The Storms of War

To: Corporal Steel Wing

From: Home, Equestria Dispatch Office

RE: Mail

Dear Son,

I am so glad to hear from you and that you like the revolver! When Rainy Days told me that they all pitched in, I had to ask the Military office if it was okay to send to you. The kind sergeant lieutenant there was so nice, and said that he would be happy to ensure it got to you. I am glad to hear that you and your friend Blaze are doing okay. I never asked your father much about his military career, so I don’t know much about it. However, you should, after the war is over, ask if that Maple Leaf person wants to come over for tea sometime. I am sure we can get her a pair of cloudwalking boots.

Anyways, while I am sick with worry most days, the money you are sending home is doing wonders here. I managed to get some things fixed around the house, and with your pay, I am managing to set aside nearly two hundred bits a month into your savings. A nice fellow, Mister Silver Tongue, working with Equestrian Royal Bank, is making sure your money is well invested!

I had to quit one of my night shifts, so now I am only running thirty five hours a week instead of sixty, but between your pay and mine, everything around here is so much better. I feel a bit guilty sometimes using your hard earned money, but.... Azure Skies told me that it would be more selfish if I didn’t. You are so like your father sometimes.... you both look out for poor old me. Anyways, I am at the paper limit... there is a bit of an unofficial war ration going on, so I gotta keep things breif. Take care!”

Your loving mother,

Blue Cross.

PS The hospital is a bit empty with everyone leaving... try to finish your job quickly?

I sighed, leaning back on top of the tank. The M4 Shermanes were amazing for long roat comfort... as long as you were not on bumpy roads. We were on our way to Saint Feathersburg, the gryphon town that was at a major road intersection. Taking it would allow us to move armor deep into occupied prance, and the town was only twenty miles from the Prench-Gryphic Border. All in all, it was THE place to be, and we had five companies moving on it. Second Armored (Whos chassiss I was more than happy to hitch a ride on), Seventh and Eight Regiments of First Infantry, and elements from the One hundred and First Airborne, the Nineteenth Artillery, and the Seventeenth Heavy Infantry made up the last two companies. Lieutenant General Clever Thinker (Rumored to be a descendant of Clover the Clever AND Smart Cookie) was in command, with Major Maple Leaf serving as his second in command. She was currently fuming more than the tanks at having to be in the back of the formation with the general.

“Hey... Blaze... you ever wonder why we are here?” I asked, sitting up and tucking my letter into my left breast pocket. She stretched, yawned, and sat up, rubbing her eyes under the sunlight. Today was a rare warm fall day, although winter snows would soon set in.

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I know EXACTLY why we are here.”

I looked over, startled. She had answered a clearly rhetorical question. That was odd for her. “Um... okay? Do tell?”

From between us, the horned head poking out of the tank hatch looked at her. “Yes, corporal, please do tell.”

She swatted his ears, and then looked at me, annoyed. “Well, I was THERE, at home, minding my own damn business. All by myself, watching TV, and reading filthy magazines as a lonely mare is wont to do.”

The tank operator turned bright red, and I facepalmed. “Blaze... don’t give the operator a heart attack. All the other tanks are full, and I have this one warmed to butt temperature.”

She giggled and patted him on the head. “Well, there I were, all by myself, when suddenly, this PLOTHOLE named Bristlebeak decides that he wants everything, everywhere. So he starts conquering country after country, taking over, and generally being an arse. No offense” she said over her shoulder to a braytish trooper on the back. He raised a mug with a shrug. “So, now I am here. Any questions?”

The operator raised his hand. “I got one. Mind getting your tail out of the viewing slit?”

“What? Oh, sure. Sorry.” she said, moving a bit. I looked forward down the two mile long line. Soldiers, jeeps, and six mobile artillery units on the back of heavy trucks plodded along ahead of us. I knew, even though I couldn’t see them, that unicorn minesweepers were up ahead of the formation making sure there were no nasty surprises, although gryphon mystics had learned to conceal them from detection. We still had old fashioned detectors, but they were slow. Ah, technology. Why do we only create you for the purpose of killing each other?

Nearly thirty M4 Shermane Medium Tanks were in this formation, and we had six mobile 102mm artillery pieces that only took about five minutes to set up for basic firing, although they could be deployed for greater accuracy in nearly ten minutes. Each had a ten man crew, and they dropped quite a bit of bad news on their intended target. They were all a rowdy bunch, and rock solid under fire, or so I had heard about them. The really scary guys, though, were the One Oh One Airborne. A mix of crack Pegasi and unicorns with a few earth pony heavies, they were nearly insane, jumping into danger with no thought for life or limb, and tended to bring ALOT of pain with them wherever they went. The commander of the company they sent, Captain Solid Ball, was a total plothole and a shitty soldier in my opinion. His First Lieutenant, Winter Striker, was more than enough to make up for him though. Rumor had it that he and his folks had dropped all over normaredy like sticks in the wind, and had removed some artillery that threataned to paste us all up and down the beaches. Pity they couldn’t have hit Redwing Manor though... the squad they sent to do that got wiped.

I looked down at my rifle. I could still see my scope, and that gryphoness civilian in my crosshairs, and then her on the ground... the blood was everywhere. It was like I was in the room for an instant, watching as her chest exploded outwards. Major Leaf giving the order for me to fire, even though I didn’t have a clear shot... the order to murder a civilian in cold blood. A part of my mind, the rational one, said that it was war, civilians died, and her life bought fifteen thousand more and avenged fifteen thousand already dead. The Equine part of my mind, however, refused to look me in the face after that. It was the tactically and strategically correct decision, but... it was NOT the morally correct one. I should have flown down... I dunno. Broken through the window, taken him out in single combat? The way those old Jam Wave movies went? Mono a Mono.... Hand to Claw... I should have....

“Hey... Wing, you not still thinking about Redwing Manor are you?”

Blaze's voice stole through my thoughts, and they dissipated like fog as I looked up at her, and managed a grin. “Naw, I told you and the major I'm over it. Stuff happens, and for being married to a prick like him she probably deserved it. Besides, they cost us a few thousand dollars for that airplane, and that poor pilot.”

She grunted, and started to reply when we both nearly fell off of the tank as it lurched to a halt. Cursing, I sat back up. “What gives?” I said to the tank driver. He shrugged. “Column stopped. Tank in front don’t move, I don’t move. How about you go check it out?” he said.

I looked at blaze and shrugged. “Lets go” I stated, and hopped down. As my boots hit the ground, Major Leaf came storming forward. “Whats the holdup?” she said, and I shrugged.

“No idea, ma'am. Blaze and me were gonna go check it out. Wanna come? There might be free ice cream?”

Blaze swatted me, and Leaf looked murderous. “Can it, Corporal. Come on.”

The three of us, joined shortly by Bubbles, Shadow, Butter Bar, and Iron Hoof headed forward. It was a mile and a half to get to the front of the column, as we were all spread out here in the back. Soon enough though, with everyone compressing forward, we arrived at the front to see Captain Solid Ball looking through binoculars at the town wall in the distance. Major Leaf stepped forward while Bubbles lit a cigar. “Whats going on, Captain?”

He looked at her and handed her the binoculars. After a few moments, her face broke out in a grin. “Well no shit. Corporal, take a look!” she said, handing me the binoculars. Taking them, I gazed upon a beautiful sight: A large white flag raised over the open front gate of the town, and a Gryphon officer or soldier waving a smaller one outside with a line of troops behind him, claws symbolically raised. None of them seemed to have weapons.

“COLUMN! FORWARD! GET MOVING!” bellowed Maple Leaf, and we began to move again, the other mile to the town looking rather free and clear.

“Hey, Blaze, guess they heard we were coming huh? All this way, and they want to just give us the town. Guess the squawkers don’t give a damn about winning anymore. Toldja they just wanna go home!” I said, grinning. Blaze elbowed me.

“Dont gloat, it is ill becoming of you. Hey Major, do you think when we get into town we can get that ice cream?”

Major Leaf looked over. “What is it with you grunts and your damn ice cream? I swear-” she started, when everything went very pear shaped.

There was a THUMP, followed by the world slowing down. As if in a bad film, I turned to see the twenty men behind us, including Captain Solid Ball, vanish in a cloud of smoke and dirt and fire. Six more thumps down the line destroyed over what HAD to be fifty more people, before Major Leaf sprang into action.

“MOVE MOVE MOVE! GET OFF THE ROAD!” she screamed.

To me, things happened both very quickly and very slowly. I grabbed Blaze and pushed both of us off the left side of the road just as a hot hand slapped me across the back, pitching me forward on top of her. There was a sharp pain across my left shoulder, and we both went tumbling as a tank was blown to the side, teetering on the edge of the road before turning over and rolling twice down the steep embankment towards a river, where it sat upside down, the crew doomed to either cook or drown. Dirt fell over both of us as I grabbed my helmet.

Where the HELL is... the damn city! Those- “BASTARDS!” I screamed, sitting up. Major Leaf had everyone moving to the right side of the road into the brush as more shells fell around us. She was less than five feet from me, and looking down the line. Everyone was staring in shock. We had seen the white flag, there wasn’t supposed to be any fire!

“Infantry, advance! Get to that wall, storm the city! We gotta take out those guns to get the armor in!” she screamed, waving troopers forward. For once, people agreed. Anything was better than sitting in the dirt, waiting for a bomb to drop on you or a shell to take off your soft bits. As I started to get up, she grabbed my arm. “Not you guys! You stay with me!”

I nodded, sitting back down next to her. All around us, troopers streamed down the road, still out of range of their fire. We were about three quarters of a mile from it, and the shelling had stopped for the time being. All of us held our breaths as over six hundred troopers ran down the road, and advanced through the brush to the right side of it.

They didn’t make it more than half the distance before the first landmine went off. We couldn't do anything but look on in horror as mares and stallions were thrown around like rag dolls, the screams from the distance the lamentations of the dying. The gryphons seemed to have a way of activating and deactivating a minefield, as when they started to retreat, more mines they had passed over began to go off. Sniper fire picked off the rest, and less than twenty returned to us a minute later. We pulled back half a mile and deployed some of our heavy artillery, and shelled them for the next sixteen hours straight with our six mobile guns and two heavy stationary pieces on loan from the Royal Marines. Not one of us said a word as we watched the night fall, and the city burn.

0400, D+9

A jab in my ribs woke me up from my light doze. Shells had stopped falling in both directions, with the Gryphons having given up their fight nearly six hours ago. The dry crust at the corners of my eyes told me I had not been asleep anywhere near long enough, and the salt encrusting my muzzle told me that I had cried in my sleep again. Blaze loomed over me. “Heads up Corporal... Minesweepers have cleared the fields ahead of us, and not one of them got shot at even when they were only a hundred yards from the wall. I think we killed most of them... the white flag went back up, but no one cares about that. Word is about seven hundred dead, about double wounded from the shellings. Major Leaf told me to wake you up, we're heading in. Second Armored is leading the way.”

I nodded, pulling myself up. Stretching out my wings, I yawned and looked through the dark towards St. Feathersburg. Flares being shot overhead clearly illuminated what Luna's full moon did not. General Clever Thinker was up front with Major Leaf as we walked up. I nodded, unwilling to salute on the battle field, and Lieutenant Butter Bar nodded back before turning to the two senior officers. “Okay, here is what I want. Butter Bar, I am running a severe shortage of officers. Their shells zeroed us in, so for now I am giving you operational command of three tanks and their supporting troops. Major Leaf, you stay out here with me to pass orders along. Corporal Wing, Corporal Blaze, and the rest of Nineth, I know you usually get to play grabass with the major, but I need you all in the front. You are the most experienced scout unit, even if two missions isn’t saying much, but we need our best in front. I want to know if they are surrendering this time. We saw five of them waving white flags an hour ago, but then again, they did that sixteen hours ago as well. So get in there and find out if they mean it.”

I nodded, and so did Butter Bar. Turning around, he shouted “Roll out! Wardaddy, Troublemaker, and Housewrecker, get going! Rest of Seventeenth, get a move on! Major, sorry about this” he said, the last bit to her as we followed him. She glowered, but nodded. I looked back at her, before jogging back a bit. “Ma'am, mind if we swap weapons? I wont need a sniper rifle in there on the ground. That tommy gun might work better...” I said, a bit nervous. Still, I wasn’t about to ask a GENERAL for HIS weapon. She nodded, and the trade was done.

I jogged a bit to catch up, and Bubbles snorted. “Got balls much, Corporal? Asking a Major for her weapon... if I was a major and you did that...” he started, before I cut in. “Sarge, if YOU was a major, we would all be in the deep pucky.”

Butter Bar snorted at that, turning and grinning. “Sorry Staff, I gotta agree with the corporal there. Still, I wouldn’t make a habit of it, Wing. You and Blaze get off easy, but being a senior officers pet will only get you so far. Me, I had to EARN my comission the hard way. And then I gotta keep grunts like you in line all bucking day...”

Shadow Step snickered. “Yeah, and then batponies like me gotta listen to you all gripe. Hey, LT, think we can shoot them if they surrender? I mean, they already kinda broke the rules so...”

He shook his head. “Naw, if they mean it this time it means we get to try them for war crimes. THEN we shoot them, up against a nice wall... you know, blindfolds and all.”

With that cheery thought in mind, we all went quiet, following the lead tank into town. What we saw there took my breath away. Sixteen hours and over five hundred shells dropped, the town was RUINED. Bits of the wall were blasted apart, and houses all over looked as if a dragon had torn its way through here. Bodies however... were scarce. Two minutes of looking around and there was no sign of the people that surrendered, or the guns...

“Hey... Lieutenant...” I started. “Where do you think they all... oh sweet Celestia...” I said. My first thought as we walked into town square was What the hay is this... followed by those monsters...

In the center of town, chained to stakes were hundreds of civilians. Males, Females, foals, all of them blown to bloody shreds. Off to one side was the burnt out wreck of a Gryphon Mobile Artillery Unit, deployed, and the tracks of six others. A few dead soldiers littered the scene around them, but the bodies were everywhere. A wave of nausea overtook me, and I doubled over, retching. My helmet fell off and bounced away as I emptied my stomach of the K-Rations that had been my supper, and the lieutenant turned a sickly shade of green. A tree in the center of town had bodies nailed to it, one of whom fell off as we watched. A few here and there were still moving slowly, and medics rushed forward to check it out. The realization hit us all as the conclusion sank in. We had spent sixteen hours zeroed in on the position of most of the civilians in the town. We had killed them all.

I finally recovered and stared at the pile of bodies. One foal looked up at me, and I slowly got up, walking forward towards it. It turned its head, and I saw the left side peeled and black, the fur crisped all along its left flank as the child moaned feebly at me, collapsing.

“Bastards... bloody bastards...” muttered the Lieutenant. “Wing... Go back and... tell the major... tell the major what happened. Looks like they stationed one mobile battery batallion here.... hit us a few times then pulled out. Probably right after we launched out first barrage. Tell her... shit. Tell her what is here.”

I stared at the pile, before he grabbed my shoulder. “Corporal! That's an order!” he barked, and I found myself nodding. “Yes sir...” I said, raising my hand in a salute.

Thinking back, no matter how much my mind had been frazzled by the grotesque scene, I was a sniper. I had been taught what to look for as a sniper, I had been told what to expect enemy snipers to do, and I had been told more than enough to have known, even in this situation, that saluting an officer in a hotzone is a way to paint a target on them and everyone around them. A loud snap sound echoed from a belltower, and the Lieutenant's scowl turned into an expression of surprise as a red hole appeared in his neck, and Shadow Step swore, grabbing her leg as she fell.

I looked up at the tower, and yelled “SNIPER! GET DOWN!”, all thoughts of the bodies gone as I grabbed one of the Lieutenant's straps, and Blaze grabbed another. We dragged him back away from the street into an alley while he thrashed, holding his neck. Blood spurted from his wound, and I looked across the alley at Shining Silk. “MEDIC!” I yelled, and she nodded, ducking out and running, making sure her helmet was turned towards the tower to show off the red cross marking her as a medic.

She didn’t make it ten steps before a round tore through her helmet, her eyes going vacant in a heartbeat, and her arms flopping as she went down. The battlefield went silent for a moment, until a second round tore through her chest, and a third through her belly. Blaze kept pressure on Butter Bar's neck wound, and everyone else screamed bloody murder as we all opened fire on the bell tower. Two more shots rang out, dropping troopers with lethal accuracy before Sergeant Bubbles yelled “EVERYONE IN COVER! TAKE COVER AND LET THE TANKS HIT HIM!”

We all nodded, and I knelt over Butter Bar, who's face was getting very pale. One more trooper fell, a round going through a window to pierce the left side of his chest, before it got quiet. Then the unseen sniper fired a fourth round through Shimmer Silk's chest, and a fifth just above her ground. The sound of manic laughter rang through the air.

“Fucking BASTARD!” yelled one trooper, a sergeant from the Second Armored. Another one was on the radio, trying to call in a strike, before the first tank rolled around the corner. There was a slight plink, and a round ricochet off of the area right next to the viewing slit before the turret roteated, the barrel elevating to look at the tower.

The bang it made was among the most beautiful sounds I had ever heard, and the sight of the church bell tower crumbling, a single feathered body tumbling down, was the only good sight of these two days that I would recall.

A day later, I stood next to Orange Blaze and Maple Leaf on the wall of the city. Major Leaf puffed on a cigar, while Blaze smoked a cigarette. Looking down over the broken city, Major Leaf shook her head. “Everyone screws up, Corporal. Nobody blames you. Hell, Shadow is laughing that she gets to go home, and the Lieutenant is gonna be alright. Same with shadow, she's gonna be fine. Just... don’t salute me, okay?”

I looked down, tears down the side of my face. Blaze stared stoicly at the carnage, and the open graves that the dead were being put into quietly. The town was deserted. Finally, she said “Damn. Hope we don’t run into more of this, if I see this again I am tossing in my gun and going home. Pushing Gryphany forced them into this.... Major, what are we gonna do from here?”

The major sighed. “Probably keep pressing them. Celestia wants us home by Hearth's Warming Eve, and I want to get back just as much as the rest of you. Looking at this, though.... I dunno. It could easily happen, our troops are fresh and motivated... a bit less after this, but still. I bet other countries ain’t gonna like this. War is Hell, ain’t it Wing?”

I stared, and a few minutes passed. “With all due respect... No, Ma'am. War is NOT hell.”

She blinked and looked at me. “What?”

I closed my eyes, the faces of the dead civilians and that foal staring back at me. “In hell, only the guilty suffer. I saw a lot of innocent here today” I said, and turned around, wanting to get back to what was left of my squad.

War was worse than hell.

The goal of capturing St. Feathersburg was simple: March around five thousand soldiers and tanks into the town, steamroll the garrison of less than fifty, and seize an important town before it can be reinforced. Elements of the Gryphon 22nd Armored and 54th Kreigzskratch Grenadiers were to enter the town and hold it against Equestrian advances. On D+10, it was expected to have no more than a small holding garrison, most of the units having previously gone to fight on the beaches or the surrounding areas where the 101st had dropped and were causing havoc. No civillians were expected to be in the town at this time.

However, anticipating both the Equestrian beach victories and possibly his own assassination, General Redwing had ordered the 5th Mobile Artillery Battery to hold position and keep Equestria and her allies from taking the town without heavy losses. Against his orders, however, the Special Forces commander in charge, Colonel Razorbeak, ordered his soldiers to round up the civilians in town and put them next to their mobile artillery. The plan, he later admitted at his war trial, was to fire a few shots and retreat, knowing that firing while under a white flag would result in them shelling the area non-stop and without mercy for hours on end. By ensuring that the civilians were still in town, and by chaining them up in the area of fire, he calculated that when the equestrian soldiers marched in, they would be thoroughly demoralized. As further insurance, he left behind a sniper with orders to take any chance to further take down morale. Although the town was a priceless strategic victory at this stage, the price ended up being very high. Many Equestrian soldiers lost hope of this war, realizing that if the gryphons would go to this length to win, they would have very chance of doing so.

Lieutenant Butter Bar survived his injuries by no small miracle, and was sent home with a Silver Star for his troubles. The bullet grazed his spine and left him, by all odds, paralyzed in the feet alone. Doctors shrugged it off as an oddity, but he enjoyed going back to being a teacher and lived after the war in peace and comfort, an instructor at Northpoint Military Academy, teaching basic strategy. He held no hard feelings against Steel Wing, often remarking in light tones that if it wasn’t for military protocol being so drilled into recruits, he would probably be dead in a ditch somewhere in Gryphany.

Shadow Step lost the use of her right leg following the battle, but like Butter Bar, she held no lasting feelings of anger. Returning home to the Shadow Planes, she practiced night flying and the art of creating explosives from scratch, much the same as she did before the war. Not much if known of her later life, other than she ended up having a family.

The deliberate targeting of a combat medic and the slaughter of civilians shocked other nations, leading to a cry of outrage at Gryphany's crimes. Neighpan formally dissolved their alliance with the “Honorless Scourge”, and although they continued to fight Equestria, they refused to aid Gryphany with their navy. Queen Chrysalis publicly refused to continue talks of entering the war on the side of Gryphany, remarking, quote, “This goes much to far. There is obviously no love to be found in their empire. If he would treat civilians like that, and so blatantly ignore the rules of engagement... we cannot trust him. The Hive stands alone.”

The Battle for Saint Feathersburg, although one of the least expensive in terms of material and people, proved to be a blow to Equestrian Morale, and a VERY costly defeat for Gryphany. Bristlebeak stood alone after this, facing dissension within his own ranks.