"WOO! Eddies are on the run, Sergeant!" a static-y voice cracked through the headset in my ear, just seconds after the loud pops of gunfire had ended. The voice had come from a Ranger in the Humvee ahead of me, the one manning the fifty-caliber M2 machine gun affixed to the top of the vehicle. He had just finished sending out a large hail of bullets to a small group of equine militia troops that had the misfortune of running into our patrol convoy. I watched closely as the few who didn't get caught in the volley began vaulting over piles of rubble and diving into collapsed buildings, desperately trying to evade the kill-zone. Once the shooting had stopped and the dust settled, I counted four vibrantly-colored ponies on the ground. They weren't moving.

"Nice work," I replied through my radio, "Let's round the block and mop up the rest. Can't leave this place unsecured."

There was a reply of agreement, and the first Humvee began moving forward. I nodded to the driver of my Humvee, and he began following the lead vehicle. A third vehicle behind ours did the same, and the convoy traveled to the end of the block and turned right, the same direction the remaining militia had fled in. The entire time, I kept my eyes out for the one I had seen take cover in the dilapidated shell of the corner building.

"Eyes peeled, boys," I advised.

As if on cue, a canary yellow mass darted out of the building and ran full speed down the street. He tried his best to stay behind the various piles of rubble that littered the area. This time, it was the mounted gun above my head that fired, sending a ten-round burst at the fleeing enemy. The first few bullets missed, embedding themselves in the rubble, but the rest hit their target dead-on, tearing through his torso and sending him flopping to the ground. Another round of excited whoops and hollers could be heard from the gunner above me, and I could see the gunner in the lead vehicle laughing along with him.

As we continued down the road, I took a moment to survey the area around me. We were in what used to be a housing project outside of Manehattan, an Equestrian city that happened to be a high value military target. The city’s multiple industrial districts were the primary supplier of munitions to the enemy army and militia, and the city itself was highly populated. The particular sector we were in was designated as a secondary target; once the neighborhood was under our control, we could use it to launch raids on all of the factories in Manehattan, cutting off a great deal of the enemy’s supplies. During the initial fighting with the local militia, most of the buildings had been destroyed or damaged.

While I was looking around, my gaze eventually fell on the side mirror of the Humvee, where I could see myself clearly. My jet black hair was completely hidden in my tan-colored ballistic helmet, and my blue eyes were just as obscured by a pair of Oakley sunglasses that had been gifted to me by a friend in Delta Squad. He told me that I made them “work” better.

While looking in the mirror, I found one of my gloved hands go up to my chin. I normally kept it clean-shaven, but the last few days had been so hectic with near-constant patrols and drills that I had neglected to keep it trimmed. The result was a highly-visible black stubble all around the bottom of my head. The skin underneath, which had been white as snow before I was deployed, had turned to a nice, light tan in the hot Equestrian summer.

As we reached the first road intersection, I caught a glimpse of a light blue pony hop out from behind a destroyed car and slip into a building across the street from us. The front Humvee’s gunner saw it too, and he sent out a spray of lead at the equine, but the bastard was too quick. The bullets simply dug into the brick wall as the blue pony disappeared into the building. Knowing we were still on them, the convoy pressed forward.

“Hey, Blackburn,” I heard a voice in my ear. It came from the rear Humvee’s front passenger, an old high-school friend of mine that we called Pharaoh. His real name was Paul Farrell; it turned into Pharaoh in basic training, where a heavily-accented drill sergeant had mispronounced his name during the first roll-call. Needless to say, it stuck.

I picked the up the radio sitting on the dashboard, “What is it, Pharaoh?” I asked.

“Where do you think these things are running to?” he asked me.

I thought for a moment before coming up with a sarcastic answer I knew he would appreciate, “He’s probably running home to his mare. I think the summer mating season started a little while ago. He seems pretty stressed, could probably use it.”

I got a loud laugh in response. Once he calmed down, he added, “How do you know it’s a guy? I can’t tell the fucking difference.”

“It’s all in the muzzle features, Paul,” I lectured, “Stallions have squared jaws, mares have rounded ones. Once you know the difference, it’s easy to spot.”

We reached a second intersection, and spotted the same blue stallion crossing the street. Again, he was too fast for our guns to hit him, but we knew we were on the right track. The convoy kept moving slowly, the gunners and passengers being very vigilant as we searched for the remaining militia. Eventually, we reached a third intersection, but the militia were nowhere to be seen.

"Where the fuck did they go?" the gunner from the rear vehicle asked.

"Let's do a loop," I said, "Keep your eyes open. They gotta be somewhere."

The convoy again turned right, and moved down the road even slower that we had been going before. Everyone scanned the sides of the road, looking for movement. Again, we got to the intersection with no sign of them. I noticed the Rangers around me begin to tense up, and I felt myself doing the same. The militia never got away that fast. The Royal Guard could slip away like that on a good day, but never the militia. The fact that they had seemingly disappeared sent a collective chill down our spines.

"Stay sharp, guys," I tried to keep them in the moment. I didn't need them freezing up. The convoy turned right again, preparing to complete the first half of the trip around the block.

The RPG hit as soon as the rear Humvee finished rounding the corner. It struck just under the lead vehicle, sending up a huge plume of smoke, dust and shrapnel. The two tires on the right side of the vehicle popped and went flat, and the vehicle veered to the left before it stopped in the middle of the road. The tensions that had been building up all snapped at that one moment, and the headset in my ear blew up with overlapping radio transmissions as all three vehicles tried to contact outside help. Both of the remaining two turrets began firing wildly in the direction the grenade had come from, given away by the dissipating smoke trail in the air.

Without a moment's hesitation, I shouldered my door open and stepped out into the street, M4 rifle in hand. I kept my barrel pointed in the rocketeer's direction, but the M2 turrets were doing a good job of suppressing him; I didn't see any movement. I ran straight for the damaged Humvee, reaching it in no time. Just as I got there, the left rear door swung open and a very dazed Ranger stumbled out. I rushed over to him, and asked him if everybody was alright. I had to repeat myself three times before his muddled mind registered enough to respond, and what he said sent another chill down my spine.

"Powell is dead, and McGee's been hit!" the Ranger shouted over the steadily-increasing gunfire. Powell was the driver, and McGee was the M2 gunner.

I went around the Ranger to the Humvee's driver-side door. I yanked it open to find Powell slumped over the steering wheel, a steady trickle of blood flowing from a hole in his forehead. There was a bullet hole in the windshield, highlighted by a coat of splattered blood. In the back of the vehicle, McGee was leaning back into the seats as the Ranger beside him tried to patch up a bloody gash in his right forearm. There was another Ranger in the front passenger seat, holding a radio and sending a distress call out over the airwaves.

When I turned back around, the stunned Ranger had been joined by three more from the other two vehicles. They began to form a perimeter around the Humvee, trying to secure the area until we could get McGee out. One of the Rangers - Murray, from my vehicle - moved up beside me and took cover at the front of the Humvee. He shouldered his weapon, and began to peek out before a burst of bullets slammed into the metal next to him, forcing him back down. It was then I noticed the team of Royal Guard ponies huddled up on the other side of the street, in a small area that gave them a clear shot at us without risking being hit by the turret fire. One of them had his rifle leveled in our direction. I singled him out easily; he was the only orange pony among his white-furred squad mates.

Using the Humvee as cover, I peeked out and fired a few rounds from my own rifle. All of my bullets missed him by a hair, and he dove behind a large stack of broken bricks before I could get another shot off. At that point, his squad mates noticed they were being shot at, and they moved to evade the incoming fire. I squeezed off a few more rounds in an attempt to hit one, and succeeded in grazing the leg of a white pegasus as he tried following his orange friend behind the bricks. I saw his wings partially extend as he winced in pain, and caught a glimpse of a red stain on his leg before he tumbled behind cover.

I fired a few more rounds at the rubble to keep them suppressed long enough for Murray to take over. Once he began sending bullets their way with his M16, I turned back to the other Rangers to find them hauling McGee out of the vehicle. There was a bandage wrapped around his wounded arm, the bright white contrasting with the blood and the earthly colors of his camouflage. With him now out of the vehicle, I saw another bloody splotch and white bandage on his left leg. One of the Rangers supported him as the other two moved to pull Powell's body out of the damaged vehicle.

As they were dragging him out, I caught some of the distress signal the Ranger in the Humvee was sending out, "We've been ambushed at... Multiple casualties... need immediate-" The last portion of his call was cut short by a bullet that broke through the windshield in front of him. It sent shards of the layered glass at his face, tore through his skull and hit the Ranger behind him, embedding itself in the other Ranger's neck. What was left of the windshield got caked in blood, and some of it also ended up on one of the other nearby soldiers. The sudden pelting of body fluid startled the two trying to lift Powell, and they jumped, causing Powell's body to fall to the ground at my feet.

"Sniper!" Murray shouted. I followed his pointing hand to see a figure in the window of a building down the road. There was a flash of light, and a very loud gunshot immediately after. I instinctively crouched down to dodge the incoming shot, only to get sprayed with warm blood from a hole that suddenly appeared in Murray's upper torso. I switched my M4 to burst-fire mode and sent a few rounds of suppression fire downrange before ordering what was left of my makeshift fire team to move back to the convoy.

We got about halfway back to my Humvee before the Royal Guard ponies from before began returning fire on us. The M2 gunner that had been suppressing them had shifted his fire to the sniper, giving the equine soldiers the opportunity to get us back for killing their comrades. Their first shots were meant to scatter us - as far as I could tell anyway - so they didn't hit anyone. Myself and a Ranger named Dixon fired back as we tried to make it to the relative safety of the armored vehicles, but it didn't stop the ponies from continuing their attack.

Their next volley was more focused, and two of their shots nailed Dixon in his chest plate. His armor took them, but the sudden force knocked him onto his back. I took a knee and went through half of my magazine suppressing them long enough for Dixon to regain his footing. By then, the others had made it back to the Humvee with McGee, and were loading him into the back seat. We met up with them and formed a defensive half-circle around the left side of the Humvee.

I focused my attention on the Guard ponies hiding behind the rubble. Instead of continuing my suppression, however, I waited. After a moment, one of them emerged from behind cover to fire on us. Before he could line up his shot, I sent a burst his way. One of the bullets caught him in the eye, and he fell back and out of view while a shower of crimson droplets rained onto the bricks in front of him. I attempted to send a second burst as added suppression against his friends, but the telltale click of an empty weapon was all I got. I ejected the empty mag and opened up a vest pouch for a fresh one when a sudden explosion turned my attention to the action behind me.

The rear Humvee was completely obscured in a cloud of smoke and fire. A faint trail of smoke led from the gunner position on the vehicle up to an open fourth-story window across the street. The trail ended at the empty barrel of an RPG launcher that stuck out of the window, carried by an all-black unicorn wearing Royal Guard armor. Small plumes of dust began forming in the stone around him, and he ducked back inside. Dixon and another Ranger had shot at him frantically, but missed.

Forgetting my empty rifle for the moment, I rounded the remaining Humvee to the front passenger seat. The door was still open. I climbed inside and grabbed the radio that was sitting on the dashboard.

"Zulu Two-One to Fortress," I began my distress call as calmly as I could manage, "We have lost two vehicles and are under heavy fire. Multiple casualties. We cannot move from our position. Request reinforcements and air support! Over."

The broken reply came not a moment later, "*static* -opy Zulu Two-One... *static* -ound units inbou-... *static* -annot send any air sup-... *static* Hold for... *static* The transmission dropped immediately after.

"Negative copy, Fortress, repeat your last, over," I said into the radio. I only received static in response, "Fortress, do you copy?"

Bullets slamming into the windshield brought me back into the moment. The laminated glass deflected the rifle rounds easily, but there were huge white circles where the rounds hit, and all of the glass around each impact cracked so much that we couldn't see a thing beyond the windshield. In other words, we weren't going anywhere in it.

I got out of the Humvee and rushed to the first bit of cover I saw, which was the doorway of a mostly intact brick building on the right-hand side of the street. A few bullets zipped past my head as I went, prompting me to go faster. Once I reached the door, I shouldered up against the outer wall and prepared to start leaning out. It was then that I remembered my dry gun, and I took a second to reload. As I was pulling back on the bolt, I heard Dixon shouting at me.

"Do we have support incoming?" he asked over the ever-increasing hail of gunfire around us.

"I don't fucking know!" I shouted back, venting a bit of my anger with my tone, "Radio's gone dead, I can't raise 'em!"

"Fuck...!" I heard Dixon venting a bit of his own frustration.

The firefight continued for a few moments with no further communication. Both sides had resorted to taking pot-shots every now and again, with nobody actually hitting anything. The M2 gunner on the Humvee was frantically shifting his fire from the Guard ponies, to the sniper's nest, to the RPG-launching unicorn's position behind him, his bursts getting shorter and shorter as he tried not to burn through his ammunition too quickly.

The sniper, somehow still alive, made the first game-changing move. He waited until the gunner's turret was firing on the RPG position. I couldn't see him, but I recognized the powerful boom of his weapon. Immediately following it was the windshield of the last Humvee shattering and the entire passenger's compartment turning dark red. The gunner suddenly started screaming in pain and slipped down inside of the vehicle. I jumped out of cover and immediately began suppressing the Guards with a flurry of single shots. I heard two Rangers move to the Humvee, trying to get to the wounded inside. From my spot, I could see that Dixon had stayed at the position he had taken up across the street, behind a burnt-out pickup truck. He had begun firing wildly at the sniper's nest, trying to prevent another deadly round from being fired.

The Guard ponies struck next. They couldn't fire at us without catching a bullet from me, but they did use something I never expected them to have. In the middle of my suppression, I noticed a small, round object fly out from behind the pile of bricks. It soared high before falling back down, landing on the opposite side of the Humvee. I heard it bounce twice before coming to a stop. I heard Dixon give out a warning, but the grenade went off before anyone could react. The irregular gunfire was replaced with the agonizing screams from Rangers who had been close enough to catch the shrapnel. I flicked my rifle back into burst-mode and emptied my magazine towards the hidden equines in a fit of rage. Once my gun went dry, I hopped back into cover and reloaded.

Finally, just as I began to peek out and resume my shooting, the RPG unicorn made is move. Again, I didn't see him, but the telltale whoosh of a rocket-propelled grenade told me exactly what was going to happen. In an attempt to shield myself from the upcoming blast, I dove back into my cover by the door.

Unfortunately, it did little to help. The grenade slammed into the top of the Humvee next to me, turning it into a storm of fire, dust, and shards of metal. I felt myself get blown back into the door, my ballistic helmet colliding with the glass and cracking it. I felt my M4 leave my hands and fly off in a random direction. My mind also registered a very intense pain in my abdomen. A pain that stung, ached and burned all at the same time, like I had been stabbed with Satan's pitchfork.

Once the shock-wave from the explosion let me go, gravity picked up right where it left off, and I fell onto the cold concrete. My mind struggled to take in the information around it. All I could register were the faint sounds of gunshots, a ringing in my ears, and the pain. The pain was the most noticeable thing at the moment.

I fought myself to open my eyes, and I caught a glimpse of Dixon in the middle of the road. He was shooting his M16 wildly, trying to copy the M2 gunner's last strategy of firing at all of the targets' positions at once. It worked about as well for Dixon as it had for the gunner. In no time, several rifle rounds impacted his chest, and knocked him onto the ground. He struggled to get back up, until another bullet caught him in his unprotected hip. I saw one of the Guard ponies - the orange one from earlier, who I could now see was a pegasus - stroll up to him with a rifle in his hands. I saw Dixon draw his pistol and try to shoot the pegasus, and receive a bullet to the brain immediately.

In my dazed, muddled state, I found myself trying to crawl to him. It didn't register that he was dead; just that he needed help. My mind blocked out the equines gathering around me. It blocked out the smoldering piles of debris that used to be our patrol convoy. It blocked out the blood and brain matter that leaked out of Dixon's skull. It blocked out the white and orange hands that grabbed onto me and picked me up. It blocked out the medical stretcher they set me on. The only thing my mind was willing to register was that my friend needed help.

And I tried. I truly tried. In my wounded, dazed, confused state of being, I tried. But I was no longer moving of my own accord; the ponies were carrying me away on a stretcher. So, as his lifeless corpse shrank away into the distance, all I could do was reach out a bloodied hand towards him.

I blacked out after that.

Author's Note

Holy balls, what a way to kick this thing off!

So, there it is, the first chapter of The Defector. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it. I gotta say, I'm proud of how this turned out.

Now, I know this chapter was a bit heavy on the military aspect of the story, and the violence meter was set pretty high. I will say right now that it won't be like this for the entire story. The elements will still be there, but once I can mix in the other aspects of the story, it should balance out pretty well. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Also, as for the realism of the action sequence, I know for a fact it isn't 100% realistic, but I did research what I could to get it as close as possible. It's not going to ever be 100% in my stories, but what medium truly ever is? I try to keep it as realistic as possible, but sometimes the story works better with a little cinematic, Hollywood-style not giving a shit. I know this warning was a bit preemptive, but I'd rather avoid the usual "That's not how it works!" comments I usually see on the internet when combat is involved in some way. Trust me; I usually am that guy, so I know where you're coming from. Just roll with it and try to enjoy the experience.

Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated. Thanks again for reading.