A Saucerful Of Secrets

The cornfields....

The magnificent-

Syd Craft's eyes fluttered back with the sweat trickling down his face, and the booming of his ears popping back into reality.

Medical Officer Private Donald Gringy grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform, the stench of dirt and blood invaded his nostrils while the whiff of the moldy green protruded his grimy hooves. He hastily lunged for the far corner with his gripping hooves still clinging onto Syd's uniform. And they tumbled into the hard floor that screeched out an aching cry for pause before the floor caved into the first. With an invigorating crash, a pulsing rhythm of debris falling with them, they landed knees first into the debris filled-dumping ground. The weight of their bodies submerged with building materials of all diversities. Their hearts pounding in unison with the roaring flares of gunfire. Their bodies wrapped around one another, four others fell with them: One dead, another injured. The other two; Corporal Rain, and Private Groot grabbed both Syd and Donald and leaped over each others bodies onto the bottom of the mound. The injured one, Private Dillion, screamed like a child pleading with his parents to stop tickling him. But in this sense, his chirps of hoarse screams ached like an injured animal. With random spurts of random mumbling and the beckoning screeches for his mother. He begged and pleaded, but they couldn't go out and rescue him, not at this time when conflict was so inviting and asking for the hooves of death.

Everyone remained still while the enemy continued to fire, razing tartarus on the poor building; with nothing but a weakened structure from tumbling down. The only living things that came to embrace it's broken beauty were the soldiers that came to hide in its belly, and the external invaders that came to disassemble it's once-held former glory. The scathing invaders deprived the building of life by leaving it's machinery entrails laced around the internal shell of the building. Peaking through the external walls that once held privacy for its former owners; now the building was reduced to a mixed bag of utter wreckage swirled with the bodies of allied ponies. It was hard to address Dillion's cries of suffering with the muffles of bullets buzzing through the air and the cursing of stallions. Corporal Rain tried firing off a couple of rounds but was butchered by an automatic turret-gun through the right shoulder, his blood pumping out by the gallon from the looks of it. Private Donald tried applying pressure to both Syd and - reaching for an extra pack of gauze from his medical bag - he manged to wrap a temporary bandage around Rain with the help of Syd applying extensive pressure with his one good arm. Thus, now realizing he was injured, sought to strap his head back in the fight and did exactly everything that Donald advised him to do. Through the loud shouting he grabbed his pistol out of his holster and laid down some cover fire while his legs splayed out on the side of the ground. But he missed every shot, and was about to reload when Private Groot went to assist by laying down extra firepower on the edge of their limited cover, facing towards the beam on the right, a few feet from the stairs.

Private Donald was hunched between the two soldiers with Rain under him. If not for the last few inches of rubble he would've lost his head minutes ago, but the consistent firing whittled down their cover, which meant leaving was soon to be the next priority. Corporal Rain was the most advanced one of the four, an expert sniper he would've whipped off the heads of the first dozen if he hadn't been injured. Groot, taking the right position he was able to evade some of the oncoming discharge of their raging bullets. In return, he kept his part of the bargin and managed to wing down one militant while shaving two others in their lower calf's at the precise moment. He had a standard rifle, and while it was easy to place down on a object and whip off a few rounds the recoil often jerked back a little too much. Enough that his shoulders felt s vibrated jar afterwards. Syd still kept a firm pressure on his shoulder while he struggled reloading his next clip, the cover was depleting rapidly by the second. Donald was literally on Corporal Rain now that choosing to leave would mean he would have to drag Rain through the rubble while crawling himself.

Donald, always the fast-thinker, he tried to shout the next objective, barely etching out a word through the toxic gunfire Syd crammed his ear right beside Donald's head while it rested on his hand that was keeping pressure on Rain's wound.

"Listen!...We need to....far-right...you and Groot give Rain and I covering....upstairs when were ready!"

Syd tried yelling what, but Donald already made his decision and with that, he started dragging poor Rain through the grime and dirt while he slugged his own body hopelessly on the ground. Looking like a snail trying to save another insect from a nest of ants, he mopped onward and Syd immediately crawled for Groot quick as he could, his kneecaps bleeding through the broken wood, glass and bricks. Syd laid out the plan and to his surprise, Groot understood perfectly, and then he suggested that Syd goes first and give him covering fire on the pillar behind him. Syd complied, and rushed quickly behind before stopping and charging his fresh new clip through the gun, and clocked it in before taking a few deep breaths of reassurance. Private Groot fired off a few more rounds before he checked behind his back and saw Syd give him the clear with his thumb. Just before he was set to go, Private Dillion manged with the last of his strength to fling out a grenade in the air. But backfired when the militants shot through his upper wrist, puncturing his main artery he cried in agony with blood shooting all over Groots face, and before he could reattain his foothold of the situation the grenade exploded on Dillion's chest and his mangled guts flew everywhere with the rubble scattering all around the floor. A chunk of Dillion's leg collaborated with Groots face before his body was blown back against the room. Landing on his side, he sputtered words in furious rage before convulsing into a mangled nest of overwhelming tears. His body was filled with shards of shrapnel painted and spattered around his upper chest and face. He quivered in pain with his leg broken in two, Syd was blown back too, but no damage was succumbed to him, not like Groot. He was a big guy with a welcoming heart in the platoon, and having to see him torn to pieces proved to Syd that war was not just a matter of winning and losing, but it was a matter of what comes after when the ones you love or know best are all gone. Groot's face was prickled with blood stroking the layers of his cheeks. Sculpting the bumps around his forehead he scolded in pain. His gun thrown from afar it laid unwillingly far away from its master.

Private Syd, in the heat of anger with flashes of what was happening flaring at his brain he stood up and ran to the pillar and stretched his left arm outwards and screamed in vigor while unleashing his rounds of fury. The hiss and cracks flared up in the sky, with the smoke choking his breath but he didn't care about what his circumstances might be, but what he hoped to achieve with his gun and his rage all in the moment.

Suddenly he resisted the instinct of survival and dived out like a commando with his wounded arm wobbling around with his torso. His hooves filled to the brim with so much rage he could crack some enemies skull in a heartbeat. Against the wishes of Donald, who was screaming from afar he continued to fire until he pinned two down to the ground and killed one with a single head shot.  By then, the militants gained range of this lone commando and his uber-eagerness to die without regard for others that they fired back instantly. Missing a few, but three bullets went deep inside Syd's body. Two in the lower abdomen, the final hitting his upper right leg. He fell backwards while still firing his gun, the rounds all landed in the wooden steps except for one ricocheting and splitting his upper bone on his left shoulder.

Private Donald yelled with distress, "You stupid idiot!" a few tears began developing under his eyes while he left Rain on the side of the wall facing behind the pillar. Donald rushed back to Syd and jumped right to the ground and pulled him back to the pillar that was now degrading by the minute with continuous rounds from the other side. The bullet engagements seemed to decrease and now the rest of the platoon from upstairs were more audible than before.

Private Groot wasn't looking too good while his crying finally came to an abrupt halt. That meant he was either losing consciousness or was simply dead. Donald didn't have time to worry about him anymore, so he concentrated his efforts on the current two patients that needed treatment right now. He unbuckled his medical bag and began lynching out the morphine that would help with Syd's current pain, initially he persisted, almost quietly nodding in plea for no drugs, but Donald shook his head bemusedly. He finally piped up. "Enough of you playing hero, you already almost costed your own life, so don't try it again." And with that, Syd, who was already settling with the stab of morphine that already began melting away at his brain. He simply nodded in a faint wry smile. It was rather cruel for Donald, but anything to shut him up was plentiful.