Chapter 1 - No Camping
Leather clad hooves thudded against the dusty path cutting through the decimated zebra town of Gradianton. A few curious refugees peered at us through openings in their concrete huts. The sun was lowering and the ponies were tired. I turned to my second in command, An earth pony stallion named Corporal Steady Gait.
“We’ll make camp just outside the city. These ponies don’t want us here and we have more than enough enemies already. I don’t want to have to worry about being raided by refugees.”
He turned to the squad and called out “We’re gonna make camp a click outside the city, lets double time it out of here.”
The squad sighed, they’d been hoping they might get a warm night for once. Despite their disappointment they obeyed orders immediately and we began jogging out of the city. A zebra ran off into the night and Specialist Shaped Charge a pegasus stallion who served as my fire-teams grenadier, stopped and looked at me, a question in his eyes.
I halted and shook my head, “Let him go”
Charge frowned, “He’s probably informing militants of our position.”
I looked at him sternly, “He might not be, and we don’t shoot innocents because they might be a threat.”
He looked away, embarrassed, “Sorry sir”
I put a hand on his shoulder encouragingly, “You’re just doing what they taught you.” I smiled softly, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
He nodded, “Thank you sir.”
The squad had stopped and was waiting for us up ahead, “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
I trotted up to the head of the group and we continued our march. We stopped a little over a click of walking later and started to set up camp. My rifleman, Private Curiosity, was helping me set up a tent when a fight broke out in the camp.
Curiosity and I walked towards Fire-team Bravo’s tent and found the medic, A male earth pony named Splint, arguing with Gaits (Gait was the leader of fire-team bravo) Rifleman, A pegasus mare called Shaky Grasp.
“Hey, calm down!” Splint had a magic grip on Shakes jacket and I pulled him off, “Now what’s this about?”
“This idiot just tried to use phoenix tears from my kit to start a fire!” Splint snarled and turned to Herald, whose hooves and feathers were badly singed, “Do you realize how flammable that stuff is? How hard it is to put out? Or how hard it is to get medical supplies in Quagga?”
Shaky shuffled her feet awkwardly, “Umm, no?”
“I can’t even give you anything to treat those burns because that’s what the tears were for.” Splint threw up his hands in exasperation and walked away muttering, “Flaming Idiot.”
Curiosity whistled, “ooh, burn.”
I snickered, “Nice one.”, then stared at the embarrassed private for a minute or so to make him to squirm, “Make a request before you get into the supplies next time, okay?”
She saluted, “Yes sir.”
I turned to the rest of the squad, “That goes for all of you. Talk to me or Splint before you touch the medkit.”
The squad shouted their acknowledgement, “Understood sir!”
I nodded and returned to setting up the tent with Curiosity while someone who knew what they were doing started the fire. We finished up with the tent and went to set up our USPs (Unicorn Spell Platters) to cook near the fire. While we waited we cleaned the dust off of our equipment and did some basic maintenance to keep our rifles in good shape. I took off the bracers I wore while on duty (and sometimes off duty too) next to them I sat a flattened metal rod long as my forearm, it had a loop on one end that I used to keep it on my belt.
Curiosity looked at me quizzically, “I’ve been meaning to ask. What are those things?”
I smiled, glad someone had finally asked, “Private, these are my babies.” He frowned in confusion and I grinned at him happily, “Just watch.” I pulled the bracers back on and picked up the rod. I channeled energy into the loop and the rod extended to triple its normal length as two steel segments , slightly thinner than the original, shot out from the body of the device so that the rod extended to a length of two feet. A lock clicked into place to hold the metal stave open and a sharp blade shot out of the opposite end from the loop. In the space of a few seconds the device had seemingly transformed from a metal rod to a fully functional war spear.
Curiosity's eyebrows shot up and he gaped at the weapon as if it was the culmination of all his hopes and dreams. But I wasn’t done. I lit up a gem on an iron boss embedded in my left bracer and panels folded out from my arm and formed into a large, octagonal shield which popped off of the bracer and was lifted by my magic.
I looked at Curiosity expectantly, “So what do you think?” He stayed silent and unmoving, very unusual for him. “Hello? Equestria to Curiosity.” I poked him with a forehoof and he tilted sideways. A trickle of blood ran down the middle of his forehead and he fell over. I covered my head with the shield and ran for shelter. “Pony down!” I yelled, “Get to cover NOW!”
Maybe we should have shot that Zebra after all.
