Storms of War

Mares and Gentlecolts, today is the Day of Days. Today, Celestia Herself watches from On High, and has granted us the blessing to go forward with our mandated task. Today, we retake from the Gryphons what they stole from our allies. Today, you will be tested in the Fires of War. Today, you will face an enemy who does not yet know what will soon be lodged up his feathery ass! They want to steal from us? They want Prance? Well, we ain’t gonna let ‘em have it! What we WILL let them have is a belly full of lead, and a pool of their own blood to drown in! AM I RIGHT, SOLDIERS?”

- Platoon Sergeant Black Cigar

On that day, seventy-five thousand Equestrian soldiers, supported by ten thousand Crystal Empire Commandos and twenty-thousand Braytish marines, attempted the largest seaborne invasion in history. This was merely the first wave.

Six hours later, another half-million soldiers arrived.

The next day, the other million landed across a fifty-mile stretch of beach, many stepping over the bodies of the first wave. They took the beach, but on Silver Beach, they took nearly ninety percent losses from the initial landing.

-History of Warfare, Chapter 6: Battles of Prance

        Surf crashed all around us. To my left sat Radio Wave, eyes blank as he ran his hands over the dials on his radio, the large box looking suddenly huge on his withdrawn frame. Sergeant Fire Cracker looked deep in thought, his Braying Assault Rifle across his lap as he chewed on the end of a Sweet Celestia cigar, flipping his lighter over and over again. He finally sighed and put it away as Linen Wrap gagged and retched before spewing her breakfast all over the floor. Of course, once one pony threw up, everyone else followed suit.

        To me, the grey morning seemed unreal. We had been training for this moment, we had all been mentally prepared… but suddenly, I felt like I was in one of those slow nightmares, where everything seemed real, but you just knew you would wake up any minute. To my right, Orange Blaze held out her lighter, trying to ignite the pilot light on her Mark 5 “Firebrand” defoliant projector. Each time she had it lit, another wave of foam and spray would wash over the side, putting it out and adding to our discomfort.

        The buzz of the boat engine was suddenly, violently interrupted by a huge splash to starboard, causing Radio Wave to flinch as the coxswain yelled “Incoming Mortar! Keep your heads down! Thirty seconds to Beach!”

        “Blaze! You stay center of formation. I wanna see plenty of space between all of you. Ten ponies, easy pickings for a machine gun. One pony is a waste of ammo. Wrap, you stay back. Try to drag wounded behind the barriers.”

        Butter Bar finished his little speech before poking his head up, looking through a pair of field binoculars. “The Major should be with Second squad, about twenty or so yards south of us. We hit the sand, we start running. I can only hold the shield for a few seconds, so use them to scatter. Wing, for the love of the sun keep that rifle action clear. We’re gonna need it.”

        I nodded, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach as I made sure the plastic bag around my rifle was secure to keep water and sand out. I had three extra magazines of ten rounds in my pockets, but if I ended up in the deep water… I shook that thought off and flinched as a sudden tapping sound announced the arrival of bullets hitting the front of the boat.

        “Six Seconds! Move fast, and clear the ramps! Princesses watch over you and good speed!”

        This was it. The engine sputtered, coming to a halt as there was a sudden, jarring thud from below. We all stood up, listening as the gunfire came to a halt while the release on the ramp was hit… third squad was at the front of the boat, and they all lowered their rifles, looking grim. Lieutenant Shady Trees nodded at Butter Bar, and Bar waved his left hand, his horn shimmering. There was a tingle in all of our skins as the ramp came down….

        I will never forget that first moment, the sound of ripping cloth and flesh as a sudden storm of bullets came ripping through the first three ranks, or the sudden spray of blood that blinded me momentarily. There was a huge ringing sound as I found myself against the side of the boat, a throbbing in the side of my head, before a large orange hand yanked me up.

        “Wing! MOVE IT! C’mon! Get to the beach!”

        There was mass confusion everywhere I looked. It seemed our boat was one of only a handful that had made contact with actual sand, as I saw other soldiers from other boats wading through water that was, at times, up to their necks… or higher. The tingling vanished from my skin, and I heard Butter Bar scream at us. A huge hand made of sound and fire picked me up then, and threw me forward into a pile of blood and flesh that used to be somepony.

        She was screaming as she tried to hold what was left of her insides… inside.

        “Blaze! GET THAT FLAMETHROWER BEHIND A BARRICADE! DO IT NOW!”

        Sergeant Fire Cracker pulled Radio Wave behind him, who was trying to pat out a fire on his pants in the surf while the boat next to ours burned, ponies screaming and jumping out. By the time my head had cleared, I found myself propped against a steel barrier while Linen Wrap looked at the side of my head.

        “Lucky bastard! Tip of your ear, you’ll be fine. SARGE! Get your ASS down before I have to sow it back on!”

        “Command is radioing! SIR! I have command on the- DAMMIT!”

        “RADIO! DITCH THAT HARDWARE!”

        “Sergeant! WHERE’S YOUR BAR!?”

        “Bottom of the drink sir! Where’s the armor?”

        Everypony was yelling different things. Radio cursed, throwing away his shot-up unit while Sergeant Cracker tried to pull a rifle off a dead soldier, cursing every time a burst of fire pushed him back into cover. There was a huge explosion as a bomb hit the next boat to come up the beach, and two ponies dove over the side as it began to sink. Overhead, there was a large net of some sort, clearly meant to stop us from any airborne attacks. Like hell would I try to fly here!

        “Sir! Orders, Sir! What do we do now? Where’s the Major?” cried a corporal from third squad. “Who in Tartarus is in CHARGE here?”

        “SERGEANT! BUCK SERGEANT!”

        The Ice Queen was up the beach a bit already, having frozen a huge block of sand and water, stained red with blood, into a makeshift barrier, and was sending projectiles of ice up at the bunker that had not one, but four machine guns raining down on us. There was so much more resistance than we had been told to expect here. What was command THINKING? Where was our ARMOR?

        “BUCK SERGEANT! Move your mares up the beach! Get to the seawall! We have to-”

        Butter Bar swore as he fell backwards into the surf, red blooming from his arm as he dropped his rifle. Linen replied in kind as she crawled across the beach to reach him. By now, water was starting to wash up and around us, and I saw everything for a moment as if time stood still.

        The mare, her eyes finally blank as the grimpony took her to a more peaceful place.

        A Corporal, screaming as he burned, the flamethrower on his back blowing fire through three holes and igniting the squadmates that tried to help him.

        Pieces of ponies, parts of individuals that I had known both in training and in passing, raining from a mortar strike.

        The buzz of rounds tearing up the sand all around us, including a chaplain who was performing last rites for a dying soldier. And above all….

        Major Maple Leaf, rising from the surf as if she were a sea monster, eyes narrowed as she picked up half of a broken boat and threw it nearly a hundred yards to sink into the sand, forming a barrier as she drew an officer’s sword.

        “MOVE YOU MOTHERPLUCKERS! Get off the beach! Today’s a GREAT DAY TO DIE!” she screamed, charging up the beach. Bullets bounced off of an invisible barrier around her, and a squad of soldiers followed her. Butter Bar whistled to get our attention, before shouting up at Buck Sergeant Ice.

        “GET US UP THE BEACH! TO THE SEAWALL!”

        “BLAZE! LETS GO!”

        The voice, which I only vaguely recognized as my own, rang out as a hand that looked like mine grabbed her shoulder. In an instant, everything snapped into place as I sprinted like cerberus himself was chasing me up that sand. Seventy yards… fifty, thirty, ten… and we were diving under the fire of several guns to hit the sand again, sliding in alongside a line formed just behind a raised dune, on top of which was alot of razor and barbed wire. I looked to my left, and then right, searching for one mane in particular…

        “SIR! What do we do NOW?” I shouted, pulling my head down as a bullet embedded itself in the sand next to it. There was a muffled curse down the line behind me, and a wet splash I didn’t want to think about. The sand turned red.

        “WING! What’s your status? Where’s Blaze?”

        “Here, Sir!”

        Blaze edged over a bit, keeping her flame nozzle up, the tip dancing with a deadly light. There was another explosion behind us, and sand flew dozens of feet in the air before raining down, extinguishing her torch again. She grimaced and pulled it back, trying to light it again.

        “Sir! We’re pinned down… I saw at least four, maybe five guns in the towers! Probably ‘42s, and I think they have four-inch mortars dialed in on us!”

        The cool tactical assessment came from me, although the guess about the mortars was just a guess for now- we had seen various calibers of weapons fired so we could identify them in the field, but with the conditions here, we had no freaking clue. There was another ripping sound as a line of bullets stitched the ground, and a rough sort of laughter could be heard from the bunker above us. The bastards were LAUGHING at us.

        “SIR! They’re KILLING us! We’re being slaughtered like animals an’ we don't got a chance an’ it AIN'T FAIR!”

        “Stow that shit! BUTTER BAR GET YOUR ASS HERE! Tell command, Grey Diamond is NOT open! We have no armor ashore, repeat, no armor ashore!”

        Major Maple Leaf was crouched down the line, her eyes like steel as bullets deflected around her, bouncing off of her barrier like some invicible avatar of warfare. Her face reflected only a cold, hard fury at the situation we found ourselves in. Finally, as a last line of stragglers crawled into the tiny nook of safty we found ourselves in, she nodded, her mind seemingly made up on what to do.

        “Listen up! We have to take that bunker down. This bunker covers all of the beach, and it’s gotta go! Lieutenant Shining Sides! Take your squad, break left down the beach like you’re gonna make a run for it! Draw their fire, use one of those rockets to harrass them. The rest of us, give it two seconds and use the bangalores! Clear the wires, then make for either side of the path up to that bunker. I want it gone in ten minutes! GO GO GO!”

        Without hesitation, a lieutenant down the line jumped up along with some twentyish other soldiers. Not three seconds after that, six were down while I felt Blaze pulling me up. “COME ON!” My heart seemed to stand still as I felt a line of bullets stitch past my cheek, one carving a thin, hot line to mark its passage before moving on to take the poor soul behind me. We charged together through the broken wire and sand that the Bangalores had left before us. They had done their job, leaving bits of wire and only a couple of bits of bodies around.

        The path above us ran on the left side of the bunker, but a machine gun was scything through anypony that ran up, a thick gutteral laughter echoing even over the fire as some soldiers yelled in Gryphon.

I haven’t even seen one of the birds that are killing us! I realized. I hadn’t seen even one!

        Two ponies… one… then Blaze and I pushed forward. Behind me, there was a squawk as sergeant Fire Cracker reached up with one massive hand and yanked the MG-42, complete with a VERY surprised gunner, over the side and to the path below. His surprise was ended by four bayonets and four shots, pasting his brains and bits of bone all across the path. Suddenly, I had a bit of inspiration. The slit was only two feet above us… an easy stone’s lob.

        “Blaze! Gimme a frag!”

        A moment later I found myself fumbling one of the small, round grenades. Less than a second later, I had it tossed, sans the pin, over the lip. All gunfire ceased after a moment as what seemed to be ten or eleven gryphons squawked, shrieked, and cursed. Then came a loud THUD, more screams, and something wet and red out the side. This gave us time to move the rest of the squad up and past the edge, where we were looking down a trench that ran behind all three bunkers.

        It was full of soldiers, most of whom seemed to be rather surprised by our apperance, as several were leaning against a wall and smoking. Several jumped up, fumbling for their rifles with cries of “Schnappt sie! Töte sie! Scheisse!”

        None of them were fast enough, as Fire Cracker planted both hooves firmly, leaned against the wall, and let loose with his Braying Automatic Rifle, spraying back and forth down the trench. Sprays of blood, bits of limbs, and many feathers scattered to all sides. Down the concrete pathway, a soldier exited the second bunker. He seemed to be yelling at some others, and he turned, pointing his pistol down the pathway next to his bunker.

        “Wing! GET HIM! Kill the bastard!” shouted Butter Bar, moving others aside as he grabbed my shoulder.

        Time seemed to slow as I lifted my rifle. For the first time in my life, I leveled a firearm at another living being, and the world grew quiet around me. After a moment, there was nothing but Me, the Officer, and a circle with two lines in it… slowly centering on him. Right at the shoulder… lifted…

        We were told that eight out of ten soldiers freeze on their first direct kill. Not the ones where you spray in their direction, hoping both to hit something and to never know you hit them. The first one was the hardest, the one where you knew you killed something. I had turned bright red, much to Blaze’s amusement when the instructor said it was just like losing your virginity.

        I never felt the recoil, any more than the officer felt the round that hit him in the throat, tearing his trachea out. I never felt much of anything from it. Then everything snapped back, and I felt hands on my shoulders as my squad cheered me.

        “Alright! MOVE IT! Blaze, LIGHT ‘EM UP!”

        Two other gryphons tried to run before being shot down, and then Blaze was leveling her flamethrower into the doorway. Night Light waved down the pathway, shouting “Don't Shoot! Let the bastards BURN!”

        They burned. The smell of seared meat, burnt feathers, and the screams of the damned followed the flames that roared out of the slits in the bunker. For four seconds she played the nozzle back and forth in the doorway, and many of the poor souls tried to jump over the sixty foot drop out the front. Some were lucky and fell prey to bullets, others bounced down the slope in agony. Flames played out of all but one bunker… which exploded into the air. A single tank rolled ashore from a landing boat, and six more boats were just pulling on-shore.

        For the next ten minutes, the gunfire died down, becoming a background noise from the other beaches as more boats pulled up once the ‘all clear’ signal was sent. Gryphon troops, dismayed by the loss of their front line, pulled back in a semi-organized retreat, although many chose to stay and die in combat. A few prisoners were took.

        I killed five more gryphons.

        The sun was high in the sky by the time the Equestrian Flag flew over the Beach Headquarters, and the Commander of the Garrison was kneeling before General Wave Crasher, offering his sword in surrender.

        I sat on the edge of a bunker, looking over a beach full of broken bodies. Blood washed in with the tide, and bodies continued to float ashore or be carried out to sea. There had to be hundreds on the sand, most were around the boats they tried to get off of before being ripped apart. The tanks had their guns elevated and firing at unseen targets, while the second wave of troops relieved us and began the fight inland.

        A question rose, unbidden.

        “Blaze?”

        “Yeah, Wing?”

        “How are we still alive? How….”

On June 6, 1944 of the Royal Celestial Calendar, some quarter million troops stormed the shores of Prance to begin Operation: Firestorm. By June 10th, they had secured a foothold with nearly two million soldiers. The mares and stallions of the First Infantry, known as the Big Red One, suffered sixty percent casualties over those four days. The survivors became known for their resourcefulness, tactical acumen, and unflinching resolve even in the face of superior numbers.

Of note is First Squad, lead by Lieutenant Butter Bar. As stated in the previous chapter’s essay, he participated in several of the bloodiest battles in Prance, and was essential to the storming of the Imperial Palace. Each of those soldier’s stories have been compiled throughout the other four volumes of this series.