When Technical Support is Too Helpful

Rumbles and sharp pops first grabbed her attention. The explosion nearby and ground shaking woke her up. She opened her blue eyes to see people in drab tan clothes who held weapons and ran past her. Someone grabbed her shoulders and her head snapped to face an older dirt covered male face. He was saying something inaudible to her, alarm on his weathered face then she noticed the ringing in her ears. Her eyes were wide with terror when she saw an explosion behind the man rip apart another man in fire, dust, and smoke.

"  ral!" she turned back to the man with steely brown eyes. "Corporal!"

She blinked blankly at him.

A woman slid up to Pinkie and pressed her against something cold, it felt like metal. The woman took out a small flashlight from one of the many pouches on her tan vast which held a familiar red cross and shined the light into Pinkie's eyes.

"Shell shock, sir!" the woman said, Pinkie barely heard the voice over the ringing in her ears.

"Where am I?!" Pinkie shouted and gripped the woman by her vest.

"Calm down, Diane. Just take a few minutes to regain yourself," the woman spoke reassuringly, she unwrapped a small package that looked like candy and popped it into Pinkie's mouth, "Chew on this. Don't swallow," she grinned.

The candy burned her mouth, nose, and sinuses. She wanted to spit it out but the woman kept a firm hand closed on her mouth. The ringing dissipated only to be replaced with the sounds of gun fire, screams, and shouts.

The woman removed her hand, "Okay, spit."

Pinkie did not need to be told twice; she did not hesitate to spit that fireball out of her mouth. "What was that? Where the heck am I?! Who are you? How do you know my name?" she questions repeatedly, as her voice escalated with panic. The man had his back to the two of them, he barked orders through a radio.

"Calm down, DD," the woman spoke, and tucked a strand of light blue hair into her helmet, "It's me, Julie. We went to boot camp together. Listen, we were ambushed and the truck you were in took a direct hit. You got flung out the back which is probably the only reason you're still alive, not that I can say the same about your squad. I'm sorry."

A thousand thoughts ran wild in Pinkie's head.

"Down!" the man suddenly yelled as he pushed them to the ground. A massive explosion sounded and quaked the ground. The man clambered off the two women, "We need to fall back," he told them, "Fall back!" he shouted.

"C'mon, DD, you heard the Colonel," Julie pulled Pinkie's arm, "We need to make it behind that hill. I hope to the Saints you can run." Julie poked a curious head over the mangled mass of truck and crouched back down. "Alright, stay with me, 'kay?" she smiled.

"No!" Pinkie shook her head frightened.

"Here," Julie pulled out a syringe and squirted some of the liquid out, "This should put some pep in your step." She stuck the needle in Pinkie's arm through her own tan clothes. "Let's go!" Julie shouted and ran off.

"What!?" Pinkie looked over to the man who pushed her back.

"Get moving, Corporal!"

Suddenly, Pinkie's heart began to drum loudly in her ears. The sounds became muffled and the world began to move slowly. Her breath the only sound she heard. Julie slowly ran to the sand dune but suddenly fell, a splash of red exploded from her leg. Pinkie's mind kicked her legs into overdrive. She left the cover of the wrecked truck to go reach Julie. Much to Pinkie's surprise, Julie felt very light which contradicted all the armor she wore; not wanting to spend too much time in the open, she ran behind the dune and saw more people. Half of them rested against the sand with crimson sand underneath them. Others tended to the injured and Pinkie set Julie down on the far side of the row of people. Screams and voices began to register in her ears again and she felt oddly giddy.

"What did you stick me with?" Pinkie questioned, her heart returning to her ears.

"Adrenaline." Julie chuckled then groaned as she placed her hand on the injury, "Gotta love that stuff. DD," her tone went serious, "put pressure on my leg while I get my pack off, will ya?"

"What?"

"Is that the only word you know? Put your hands over the wound to keep me from bleeding to fucking death!" Julie shouted, "I'm already feeling weak." When Pinkie did not move, Julie grabbed her hands and forced them onto the wound. She saw her turn pale.

Julie struggled to remove the pack from her back but finally managed and pulled out a roll of gauze. She could feel her life slipping from her fingers. Not... not today! She ripped her pants exposing more of her left leg. She began to expertly bandage her leg. Within seconds, she felt warmth flood her body but not enough to wrap a tourniquet.

"DD," she rasped and pulled a black strap from her right leg pouch, "strap this around my knee, dammit."

Pinkie took her attention away from her bloody hands and weakly nodded her head. She wiped her hands on her pants and accepted the black strap. She rolled up Julie's left pant leg and placed the strap around her knee.

"Tighter," Julie winced.

Pinkie tugged on the strap as tightly as she could and looked to Julie for confirmation. She nodded faintly.

"Julie?" Pinkie called to her.

"Just... tired," she labored.

Multiple sounds of mixers on high flew overhead. She failed to see what had made the noise, but people began to cheer. More rumbles shook the ground then she heard the explosions.

"We're fucking lucky those fly boys were in the area," the Colonel sighed as he took a knee to address the troops. "We got fucking lucky, boys and girls. Looks like the Saints favored us today. Fourth and Fifth Company are on their way. We can breathe easy now." He walked over to Julie and Pinkie and picked up Julie's medic pack. "Good soldiering, Corporal," he complemented to Pinkie. He went to work aiding the wounded soldiers.

"You must've hit your head to be suffering amnesia. How do you not know where we are, let alone who you are?" Julie asked out of concern, her hazel eyes staring back at Pinkie's blue gaze.

"I remember a lot of stuff, just nothing about this place and who I am," Pinkie admitted. "What world is this?"

"Pyæ..." Julie said cautiously.

"Oh, good," Pinkie sighed in relief.

"What other worlds are there?"

"Oh... um... I'm not an alien or anything like that," Pinkie chimed.

"That's not what I asked," Julie eyed Pinkie suspiciously. The pink haired girl smiled widely back at her, "Right. Anyways, you wanted to know where we were, right?" Pinkie nodded, "Well, right now we have been deployed to Royland, Mi'Keh'Bassah Province to be exact, to quell the rebellion. We are soldiers of the Pillotan Empire. We are here to aid the Loyalist from the radical Bajji'Maljji."

"What do you know about me?" Pinkie inquired.

Julie thought for a moment, "All I know is that your name is Diane Dawes and you're from a small village in the Rhodes Kingdom of Pillot, at least, that is what you claimed. You said you were an only child who grew up with a military father, a hero of the Beast War. It was only natural for you to sign-up for the army."

"'Beast War'?" Pinkie was writing down all this information on a notepad.

"Yeah, the fight between those savage Ancients. With a population only in the tens of thousands, who knew it would take twenty years to make them submit? They had half the world to themselves and we were over here fighting each other from thin strips of land! The least they could do was share. We even asked politely!" she scoffed and took a sip of her coffee to whet her throat.

"But it was their land in the first place? They didn't tell you all to overpopulate your land," Pinkie stated.

Julie crooked a blue eyebrow over her cup and spoke coldly, "Diane, beast sympathizers receive about the same amount of treatment the beast got. You should not be so open minded about your ideals." She set her cup down, "You saved my life so I'll over look your little slip and blame it to your amnesia."

Pinkie swallowed the lump in her throat as she stared at Julie's spiteful eyes, "Y-y-yeah, just.... I don't know what I-I'm talking about," she chuckled nervously.

"You should get some shut eye. You're heading out with your new squad in the morn," Julie advised.

"You're not coming?" Julie glanced at her injured leg with a sour grin. Pinkie giggles sheepishly, "Right."

She could swear that this sun burned hotter than Celestia's sun back home. The dry, blistering air added with the weight of her full kit did not help her keep cool. How long were they going to walk? Why did they have to leave the truck? Why was only her squad out here? Is this really a dream or did the crystals teleport her somewhere? With everyone baking in the sun, nobody felt like talking to her, lest they lose more precious water.

The Sergeant, Sergeant Giles Bakers a veteran of the Beast War, had briefed them on their current mission. They were to find a radio station and destroy it. Apparently, the enemies used it as a listening station. The only problem was that the radio tower supplied civilians with news and entertainment and it was the only radio station in the region. Sergeant Bakers held up his fist and dropped down to go prone  the eleven others followed suite. They crawled in the sand to the edge of the bluff, below, the lone radio station sat with a metal barb wire fence which guarded the perimeter and soldiers patrolled outside. Guard towers on the four corners of the fence stood like wooden sentinels.

"That's normal, right?" Pinkie broke the silence.

"No," the Sergeant answered, "seems the reports were right, this time." He quickly glanced over at the pink hair woman to his right side then back to the station, "Corporal Dawes, destroy that antenna with the FIRR."

"I don't know, that doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially with all those people down there," Pinkie explained.

"I concur," Corporal Jensen agreed, "We should take out the snipers in the towers then the guards, then let ourselves be known."

Sergeant Bakers smiled, "It warms my old heart that you kids know when to speak up against a horrible plan. Everyone go silent. We'll take 'em down at the same time. Once the guards are down, we'll move up and wait for Dawes to make an entrance for us. Dawes, you destroy the antenna then make a hole for us."

"Okey dokey lokey, sir!" she saluted.

Sergeant Baker chuckled quietly and attached a suppressor to his rifle. The squad copied his action and Pinkie loaded the FIRR with a standard high-explosive round. Luckily, she spent the previous night to read a manual and practiced with the weapon. Conveniently, there were eleven guards and each soldier had their mark.

"On my mark," Baker ordered. He fired and ten suppressed shots echoed his. "Richman, stay up here with Dawes. You two keep an eye out for company."

"Yes, sir," Richman replied as he unscrewed the suppressor.

"Okey dokey lokey, sir!"

Sergeant Baker grinned then signaled for the others to advance.

"That is not the proper way to respond to your superiors, Dawes," Richman snapped.

"I'm sorry, what was that, Private?" Pinkie gibed with a smirk.

Richman scowled at her, "Nothing, sir." He dropped to a prone position and peered through the scope of his sniper to provide cover for his squad. He tapped Pinkie's leg to let her know they were in position.

Pinkie propped the gun on her shoulder once she was in her fire stance and peeked through the iron sights. She breathed in deeply through her nose then exhaled and pulled the trigger. The blast of the recoil pushed the stock into her shoulder, the concussive wave punched her in the stomach and rippled through her body. She held fast to the FIRR and dug her knees into the sand. A second later, a fiery explosion toppled the metal antenna. She panted as the numbness in her body died. A tap on her head brought her back to reality. She turned and saw Richman at her side.

"Gun ready," he informed her with a thumbs up. In her awed stupor, he had loaded a breaching round for her.

"Okey. Dokey. Lokey," she grinned happily and pulled the trigger once again.