We Sail For Celestia

Back in port, the Northern Fleet licked its wounds. They had shown bravery, but did not have much to show for it. The damage to the Kirin fleet was minimal, as, mercifully, was the damage to themselves. The Kirin had outnumbered and outgunned them, but had been reluctant to commit their capital ships to the fray for fear of the shore batteries. That was enough for now; just keep them at bay until somepony could figure out what to do next. A small number of vessels from the Northern Fleet were elsewhere, having been out on long-term patrol or training duties at other east-coast ports, but even if they could break through the blockade they would not alter the balance of power significantly.

Disquieting news had been received, flashed down the telegraph from Fair Valley, the capital of Northwick. The Frontier Guards had reported a Kirin naval force off the coast, quickly amended to include numerous transports and followed a short while later by the troubling report of a landing being made at Whalebone Beach. It was unopposed; while Northwick had a plentiful garrison and there were large forces in neighbouring Yakyakistan too, the news of the attack on Harmony Bay had only been widely spread a few hours ago. Nobody had had time to prepare for repelling an invasion. Troops had been moved to reinforce Northwick gradually over the last six months, but that was more of a just in case move than anything else. Even with the Kirin's inflammatory rhetoric over the peninsula and the rights of the Yaks to govern themselves, nopony expected them to actually attack, and certainly not to try an invasion. While the major civilian ports were defended, smaller coastal villages were not; there were not enough troops to cover every single bay and inlet that could be used for a landing. The coastline of Northwick was as rugged as the inhabitants, with hundreds of coves and shingle beaches that could play host to enemy barges and boats, enough to get forces ashore, though truly heavy equipment and bulk unloading would need a proper port to allow transport ships to come alongside and dock.

If this purported landing were true, then Harmony Bay was in danger not just from out at sea, but on land as well. The Northwick peninsula was not particularly wide, getting narrower toward the tip. Harmony Bay lay halfway along its southern flank, while most of the northern side was rocky cliffs, and ice in winter. The majority of safe landing sites lay on the south side, and that was where the Kirin were being reported. It would not take too much marching to cut the rail and telegraph links between Harmony Bay and Fair Valley, or indeed from Fair Valley to Yakyakistan and beyond to Equestria proper. The motherland lay far to the west, and even Fair Valley was a good hundred miles away, and given Harmony Bay's importance as a military installation, that was why Governor Cranberry Cream and her staff were based in the port and not in the capital itself.

Admiral Strongbow and General Wild Willow disappeared into the General's office to do their best to plan the defence of the city with what they had. If the rumour was true then they might not have long to gather troops from surrounding towns and use them to help fill the trenches and forts that ringed the city, all of whom had garrisons, but which might not be able to withstand a major assault unless more soldiers arrived. That was what the incoming 45th and 52nd Infantry Regiments were meant to have been for, but now, if the rail line was cut, they might not arrive at all. At Wild Willow's direction, all town garrisons from the immediate area were withdrawn into Harmony Bay, and patrols along the rail line were doubled to watch for any sign of trouble. The civilians from those towns were also evacuated, those that wished to leave, at least. Many remained, especially the Yaks, unwilling to abandon their ancestral lands even if it put them in danger.

It was dark when the ponies of the 45th Regiment's 1st Battalion arrived at Caliclo Bridge. The bulky, box-girder construction had been built as part of the Northwick rail link, connecting the cities of Fair Valley and Harmony Bay to the rest of Equestria, via a trip through Yakyakistan and its confusing gauge-change requirements. The bridge spanned a rocky, tumbling gorge where a mountain stream had once flowed, but the waters had dried up since the bridge was built due to a rockfall farther upstream which had created a new path for the trickling river. If the bridge were to be captured or destroyed by the Kirin, then the railway could no longer be used to transport supplies or reinforcements to Harmony Bay, which seemed to be their primary target, though the commanders of the Northwick garrison also feared a pivot toward Fair Valley, which had no ring of steel surrounding it in the form of fortresses like the naval base did. Capturing the capital of Northwick would have a demoralising effect, but it would not have the same military implications that the loss of Harmony Bay or the destruction of the Northern Fleet would.

The bridge was a key location on the rail line, a chokepoint over which any train into Harmony Bay would have to roll. Even if the enemy did not want to destroy it, they could capture it and potentially use the line and its rolling stock to move their own supplies, either toward Harmony Bay or Fair Valley, depending on which way their axis of attack was leaning at any given time. If they wished to besiege the port, then the capture of the line would be of paramount importance to them- their landing site was many miles from the city, and though it was ideal as a launch point for an operation to sever the peninsula from the rest of the nation, it would leave the Kirin having to lug everything over less than friendly terrain for many miles in order to conduct a siege of Harmony Bay. If they wanted it intact, they needed to move quickly, which was why the Equestrians had moved quickly, too.

The 1st Battalion joined several hundred Frontier Guards and local police, who had established a strong position around the bridge. They kept it guarded at all times anyway, just in case any Yaks got smart ideas about sabotaging it as a show of protest against the regime. This force, a couple of dozen ponies, had been reinforced, and sandbagged positions set up at both ends of the bridge. A machine gun covered the most likely route of approach, up the relatively shallow defile through leafless woodland at the western end of the bridge. Tracks through the woods led, eventually, down to Whalebone Beach, where the Kirin were massing.

The Frontier Guards, though well trained and led, were not heavily armed; they were not truly meant to engage a hostile army in direct combat, but to provide border protection or, in event of war, rear echelon security behind friendly lines. The arrival of friendly soldiers was a very welcome sight for the bridge guards. It was a sleepless night as the 1st Battalion dug in around the structure, listening to it gently creaking as the temperature changed, dropping to a few degrees above freezing in the depths of the inky blackness. It would only get worse. Winter was but a week or two away from arriving in full force, and when it came in this part of the world, it came with a vengeance.

Greenshield, at Captain Fine Feather's direction, set up the company machine gun section where it had a good field of fire, tucked into the cleft of two large boulders and covering the approach up through the woods. Slit trenches were dug in front, where the hard rock gave way to equally lifeless soil. The rest of the company occupied them, foxholes and narrow shell scrapes cut into the earth by entrenching tools. There was no time for more elaborate preparations. The Kirin could be on them at any time.

They came at dawn, but not in the way the defenders had been expecting.

The woods ahead were quiet and dead, the trees having lost the last of their leaves just recently. They made a natural, rustling carpet that could alert a keen-eared soldier to the presence of the foe. Officers peered through field glasses and troopers watched with nervous eyes and steel cross-beam sights, their rifles checked and checked again during the night. Once the trenches had been dug there was little else for them to do. Food that was meant to be hot but which was invariably cold by the time it arrived had been circulated by the battalion's catering platoon, their portable cook-stoves and wheeled bread oven transported with surprising ease by positioning the two-wheeled carriage onto the rail track and simply rolling it along to the bridge. Their own train had gone through late in the evening, no longer loaded with soldiers but with a large quantity of supplies from the local rail depot which had been loaded with haste by Yak porters and sent on to Harmony Bay. The rest of the Regiment was still behind, their trains stopped short somewhere, no doubt, by the sudden threat to the line ahead.

Greenshield kept a watchful eye over the rest of the machine gun section, eight ponies in total- himself, the gunner and his spare, the loader and his second, two ammunition carriers, and a runner. The heavy gun could spit out almost seven hundred rounds per minute, and ate ammunition like a hungry locust swarm, requiring a constant stream of the canvas-linked belts to be provided to the gunner and his water-cooled weapon. The Mare-Isle campaign had confirmed, if such confirmation was necessary, that machine guns could have a devastating effect on massed infantry, both in the attack and the defence, and the Equestrian Army had accordingly expanded its supply of such weapons in order to, theoretically at least, provide one for every infantry company, plus machine gun companies at regimental level in a similar way to how their artillery force had operated for some time.

However, machine guns were only effective if they were facing the right way.

Gunfire suddenly erupted behind them, at the other end of the bridge; the eastern end, closest to Harmony Bay. Greenshield's head snapped round in alarm as cries and shouts went up. This wasn't right. The Kirin were meant to be coming from the west...

"Contact rear!" Fine Feather shouted. "Keep watch to your front, it could be a diversion!"

Greenshield nodded as the Captain rushed past to see what was going on. The ripple of rifle fire could be heard from across the bridge, which was meant to be the relatively safer end. The Kirin had landed at Whalebone Beach, so unless they had made another landing elsewhere or had managed to move troops by sea overnight, they should have been coming from the west, right into the sights of Greenshield's section and the rest of the company.

The gunfire continued for several minutes, joined by the rattle of a machine gun, yet still nothing from the west. The woods were as silent as they had been during the dead of night, and Greenshield felt a rising sense of unease. As much as he did not want to be shot at, he also didn't like not knowing exactly what was going on. At least the soldiers at the other end of the bridge had a task they could concentrate on, whereas all he could do was wonder.

Why aren't they attacking us here?

A whistling sound could be heard over the gunfire, and his ears pricked up.

"Incoming!" somepony cried, a second too late. A shell or a mortar bomb, something loud and explosive, landed nearby and threw up a plume of smoke and dirt. Ponies ducked reflexively, crouching low in their foxholes or behind the sandbags placed around the end of the bridge. Greenshield winced as his eardrums were pounded by the blast wave, but he was unharmed. More rounds began to land, and though he could not hear the telltale pop of the mortars firing over the sound of guns, he could tell by the size of the explosions and their regularity that was what was firing at them. A Kirin mortar team must be somewhere nearby, probably in a clearing in the woods or maybe just beyond the treeline somewhere.

A steady rain of mortar fire dropped on the western end of the bridge, pinning down the defenders and restricting their movements, while the battle raged at the other end of the structure. The Kirin, it seemed, were not keen on destroying the bridge, or else they might be unleashing heavier artillery against its defences. The mortars might do superficial damage, but they were not capable of bringing the bridge down. They were, however, capable of inflicting casualties.

A pony cried out in pain as a mortar round landed nearby with a thump. "Medic!" somepony else screamed. "Medic!"

Greenshield chewed his lip. A casualty. Their first of the war. Somepony he knew? Probably. This was his company, after all. Somepony he knew well? Perhaps not. Despite the almost magnetic allure of the idea of comradeship among soldiers, Greenshield had yet to truly make any friends in his unit. Did those under his command respect him? Yes. Did they obey him? Yes. But did they like him? He wasn't so sure.

Not that any of that really mattered right now. Mortar fire was still coming in, there was still shooting across the bridge, and everything was backward. Fine Feather came running back.

"Kirin are moving in regimental strength to the east!" she informed them. "Sergeant, get your MG over the river and support them."

"Yes ma'am..." Greenshield nodded, more confident in his gesture of affirmation than he actually felt. "Come on boys and girls."

The crew obeyed his command, packing up the gun, removing it from its tripod mounting. One pony slung the tripod over the back of their neck to carry it, another took the barrel, and the rest carried the wooden boxes of ammunition. The bridge boards thudded under their weight, their legs carrying them over to the eastern side of the crevasse. Squads of Frontier Guards were moving up with them, but if the captain was correct and the Kirin were pushing in with a regiment or more, then it seemed a futile gesture. They were not dug in for a major fight, and they had no artillery of their own save for a handful of mortars which were already thumping away in response on the far end of the bridge.

The eastern side was a stark contrast to the silent woods to the west. Rifleponies were firing from behind sandbagged emplacements and in their slit trenches. At least a dozen Kirin dead could be counted in front of them, but that was not the most alarming thing. The number of living Kirin was, for they were pouring over the craggy rocks to the southeast of the bridge like a swarm of ants, rifles and submachine guns firing as they moved. Several heavy machine guns were backing them up from among the rocks, pouring down streams of fire on the defenders. It was not only the attackers who had suffered casualties, for several slit trenches contained only the bodies of fallen ponies.

Greenshield ordered the squad ahead at the double, heads low, crouching behind the sandbags as best they could to reach a spot next to one of the machine guns from another company, 3rd, he thought, judging by a few faces he recognised. They were blazing away despite being down one crewmembers, a mare lying sprawled over the sandbags beside the gun, half her face shot away.

Greenshield's tram set up their gun again behind the sandbags, exchanging nervous glances with each other and with the other gun crew. The Kirin were sweeping down like a wave from the rocks not just to the southeast, but also the northeast, the other side of the tracks, suggesting they had already advanced to cut the rail line overnight. That was not good. Not good at all.

The gun went into action, sputtering and rattling, kicking like a mule as the gunner, Acorn Hope, gripped the handles and squeezed the trigger, working his deadly, flashing fire steadily across the onrushing Kirin. Their khaki uniforms blended well with the background, being a subtly different shade to the Equestrians- light brown for the Kirin, and a pale green for the ponies. The Kirin's vibrant manes and headpieces stood out, marking them out as the enemy even if there was confusion over the uniform. The gunners did not need to make such a distinction, merely firing into the mass of soldiers coming toward them.

Greenshield watched on, his rifle in hand in case the enemy got close. He had never fired it in anger before, though, like every infantrypony, it was meant to be his best friend and comfort at all times. Rugged, reliable, dependable, the Equestrian rifle had a five-round clip, was bolt action, had a mounting for a bayonet, which the Equestrian troops invariably kept fixed at all times when at war, and was accurate in the hands of a trained soldier. Marksponies and snipers were given a telescopic sight to affix to their weapon, enabling them to engage and pick off enemies at a much longer range, but even without the scope, the rifle was relatively accurate out to a range of seven or eight hundred yards.

The Kirin were already much closer than that, within the outer semicircle of trenches that had been dug around the end of the bridge. Greenshield could see a few desperate ponies crouching low behind a stack of wooden railway ties, firing their rifles when they had a chance. Several officers with submachine guns were spraying the enemy as they tried to hurl grenades into the defences. Another machine gun had been knocked out, its crew lying dead on the other side of the track.

It did not look good. There were several hundred Kirin coming at them, and all they had to do was push the ponies back to the other side of the bridge to cut the rail line, if they hadn't already. With the bridge in their hands, no trains would be able to make it to the port city unless the Kirin allowed it. Despite their valiant efforts, it was clear that the defenders did not have enough troops or firepower to repel the attack.

Another pony went down near to Greenshield, screaming and clutching at his side. A grenade demolished a sandbagged emplacement and killed a trio of Frontier Guards, their bodies tumbling. A squad of Kirin entering a defile ahead of Greenshield's gun were torn to pieces by Acorn Hope, who showed no compunctions about killing, holding down the trigger until they stopped moving.

"Fall back!" somepony cried. "Fall back!"

"What do we do, Sarge?" Acorn questioned, looking away from the sights of the machine gun for just a moment as the loader slipped a fresh belt of ammunition into it.

"Nothing yet," Greenshield grunted. The voice had not been one he recognised; it had no authority to it, just some panicked soldier screaming out in terror. He would wait for orders, definite orders from a superior officer, before he gave that command to his ponies. The machine gun began to fire again, laying down a hail of bullets and temporarily slowing the Kirin advance, but they still outnumbered the defenders, and attrition was beginning to tell upon them. The Frontier Guards were dwindling in number and the 1st Battalion was taking losses, including one of its mortar teams, killed by a well-thrown grenade from a Kirin. The defensive line around the eastern end of the bridge was rapidly buckling under the pressure.

"Orders from Major Blitz!" a pony shouted, rushing over to their sandbagged emplacement, speaking to both gun crews. "General retreat across the bridge. Machine guns to move first, go, go!"

"Pack it up!" Greenshield ordered. "We're falling back!" This time he could issue the order, and Acorn and the rest of the crew complied, dismantling the gun. While it would have made sense to have the machine guns covering the retreat of the rifleponies, that was not how the Equestrian military saw things. The machine guns were assets, force multipliers, to be preserved whenever possible- not at any cost, per se, but whenever it was reasonable to do so. Extricating them from the melee first was, by that logic, the most sensible course of action. One gun could provide as much firepower as an entire platoon of rifles, and at a much lower cost in terms of supply and upkeep. Guns did not need feeding or clothing; give them oil and ammunition and they would serve you well.

Under cover of rifle and mortar fire, the two machine guns pulled back from the sandbagged emplacement, racing back across the bridge as the Kirin stormed the line behind them. With the bridge being the only safe crossing point, it naturally came under heavy fire, striking down two of 3rd Company's machine gun crew as they ran. Greenshield's boots thumped on the planks of the bridge, he and his crew making it back alive to the other side. The mortars were next to pull out, and finally the infantry, one section at a time, leapfrogging each other in a backward movement, throwing smoke grenades behind them. Greenshield's machine gun covered the last of them from the western end of the bridge, firing blind into the smoke when it was clear there were no more ponies who were going to make it across.

Only then did the silent forest, now at their backs, come alive.