Band of Ponies

“Do I really need all this shit?” Starlight wondered aloud, taking in the massive amount of equipment she was about to carry into combat. It was the day of the invasion. Tonight, the brave ponies of the 3rd airborne, who’d been preparing for many weeks, would fall from the sky into enemy territory. And in Starlight’s opinion, they were packing WAY too much gear.

        She, like everypony else, had laid all her gear on her chute, making sure everything was perfect. Weapon, canteens, rations, ammo, knife, bayonet, sidearm, grenades, rope, aid kit, gas mask, goggles, vest, fatigues, parachute, reserve chute, harness, and a whole lot of smaller items not even worth mentioning. Honestly, she could barely move with all that shit on her. Luckily, falling didn’t take that much effort.

        Then, the task of packing everything back up. She repacked the chute very carefully. If it failed her… She thought of the song ‘Blood Upon The Risers.’ A song about a trooper whose chute didn’t open. Starlight did NOT want to end up like her.

        She stripped her weapon for the thousandth time, making sure there was no dirt, and everything was oiled, and free of rust. For a while, her rifle had been her only friend, and when she treated it well, it didn’t fail her. The rifle was an Apple Firearms M-13 Assault Rifle. It was reliable, user-friendly, and had good stopping power. On Starlight’s was mounted a 3.5x55mm illuminated scope. It was great for medium range, but it sometimes got in the way. She carried ten of the transparent 30 round magazines, so 300 rounds total. In addition to her rifle, she carried a six shot .357 cal revolver she’d bought herself. It certainly packed a punch, and was very accurate and reliable.

        She looked over to her right to see how Candy was fairing. She too was stripping her weapon. From the looks of it, she’d gotten everything else packed. Candy looked over at Starlight, and smiled. Starlight smiled back, and blushed, her ears going back a bit.

 She began packing up her saddle bags, stuffing important things into her vest pockets not taken up by ammunition. She packed up in the normal way. First, her saddle, which was essential for her to fire her weapon (well, if she wasn’t a Unicorn), then her saddlebags, then her chute harness, which she’d need to get off quickly once she was on the ground.

Now that everypony was packed up, there was nothing to do but wait for the order to board the planes. Starlight trotted over to Candy (as quick as she could with her equipment), and stood next to her, maybe a bit too close.

“Do you need any help, Candy?” She asked, looking down at her gear.

“No thanks, Starlight, I’m almost finished.” She replied, smiling at her. Starlight still wasn’t sure if she felt the same love for her as she felt for Candy. She looked at Candy’s mane, which was pink, like cotton candy. Her coat was teal, as were the streaks in her tail, which was the same pink as her mane. Her cutie mark was (obviously) cotton candy, but her flank was covered by her khaki airborne fatigues. The military uniform looked odd on her. The ugly khaki, OD, and brown material contrasted with her candy colored coat.

Candy finished, reassembling her weapon. She put on her saddle bags, with difficulty, and started to put on the harness over it.

“Oh, here. let me help you with that…” Said Starlight, smiling. She set about strappng the harness to the grateful mare, blushing just a bit as close as she was to Candy. Once she was finished clipping the harness on, she backed off just a little. Candy groaned a bit at the weight as she tried to take a step.

“They really expect us to fight in all this?” Candy says, wincing.

“As savage as those Gryphons are, we’ll probably use up most of our ammo and grenades on the first night…” Said Starlight, then realizing she was incredibly nervous. “At least… If we… if I ever…” She stops, shaking her head. “Never mind. Everything’s gonna be fine. we’ll be fine…” She says, smiling a bit. It was starting to get dark, and everypony had started boarding the planes already. “Alright… Let’s go…” Says Starlight, trotting off to where the planes sat on the runway, their props starting to turn.

“Here we go.” Said Candy, taking a deep breath, and climbing up into the plane.

        Candy and Starlight were right next to each other, in the middle of the stick. If the plane was hit, they had a reasonable chance of making it out alive. On Starlight’s right was a Pegasus mare named StarDancer. She was about Starlight’s age, and a bit larger. She had a grey coat, with a light blue mane and tail. She’d been with the company as long as Starlight, if not longer. To StarDancer’s right was a yellow Earth pony mare, with a brown mane. She was newer, and everypony simply called her ‘Cupcake.’ She absolutely despised the name, but considering nopony actually bothered to remember her real name…

        The plane started to taxi over to the runway, where many more planes had already taken to the air. Starlight looked out the window, and was amazed at just how many there were. There must’ve been hundreds. Looking to her right, she saw Candy praying. Starlight had never really been into that, but now she felt as if they needed all the help hey could get. She said a quick prayer to Celestia, and prayed to Luna, just in case she didn’t make it.

        Before long, they were airborne. The darkening countryside rushed by in the open door, and the windows. There wouldn’t be much cloud cover tonight, so the Gryphons would be able to see them, and hear them without much effort. The flight over was uneventful. Starlight even got a bit of sleep, waking up to find herself leaning against Candy, who was also asleep. She nuzzled Candy, careful not to wake her up. StarDancer tapped Starlight’s shoulder, and pointed to the red light next to the door. Starlight groaned, and got up, gently waking candy, hating herself for having to disturb her sleep.

From there, training took over. Everypony hooked their static chord up to the overhead line. The static line would open their chute once they were out the door. Next, everypony had to check the pony in front of them, making sure their gear was secure, and they were ready t make the jump.

Suddenly, the night sky exploded into a nightmare filled with tracers, searchlights, and flak. An explosion went off right next to the plane, shaking it violently. Bullets ripped through the metal skin of the aircraft, and there was a cry of pain from somepony in the back. At this point, Starlight just wanted to get the fuck out of this deathtrap! One plane next to them suddenly erupted in flames, and went belly up, going down quickly. doubtful that anypony escaped THAT…

The light went green, and everypony quickly exited the aircraft. Starlight gasped as the chute opened, the sudden shock hurting her back as her full combat load was increased tenfold. She was so shocked that she didn’t even realize she was coming up on the ground. suddenly, she stopped dead, still hanging from her harness. Looking up, she saw, to her dismay, that her chute had become caught up in a tree! to make matters worse, she could see figures moving towards her. they obviously weren't ponies by their shape. Suddenly, a light shined on her, blinding her for a moment.

“There’s one! light that bitch up!” Called a voice from one figure.

“Fuck me, I’m going to DIE!” Thought Starlight, tears welling in her eyes as she realized it. Suddenly, there was a loud burst of gunfire, and the light fell to the ground. One of the figures was still moving, and groaning in pain. Another burst fixed that problem. The figure of a pony galloped over to the base of the tree, and looked up at it.

“Who is it?” Demanded Candy’s voice.

“C-Candy?” Starlight replied. “Is that you?”

“Starlight! Are you hurt? Can you cut yourself down?” Asked Candy.

        “I-I think so. Watch out down there.” Starlight said, using her magic to unsheathe her knife, beginning to cut through the strong chord. Before long, she fell to earth. it wasn’t a very bad fall, only about six feet.

“Are you okay, Starlight?” Asked Candy, audibly concerned. Before she could say anything else, Starlight hugged her tightly.

“Thank you so much, you saved my life!” She said, hugging tightly. the hug was made awkward, even uncomfortable by all the gear both ponies were wearing, but it was the first time Starlight had hugged her.

“What was I gonna do, let them kill you?” Candy smiled back. “My very special somepony?...”

Starlight’s heart skipped a beat. She found herself blushing deeply, but forced herself to pull away from the embrace. There’d be time for everything later, once they weren’t surrounded by Gryphons looking to kill them! She slipped out of the parachute harness, and readied her weapon, making sure the illuminated scope reticle was flipped on. Starlight looked around, then pulled out her map, looking at it under the Gryphon flashlight.

They were on a farm, Sarlight guessed, from the barn on the other side of the clearing from the tree she’d been stuck in. The Gryphons had come from a road not far from the clearing, to the right of Starlight when she was in the tree facing the barn. The opposite side of the road from the forest was obscured by a hedgerow about six feet tall.

Starlight had studied aerial photographs, and marked all buildings on the map that weren’t already there, so she’d managed to roughly pinpoint their location. She was, however, dismayed to find that their rally point where they’d meet up with the rest of the company, was almost eight miles away. “Buck!”

“We’d better get moving, Candy.” Said Starlight, putting away her map, and trotting over to the other mare. “We’ll have to hurry if we wanna get there on time.” She nuzzled Candy’s pink mane once more.

“Then we should get rid of some of this useless junk.” replied Candy, removing her saddlebags, and tossing whatever she didn’t think she’d need. Starlight did the same, and soon they were both only slightly weighed down.

Gunfire could be heard off down the road, right in the direction they wanted to go. “Well…” Said Starlight, turning to Candy. “Shall we?...”