Fallout Equestria: Into the Abyss

Reports had it that during the zebra assault the night before, the artillery barrage that had over shot the positions on the hill both marked and unmarked, had been to support the defences on the eastern perimeter of the city. The day's scouting from elements of 1/184 and the 1st of the northern sector helped quelled our confusion. The ground was heavily cratered, trees were broken down and bursts with both zebra and machines lay burned and dismembered all around as aftermath of the heavy fighting. The zebras had thrown all their eggs into a single basket to wipe out the remaining ponies before reinforcements arrived to break through the front line and end the deadlock from ending in their favour. They would have broken through indefinitely if hadn't for the 1st sky corps' timely arrival to turn the tide for the first half of the battle. The outer pickets had all but been abandoned when the Zebras had realised that their gamble was a lost and folded. With the way made clear for us, the 184th was able to walk on the field unopposed.

"The stripes pulled out of their forward trenches during the night, my scouts couldn't find any traces of them in the open. They must have retreated into the forest but it's so dense that we can't see them from the sky. There's still fierce resistance in the city and it's unlike the Zebras will just leave their troops here."

The captain was being debriefed on the current situation with one of the pegasi officers. The fight was still not over, if we were to have any advantage from a potential counter attack. The hill had to be taken just the same, with or without knowledge of enemy presence. Company D and the rest of 2nd battalion set up shop with our rifles, machine guns and mortars on the adjacent side of the forest in the ditches and craters, all trained on the intersection, the northern and western roads as the rest of the regiment arrived. Col. Sallet arrived on the scene, the pegasus repeated her report to him. She then saluted zipped off into the air leaving a rainbow trail behind her. 2/184th was to be ordered into the woods in front of us as the 1/184th would continue to tie in the flanks and 3/184th took our spot on the road. We gathered our equipment and courage and executed the maneuver. Company by company, we disappeared into the thick forest in the coming darkness.

When light came, a platoon from Echo Company was sent out to scout further into the woods just below our secondary objective while the rest of the battalion bivouacked among the trees and brush. For a good three hours it had been quiet save for the continuous sounds of battle in the ruined city. The troops began to unwind a little from the tense hours of waiting for an attack that would never come. Even the hill was quiet, I took off my helmet and sat on it while Buckminster took his turn digging our hole. I sipped from my canteen and we chatted how this part of the blitz wasn't so bad. The zebras weren't firing at us and probably weren't even around, many the soldiers were out in the open doing what ever business they attended to or idled around. The veterans knew better and tried to get the ponies to stay in cover and said that the zebras could still out there and probably watching us at that very moment. It made sense that a retreating force should have an excellent fall back position that would maximize the chances in their favour. One where they had the height advantage to observe and where the attacking force would have much difficulty coordinating their troops to root them out. The colonel knew this and had every pony to stay out of the open, it was final. No exploring outside our holes even. He had been in this situation before but roles reversed. The last thing he wanted was his soldiers to be cut to pieces in the open from elevated fire.

In the long monotony the hill suddenly looked like was erupting like a volcano, smoke and flash of fire bursting from the trees followed by inharmonious distant bangs. The zebras were still there. We dove to what cover we could find as the artillery rained over head. Trees that were hit exploded and shattered scattering both shrapnel and splinters all around. The sound was deafening. The concussive force threw me off my haunches and on top of my buddy in the hole, the blast only metres away but fortunately not lethal enough to turn my organs into rupturing jello. The heavy shells landed with a loud wham bam around us that we could scarcely hear one another. This was what the veterans called the big stuff, 77 milimetre, 80 milimetre, 120 milimetre, these were just the known guns that we were told about. Each payload landed so near and in such rapid succession that we couldn't differentiate when one round hit and the other began let alone what kind it was. The zebras got us where they wanted us, in the open, even the trees did little to protect us. As soon as one was hit, it would topple to ground dropping the heavy branches and even the whole trunk on top of the ponies beneath it. The splinters from the blasts added more to the deadly secondary effect of blast wounds, embedding sharp wooden fragments at anything it could bite into. Ponies scrambled and curled themselves into their holes unable to do anything but hold out the storm of steel and fire. Those unlucky to be caught in the open were blown to pieces and thrown around in all directions. My nerves was so rattled by the constant concussion that I could do nothing but curl up as much as I could and keep my sanity from slipping.

I couldn't even hear myself breath but in that barrage I heard clear as day the feint cry.

"Medic"

Somepony was hit and desperately called for help. Something took control of me and I somehow managed to get myself up for a peak only for more frightening explosions kicking up dirt, hot metal and wood around me, the ground shaking violently. I had to go but I was shaking so much that I couldn't stand. Another wave bucked me back onto my haunches. Buckminster was shaking too and clutching his machine gun tightly. In that moment a tree above us exploded, the hot sinders rained on top. With a crack the top half of the tree fell down on us. The pine needles mixed with the smoke choked our lungs as we struggled to breath let alone getting untangled in its branches. The thunder of shells still went on and on, any one of them could land on me and my friend at any moment as we laid trapped. I could still hear the cries from the helpless ponies around me, and here I was in need of help. I then felt war's true terror; the feeling of utter helplessness. In the past, help was always around a corner to a pony in a time of need. But here at this very moment, I'd never felt so helpless even with a pal next to me. We were trapped and nothing could be done but to curl up and hope that one would not land on us.

The barrage ended after what felt like hours, I was freed from my prison with only minor abrasions, bruises and a coughing fit. Buckminster fared the same, we downed a healing potion to heal our swelled airways from inhaling the smoke, we were lucky. All around were the mangled remains of shattered stumps and downed trees, the bodies of some of our comrades either entangled or buried beneath them. The sweet pine needles and crisp air of the forest was now mixed with the foulness of wastes and smoke. The forest around us was once dense with life now almost barren and scarred similar to a forest fire from natural means that had swept through. The small fires from the explosions were still lit among the splintered stumps and leaves as the last remnants of the sudden trauma that had been inflicted on them. With the silence that once again came to our section of woods, all that remained of were the moaning and cries of the wounded. In a hole not far from ours, I saw a pony curled up on the dirt crying uncontrollably as his buddy tried to calm him down, he hoofed him his entrenching tool and to help dig out their trapped friends. I had a seen the cost, now I had experienced the horror of it all and it sickened me. It would take a moment to gather myself together and went to work.

Being shelled I have learned leaves two kinds of wounds, mental and the physical. The physical wounds were in three categories. The primary is the initial shock wave that could rupture internal organs, secondary are the debris and shrapnel and the tertiary is the blunt force impact of the body hitting something from the shock wave. The first and tertiary wounds may not be noticeable due to the body trying to compensate for the internal blood loss of ruptured organs and may appear that the soldier to look as if unharmed. The soldier could take minutes or even hours to die from this effect if not evacuated to an aid station or treated with a healing potion. The shock wave can be powerful enough to tear the body apart into a mangled mess of what use to be a pony or zebra. Shrapnel wounds were the more immediate and treatable on the spot by stabilizing the shards with bulky dressings prior to evacuation. The second is the mental effects of being shelled, severity of the shelling was bad bad enough but the length of being shelled left the mind in a state of constant suffering and dreadful melancholy or one can fully lose control of themselves. Some where able to cope with the effects and can maintain their bearing, while another would laugh, cry, lash out or lose all sense of control. I had learned and endured these effects by being constantly on the front lines. We had trained as realistically as possible to prepare ourselves but no amount can truly be enough to make a pony remain sane. No matter how much anypony can hold themselves together, everypony breaks. Much of the soldiers time was left to try and occupy their minds with anything else from the reality around them.

The more grievously wounded would be sent home, they had gotten what we would call the million bit wound. Most of the wounds I had treated were not lethal, nothing that healing potions and field dressings couldn't fix. The bursting of the trees from the shelling had launched splinters into the air that is as much deadly as metal shrapnel. There was one who had it worse that day who suffered these wounds during the barrage, was a good friend of mine during our induction to the regiment, Daisy. Her left flank had been peppered by the large wooden splinters over where her cutie mark would have been. She was whimpering from the pain and couldn't move when she was hit and laid helplessly in the open during the whole ordeal. I cut off the trousers of the uniform to fully assess the damaged. I winced at the sight, small chucks of flesh was torn off, some only holding on by a string of tissue. I couldn't apply a tourniquet high enough due to the wounds being directly on her flank and I didn't carry a junctional tourniquet in my aid bag. The splinters had slowed the bleeding, still she had lost a significant amount of blood from her open wounds and was becoming more unresponsive by the second. The more smaller superficial splinters I could bite down to remove to make room for the dressings to stabilise the more severe trauma. One revealed to be an exit wound that had embedded itself on a junction, I stabilised it along with her leg in the hopes that it would hold pressure long enough until she was brought to a hospital. If it were to dislodge itself, she could bleed out in minutes.

I packed and dressed her wounds as best I could, must have removed about a dozen of the smaller splinters and her bandages were red with blood but was under control. Her dark yellow coat had gone pale from the blood loss and was going in and out of consciousness. I fished out a bottle of healing potion and administered it to her, the first time failed and I resorted to give it intravenously. She was to returning back to health but was still too weak and hurt to walk, but he was alive. I called over for a litter so they could get her out and should the stripes were to bombard us again, she would be at best out of harms way. I wiped my muzzle, to find it was caked in blood. The thought then struck me again about her cutie mark. What was it, would the damage be permanent, does losing a cutie mark even if it's just on one side changes who you are? The thought nagged me until Lt. Legal Testimony came and found me still sitting at the spot Daisy had just been. He asked me if I was okay and reminded me that others needed my help. We got up and made our way around our sector to find if anyone else was hurt. Company D would suffer 28 casualties, 5 dead and 23 more wounded. A fraction of them, about 12 were too hurt to continue and had to be evacuated to a field hospital. The less severe were delayed treatment and were healed before being returned to duty.

The platoon from Echo company hadn't checked in since the bombardment began. The battalion commander was getting worried, there hadn't been a runner or radio transmission regarding their situation or position. They were sent out to scout the woods leading up to the hill and report any zebra positions ahead of us. The best bet was believed to follow what little of a lead we had before they had gone dark and move northward to the hill. The battalion would fan out several yards apart from each other, Delta company was the furthest out to the right, while Echo and Foxtrot companies were to our left. The forest was dense with trees, and brush with hidden drops that we had to travel in single columns to get around or through the obstacles.

"Keep your five pace intervals"

The word was passed down. We could get fired upon at any moment and after the terror we had encountered that morning, we couldn't take any chances of losing more troops needlessly by bunching up. It didn't help that it began to rain again making the path slippery with the wet fallen leaves as we struggled to up the paths and helping up our friends. It did masked the amount of noise we were making from all the slipping and snapping twigs we made. We now knew the enemy was there and we had to be on our guard.

We advanced further in about half a klick. Ahead we spotted a hoof path with signs of recent use. Echo would go ahead first following the hoof path. Foxtrot would continue on ahead on as much as a direct route they could manage., followed by Delta. 2nd Platoon however would travel the opposite direction down the path to see if any activity was going on the other end. The tracks that were left indicated it was heading the opposite direction, to where Company E had gone. Along the way was discarded bloodied field dressings, weapons and equipment. All being the zebra kind. It didn't take a genius to figure out the stripes used this path to pull back to safety after their twice beaten night attack. We followed it to a clearing with sparse population of trees and the city can be seen not too far away. The lieutenant radioed in that there was no sign of the patrol and we doubled back to the rest of the company. Sporadic pops of rifle fire that was only getting fiercer the closer we made our approach. My stomach was beginning to tighten in knots with every step.

"Keep your five pace intervals"

The RTO phoned in that we were approaching and to not fire on us as we made our way forward. Delta and Foxtrot were digging in as best they could under the heavy small arms fire. Just below our front was a wide depression thick with trees and foliage. On the other side was zebra fire directing right at us and down the shallow gulch from the ridge line above it. The lost platoon had been spotted but were cut off. E company was desperately trying to make their way to them, fire from Stallion hill, and the surrounding ridges, and slopes began to intensify making it difficult for them to just stand. Then to make things even harder on us, mortar fire and small artillery shells began to rain in on top of us.

"Silver Mane! Silver Mane!" Called out Foxtrot's company commander as he made his way to our end of the line.
"The whole shit is a fucking fortress! Echo tried going in to rescue their guys but they got chewed up on the way down that creek. My people are trying to lay cover fire for them but we're now getting hit on the flanks!"

"What's the look on their defences?"

"They got the whole ridge line trained up and down at both sides, looks like there's no way around but through. They got everything, machine guns, pill boxes an"

A sharp metallic ping, and the captain was on the ground in a pool of blood and brain matter, he twitched for a moment and then stilled. Silver Mane advised that I pull back towards the rear to some level of safety. Towards our left side, a company size or so of Zebra legionaries had crossed over to our side and began charging into us. I was tending to a wounded buck whose left foreleg was shot clean off, when the captain tried to get me up to pull back again. My hooves slipped from the blood, I staggered up to see the whole line collapse.

"Please don't leave me!"

The colt desperately cried out to me. Trying to focus and knock out the shakes again, I pulled him up and placed his remaining foreleg over my neck and walked him to back. Bullets snapped over head as dirt, bark and bushes kicked up around us. Mortars began to shriek over our heads, some struck home and two or three ponies were knocked into a heap of blood and mess. Just our luck, every move was watched and they were walking their fire towards us. I pulled up behind what cover I could get us and began to apply a another tourniquet to try to save what was left of the leg. More wounded ponies were being brought to where ever cover from the heavy fire could be found. The units were mixed up and I found myself to be the only medic in the AO to tend to the many coming in. The walking wounded pressed as many of themselves back to the fight, the others stayed put to provide security or sat dazed and confused. On a litter brought to me to triage was the company senior medic, he was shot clean through the chest and expired as soon as he was brought to me. The other two were nowhere to seen leaving me in charge. In the immense pressure I was in I tried to remain cool and focused on tending on who could be saved. The intense training and the realistic field exercises had taught me to act even under stress. I scavenged for the contents of the discarded first aid kits I could find from the wounded around me and assessed each one to see what can be done to at least stabilize them. The pitiful moaning and pleads racked my nerves but I had to focus. There were around 16 ponies who needed tending to and with the current circumstances would only bring more.

"I've got kids! Don't let me die"

A stallion's hind legs were gone, all that remained were red jagged stumps. I quickly applied the tourniquets to stop further bleeding as I continued to assess him. His breathing was erratic and he was losing consciousness from the loss of oxygen in the blood. I checked his pulse which slowed to a crawl and ceased, he would be dead soon of shock if was not taken to an aid station, there was nothing I could do here with my dwindling supply. I took out his med-x from his kit and gave him the shot. I watched his breathing slowed, moments later he was gone. I couldn't stop, too many relied on me to get them home but I couldn't help but break down. It was then 1SG. Neigh-Palm came up to me to drop off another injured pony that brought me back to my senses. He instructed two of the soldiers who weren't hurt or severely hurt to move the dead stallion further back, away from the triage area.

"No time to stop, Doc. It's your show now, we're all that's left out here. Help has to come to us now."

He tossed me his aid kit seeing that my aid bag was near exhausted of spare stock and picked up his rifle to continue fighting. The attack was now on against a heavily fortified and supplied force of unknown numbers with only three companies. Some of which had been cut off in an attempt to rescue their cut off platoon. As familiar faces emerged back to my position, Lt. Legal Testimony was desperately trying to get his platoon back together, they had just been beaten back by the zebras that had counter charged our forward line. Jazzlight and Buckminster close behind dragged a pony behind them. It was Lemon Squeeze, Buck's assistant gunner was shot through the neck and was choking in his own blood and couldn't breath.

"I need a healing potion quick"

I yelled to one of my friends. Jazzlight floated one to me and I poured the potion on Lemon's open wound, its healing beginning to take effect. I gave him the bottle and he downed the rest.

"It's bad out there Doc. We tried to make a break through to get the them but the Stripes pushed us back. They're trapped down there." Lemon said between gasps to catch his breath again.

Captain Silver Mane approached the gathering ponies of his company. He was just as shaken as the rest of us, but he remained cool which reassured us. He looked over at each of the ponies under his command to see if they were okay and assured them to do their duty. When he came to me, he patted my shoulder. I couldn't smile back because my face was so stiff but his gentle smile despite the chaos was all that was needed and to my surprise his side arm. I stared at the pistol, sure I knew how to use it, every soldier did, but as someone who was tasked to save lives to be given a weapon felt contradictory.

"If they break through I need everyone on the line, we're spread thin."

I nodded silently and holstered the pistol in my belt. The dark forest became even darker as the night grew close, under a red flashlight I continued on to check on the wounded as we hunkered down for the night.

From what I had gathered, both reports and testimonies. A squad from E company rushed into the creek to rescue their lost patrol only to ambushed by waiting zebras hiding among the rocks and trees below the and above the ridge. Foxtrot tried to move in and support as Echo advance when the whole valley opened on them and were forced back. A company of zebras made their way through on the far side of the depression and flanked the ponies with enfilade fire from a nearby slope and counter attacked. The timely arrival of Delta company helped halt the counter attack albeit briefly. As E company would make the first push, the rest would dig in and provide cover. They managed to push the zebra charge back and cleared a way through to the cut off troops who were still pinned in the middle. Together with the support of both Foxtrot and Delta, the battalion would then use the momentum to push towards the hill. They nearly made it through to the cut off platoon until it was halted by a combined artillery and infantry attacks that both pushed the ponies back and encapsulated almost all of Echo into a pocket 150 metres across behind the Zebra lines. It was a mess, a jumbled fowled up mess and it was just beginning.

The night seem to have staved off future attacks from either side for the time being. The zebras fired a couple mortar rounds just in front of us to remind us they were still there. A couple 60mm mortar H.E of our own was fired on to the ridges in response. The rain had let up and the pegasi kicked the cloud layer away to make it easier on us ground troops. The forest was still dense that they couldn't do much from the air, but the clearer skies helped as the whether became more colder

We got word that the rest of the 184th would come to our aid. Just a single company was left to guard the north road until they were relieved to join us. We had a tough time making our way through the forest with just three companies. I could only imagine the rest of the regiment. Along with them were the much needed supplies of ammunition, medicine and water that was all but spent during the day's efforts. That also meant I could help get the wounded out and be resupplied for the next round that was surely coming. I had been run to the limit of my endurance that day and I only knew more was to be asked of me, I laid behind a fallen tree while Buckminster took his turn on watch next to me. I dove off to dreamless sleep.

I was woken up for my turn on the watch. I pulled out the pistol from my belt and felt to make sure the safety was still on. Buckminister placed his machine gun on the trunk and stuck his knife next to it. It dawned on me why he had done so. In case of a zebra infiltrator were to sneak in amongst us to slit our throats, if he was unable to get to his primary weapon in time to fire a burst, his knife was in easy hoof reach. I pulled out my knife and did the same. He curled up from the cold as comfortably as he could using his poncho as a blanket and placed absolute trust in me to stay awake as I had for him.

"What a day, eh Doc?"

"What a day" I replied as I strained my eyes in the darkness.

I thought about home, my family and the friends around me. I wondered if any of us would come out of this war alive, it was a thought that each of us shared but kept optimistic that he or she will make it through. Despite the set back we had passed the test of the Baptism of fire knowing we could rely on each other and to do what is required of us.