease." With an important air, I walked towards the herd that, mistakenly, was being called a second squad. Upon seeing me, the "squad" assumed what they believed was a drill stance.
"So, my fellow troops, we have an great day ahead of us!" I addressed the formation. "I know how we like to work, and by the way, when I say 'we' I mean YOU! Any questions!?" The retard summer camp appeared to have none. I waited for a second to let the information sink in, then continued;
"We are going to prepare defensive positions, on this wonderful field. Our task is to dig a full-profile trench for everyone of you." - The light in their eyes went out, as they realized they won't be able to slack off.
"In addition to that, 'we' are supposed to prepare temporary headquarters in form of a dugout, for our favorite captain. And, by the way, I wouldn't recommend you to do a piss poor job, since might have to spend the night in those trenches at the very least. We could even be stuck here till your demobilization. Questions?!"
No questions followed, the soldiers looked so glum, that even the darkest funeral procession would seem like Brazilian carnival in comparison. After issuing tasks to the 'corporals' and marking territory, I, with a sense of accomplishment dropped the duffel bag, hanged my gun on the branch, and then shamelessly went to sleep under the tree upon making sure no biological landmines are present.
_____________________
I was awaken by the ginger hog: "Oy, comrade lieutenant, you gonna fress?"
Unwillingly, I got up and assumed sitting position, I looked at the sun, which was almost gone. Turning my head to the left, I have discovered my red 'alarm clock' sitting there without paying attention to me, devouring his canned stew. It made me shudder. No, I'm not squeamish, but there's three things in this life that make me want to empty my stomach - spiders, maggoty apples, and junior sergeant Kabanov's eating habits. When eating, he kind of reminds me of those things from the "Aliens" movie, except he doesn't spit acid.
Quietly cursing the corporal, I rummaged through my duffel bag, looking for a food ration among the pile of stuff like clean socks and porn magazines. Following my 'corporal's' example I opened a can of stew and began to devour it it without even heating it up. Anyhow, after emptying the contents of the container I was going to check on my men's work results, but as soon as I closed my bag, I was rudely interrupted by the ginger.
"Comrade lieutenant, you're not gonna eat that hardtack, aren't ya?" I almost jumped from this sort of insolence. No, seriously?
"Soldier, are you feeling all right?" I inquired compassionately. 'Corporal', however didn't get the hint and gawked at me with a dull look on his face.
"Er, no, but I could certainly drop from this sort of service..." He muttered. With great amount of effort I've managed to make a compassionate face, and slowly approached the 'corporal'.
"Tired, eh? Kabanov, you're working too hard." I sang in honeyed voice. The guy stared at disbelief. A loud smack echoed across the field, scaring off nearby birds. The corporal, rubbing his ear resentfully, muttered:
"You could've told me If you didn't want to share, why'd you have ta hit me?" No, seriously, resentful look this gorilla gave me is really something. I don't even know if I should cry or laugh.
"How do you think you're addressing your commander, you dolt, what's this "Not gonna eat hardtack"? - I mockingly mimicked him. My victim shamefully stared at the ground, quietly telling me 'he won't do it anymore'. The sight of that kinda creeped me out.
For about ten minutes I tried to explain that the insubordinate soldier is akin to a trip to a hooker without condoms - you can manage without them, but there's a certain risk to it. Don't get me wrong, I love to brainwash this dolt, however the work on fortifications needed some inspection - I had to round things up.
"All right, screw you, take the crackers, but if I hear something like this from you one more time, you're going to build a Maginot Line here."
I turned around and was about to check out the trenches when I heared the corporal's voice again;
"Comrade lieutenant, I already ate my biscuits, I was asking about yours! You're smart, but didn't get it..."
I glanced at the smugly grinning glutton, rapidly looking for a way to hurt him without leaving any bruises...
_________________
I re-adjusted my holster, and laid my cape on the ground. It's not very comfortable in the dark, but I'd rather not sleep on the dirt floor. Well, I could - it's dry and all, but I already managed to freeze my kidneys once, I do not wish to repeat that experience. After I made an improvised bed, I fished out a candle out of my duffel bag, stuck it in the ground and lit it up.
In dim candle light I admired the dugout, which was supposed to serve the role of an improvised headquarters for our company commander. Well, it's a dugout, all right. Except it's unfinished at the moment - it was less of a dugout and more of a hole with a canopy, they didn't even cover the walls with tarp, those shitheads. Anyways, we'll deal with that tomorrow.
I tied my duffel bag, leaned my gun against the wall and went to sleep - didn't even take my boots off. I like to sleep, sleep is one of the modern serviceman's joys of life, right along with eating and getting paid. Heh, back in the day I used to think things would be different.
I thought I'll get the stars, everything will be fucking awesome, I'll have money and respect, and the attention of ladies... Ugh, stupid. In the end I got transferred to Primorye - the ass of the world. I live in barracks since the dorm I'm entitled to is full of alcoholics and degenerates - noisy as hell, no personal life, and no life in general. Just service. Sighing at my cruel fate, I dozed off.
_____________
I woke up from a strong smell, well, more of a horrid stench. It stunk like shit, the smell was so overwhelming it made me jump and check if I soiled myself while asleep. Making sure that the officer's honor was unstained, I sniffed the air and cursed when I realized that I never managed to wash the shit off my boot. Slept all day, then there was an evening inspection. I'm working too hard. No time for myself, no time at all - I grinned.
Realizing that the sun was up several hours ago, and no one woke me up, I began to crawl out of my 'house', intending to give that little shit Zamuruev a good ass-whooping for forgetting about his favorite commander.
Casually I picked up my gun by the strap, climbed out of the dugout and looked around the field. No one in sight. I blinked, and looked again...
"Fuck!" - I screamed. There was nobody. This is a complete clusterfuck, comrade lieutenant, the entire platoon went AWOL, you're getting fucking arrested! Now I've done it, but the thing is - this is incredibly strange. Yesterday, I wouldn't even think they'd try something, let alone this! I swear, when I find those shitheads...
Pissed as I was, I angrily kicked the nearest rock. It bounced off my boot and flew straight into the small lump on the ground.
"Ouch!" Someone said in muffled voice. Taken aback by this development, I searched for the source of the sound - apparently, it came from the 'lump'.
"Who the hell is being so fucking funny over there?! Shepilov, you asshole, I know damn well it's you! You're not getting discharged, you're gonna get another year o' cleaning the shitters!" - I bellowed, rapidly approaching the lump, thinking of the divine retribution I'm gonna rain on poor bastard's sorry ass.
When I came closer, I realized this was less of a lump, but more of a camo cloak. After grabbing the end of the cloak with my hand and pulling it off, I immediately fell on my ass, frantically trying to get a hold of my gun.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of Shepilov - that skinny bugger won't scare a worm, but THIS wasn't even remotely close to being him! There was a horse under there. No, I'm serious! The most natural horse, except small. And purple. With a horn on it's head, in addition to that.
I pointed my gun at it, frantically trying to remember if I consumed anything questionable yesterday.
"Uh, hello," The horse said sleepishly. "Do you live in this cave?" Horned monstrosity pointed its hoof at the dugout. I was surprised ... I'm kidding, of course, what's so surprising about that? Just think - a purple, horned horse... I was not surprised, I was shocked.
No, not even shocked.
Actually, I was terrified. Frantically pressing the trigger, I tried to remember if this area was used as nuclear testing site, but the trigger was refusing to be pressed. I forgot the safety was on.
"And who is Shepilov? You're not alone here? Why are you wearing clothes? Why are you poking me with this metal thing?" The purple monster continued to attack me with questions. Hastily clicking the safety off, I pulled the trigger...
Nope, fuck all.
Still startled, I realized I had to chamber the first round, and pulled on the bolt.
"Are you from the forest? You understand what I'm saying, right? I heared you said something about this Shepilov's glasses, does he have poor eyesight?" (2)
After chambering a round I felt much better. I grinned and squeezed the trigger once more, and... Still nothing.
What the hell?! Not even paying attention to the mutant anymore, I turned the gun sideways and realized what a hopeless idiot I am. There was no mag, it was in the ammo pouch, and the ammo pouch was in the dugout.
You dun goofed, lieutenant.
Author's Note
(1) There's no such rank in Russian army. 'Corporal' is a slang term for Junior Sergeant in this case.
(2) I don't know how to translate that part. The joke is based on the fact that the word "Очко" can have different meaning, but in this case it is being used as a slang word for the toilet bowl. However, the word "очки" (plural) also means glasses. I'm not sure what to do here. If I simply leave it how it is, and explain the joke in the author's notes - that'd be lame. So, could there be an analogue of this situation in english?
Chapter two
Regarding irrational thinking.
To my utmost surprise, the purple monstrosity did not try to devour me on the spot, the fact I was quite pleased about. On the other hand, it wasn't shutting up either, continuing it's interrogation and completely unfazed by the lack of answers.
"What's this metal thingie for? Why won't you talk? What's your name?" The horned daemon went quiet and stared at me, obviously expecting an answer.
Still holding my gun in panic, I tried to come up with a way to reach my ammo bag without being devoured. Nothing would come to mind, I couldn't just teleport away.
The horse continued to stare at me curiously, shifting it's glance back and forth between me and the 'metal thing'. Why the hell did I take off he ammo pouch?! Soon this thing will realize that I'm defenseless, and brigade commander alone knows what it'll do. There, it's looking at me!
The mutant obviously became tired of waiting. Taking a step back, it carefully began to examine me from head to toe.
Unable to take the silence any longer, the horse rattled again:
"Are you sick? Or wounded? Is it hard for you to speak?" The horned creature looked me in the eyes. For some reason, it seemed concerned. Yeah, of course it's concerned, if I'm sick I might be dangerous to eat, or might not be so tasty. What an insolent horse.
The staring contest continued. Finally, I gave up. Go ahead and eat me. "You can choke on my stars, bitch. Whatever it is you usually get right before the execution, a cigarette? I need a smoke." With that in mind I reached into my pocket. My fingers grasped something metallic.
"Motherfucker!" I yelled. The purple abomination anxiously froze in place and glared at me again, this time one could clearly see fear in it's eyes.
"Are you allright?" The monster inquired with concern.
That didn't bother me, however, I was saved! Now, all my fears seemed trivial and mostly made up. It was as if my pistol gave it's strength and metal resilience to me. How could I possibly forget about the holster? Yet, it doesn't matter. I jumped to my feet, pulled out the sidearm with my numb fingers and with a triumphant roar dramatically pointed it at the horned horse.
"Your word, Comrade Makarov!" I taunted. I don't get to shoot small horned purple monster-horses every day, after all!
_________________
The purple unicorn calmly trotted through the meadow drenched in the afternoon sun. The sky was a deep shade of blue, with light strokes of Pegasus-feather-like white clouds. The world seemed bright and airy. She felt like like bursting into a song.
‘What a pleasant day’ She thought as she was returning from her striped friend’s hut. This morning she decided to come visit Zecora. No reason this time, she didn’t need an important advice or some special potion. Things were so quiet in Ponyville, she was bored out of her mind.
This day the little pony decided to pay her old friend a visit and have a little chat over a cup of herbal tea. Twilight was simply in awe of this tea, she could drink it forever. Today, to Zecora’s amusement, she managed to gulp down seven cups of it.
‘Well, can’t do anything about it.’ she chuckled. ‘Everybody has a weakness and that tea is incredibly good, it invigorates and gives this feeling of lightness, I feel like I’m gonna fly!’
Pondering about the benefits of herbal tea before the usual one, Twilight re-adjusted the cloak on her back. She ‘fought’ Rarity for two days because of this cloak - the unicorn had trouble convincing her friend that the forest cloak shouldn’t be covered in gold and jewelry, on the contrary - it should be as practical and unnoticeable as possible.
Finished with the cloak, she turned her head forward and her nose ended up in a rather large pile of mud.
“Ew, how gross! Ugh!” Spitting and snorting, the mare stepped back and looked at the obstacle.
‘I’m pretty sure, this wasn’t here a second ago, I need to pay more attention.’ She grumbled.
However her discontent, was quickly replaced with curiosity: as she looked around, Twilight has found some more mounds just like this one, a bunch of twigs piled on some logs right in between them.
After some indecisive trampling in one place, the lilac pony curiously approached the strange ‘structure’. Getting closer, she noticed that all these logs and twigs actually act as a ‘roof’ of a rather large and deep pit. Unable to resist temptation, the unicorn stuck her head into the impressive gap between earth and logs.
It was too dark inside the pit, and the mare decided to to wait a little bit for her eyes to get used to the dark.
“What a pose, ms. Sparkle” She grinned to herself. “I hope no one will sneak on me from behind.”
Getting used to the darkness, Twilight noticed a weird long sac lying next to one if the walls of the pit. She almost decided that somebody uses this pit to dump garbage, when, surprisingly, the ‘sac’ abruptly stood up and allegedly began to sniff the air. Frightened, the unicorn hastily pulled her head out of the hole and ran away a little. What if this ‘sac’ noticed her?
“Should I run? Or hide? Or maybe I should go say ‘hello’?” Thoughts whirled in her head. With an effort mare forced herself to calm down.
"I think it is best if I quietly observe the creature for now, and then we’ll see. "With that in mind, Twilight quickly covered herself with a cloak and laid down on the ground.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Her horn lit up, and her cloak was quickly covered in chunks of dirt from a nearby mound. Disguised, Twilight froze. The ‘sac’ got out of the pit with a strange metal thing hanging on it’s shoulder, and began to look around.
Twilight examined the creature with interest. It was so tall, even Celestia herself would reach no further than it’s shoulder, and generally looked like a diamond dog. Slender and shapely diamond dog. ‘The Crosstie’, as the mare called him, was all wrapped up in green-colored oddly patterned clothes. It was even wearing something that looked very similar to a cap on it’s head. The stranger’s hooves were very strange as well, tall and sticking out forward. Just like manticore’s paws, except no fingers or claws.
To her relief, the creature did not notice her, and having finished looking around, yelled so loud that the unicorn almost jumped.
“Fuuk!!!”
Twilight was surprised. Fuuk was the name of the eldest son of nomadic steppe ponies Khan. They met a couple of times at Princess Celestia’s diplomatic receptions. The young stallion was an interesting, albeit very peculiar pony to talk to. The mare had no idea what he could possibly do in the middle of the forest, in company of such strange creature.
The ‘Crosstie’ was very angry, Twilight could feel it with her skin. “Because Fuuk did not answer, apparently.” she mused.
In the meantime, the creature did not even think of calming down, almost blowing steam from his nostrils. It kicked the nearest rock, and it flew directly at young filly-scout’s horn. It was as if someone set of a firecracker inside her skull, filling the world with ringing and pain.
Twilight bit her hoof, trying not to cry and give herself away. It didn’t help. She shrieked, more from fear than actual pain. The creature clearly heard her and stopped abruptly. “What the hay?!” the unicorn panicked “I just had to let my curiosity get the better of me!”
Suddenly the creature began to spew profanities, screaming something about some Shepilov’s glasses, quickly moving towards her.
“Alright Twily, calm down, just calm down.” The mare tried to stop panicking, but her efforts were in vain. The stranger, being already quite close to her, clutched the edge of her cloak, and forcibly yanked it off.
Twilight shrank in fear, but noticed how the creature fell on it’s it's flank and tried to pull the piece of metal from it’s shoulder upon seeing her.
“You see, it didn’t want to eat you, the ‘Crosstie’ is just as scared of you as you are of it.” The mare thought to herself. “Now, the main thing is to be friendly!”
“Uh… Hello!” - She barely managed to squeeze the words out, attempting to make a good first impression.
Author's Note
If you find any errors, or if you have any suggestions about the translation, please tell me.
