We Sail For Celestia

Dear Father,

You shall probably never receive this letter. Our mail service is still collecting them from everypony, but they cannot send them anywhere. The fort is cut off. The Kirin have advanced and taken another part of the line. I might as well include the name since the censors will probably not even get to see this letter to remove it. They have taken Fort U, to our north, and now surround us, practically on all sides. Only a thin wedge of trenches connects us with any other ponies, farther down the line at the next fort. That is all we now have, our only lifeline, the final artery. If it is cut, our body will die. It may take hours, or days, or weeks, but it will die. And when a body dies, all its organs die with it. Everything within. Every cell.

I am sorry, not that it matters, for you shall not read this. I suppose at this point I am writing just to ease my own conscience, and to fill the time, for we are doing an awful lot of waiting considering we are under fire day and night. There is nothing for most of us to do until the Kirin come. That is one of the main differences of war today, father, compared to your day. Artillery is no longer a nuisance, just to support an assault or break up an incoming attack through direct fire. It is all that and so much more. It is incessant. They can hit us from so far away that we cannot even hear the reports of their guns, only the roar of the shells they have fired. Back in your day, the infantry could at least rest assured they might be able to overrun the enemy cannons and put a stop to their firing. Now, we cannot even rely on our own artillery to end the torture. The Kirin control the high ground; we do not even know where their gun positions are, and firing blind so far does not seem to have done our gunners any good. Either they are simply wasting ammunition, or the Kirin can replace their losses at an astonishing rate, for their guns never stop. The other fort to our south is under heavy attack, both by artillery and infantry assault. There are even strange reports of metal beasts accompanying the Kirin, and of devilish magic being used, and of the dead rising from the shell craters to join the next attack. All fanciful,, no doubt. You know how soldiers talk.

The cold has returned. It is hard to even hold the pen to write this letter, though I have good gloves. I am not sure whether the fortress and its dull concrete walls keep us warmer than if we were outside, or if it somehow chills the air to an even greater degree. One of the mares in my unit has found that her spectacles continually frost over each morning when she puts them on, and has taken to keeping them inside her bedroll with her instead. Alas, she 'bedrolled' a little too far yesterday, and now only has one functional lens. The cold affects our weapons, too. If our guns are not kept well oiled and greased, they too will freeze and refuse to fire. Not much different to the needle guns and lever-rifles you used in that sense, father, though technology has advanced over the last thirty or forty years since you first joined up as a private! Some things shall forever remain the same. War never changes, as they say.

For all the differences, we are in a similar situation to any pony down the centuries who fought. Our fate is scarcely ever in our own hands, in truth. If one wished to blaspheme, one could say that it is not in the hands of the Sun, either, but that chance, serendipity, is what determines who lives and who dies. Does the Princess guide each shell, each bullet, or is it happenstance, the wind direction, powder charge, the slight defects and differences between each round, the temperature of the air through which they pass?

I must stop now, for I do not wish to voice such thoughts. Celestia Protects, of course, and Luna Watches, no matter how strongly soldiers sometimes momentarily feel otherwise. I love you, father. I hope to see you again one day, Sun and Moon willing. If I do not, if the forts and the city should fall, and you somehow obtain this letter, then do not weep for me. Weep for Equestria, for it will have suffered a grievous wound.

Your loving son,

Greenwood

Another letter written, perhaps for little purpose. Greenwood at least felt some cathartic release from writing it, even if his father would never actually read it. It may end up buried or burned or torn to shreds, either by the Kirin or by the censors, but that did not truly matter to him anymore. The news that the fort was all but cut off had seen him succumb to an almost crippling depression, for it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would see his ship and crewmates again, to say nothing of his brother, fighting on an unknown front, and his father, safe back at home with his early-winter flowers and shrubs and the library and the fireplace and all the accoutrements and pleasures of modern Equestrian society. Everything that was denied to the ponies trapped in Fort V.

Lacking any expedient to alleviate his spiraling depression, thanks to the Kirin's temporary refusal to directly assault the fort, Greenwood could only languish in the murk and the cold, like the rest of the garrison, freezing in the nights and chilled to the bone during the days. Winter was truly setting in over the Northwick peninsula now, with swirling flurries of snow being carried on almost every breeze, and howling sea-gales bringing sleet, hail and freezing rain in between blizzards. He did not envy the Kirin infantry, out in their trenches in the woods and on the low but exposed hillsides. They would be sitting in the biting teeth of every gale. At least he had walls of thick concrete surrounding him, though they did little to warm up the garrison, who huddled around the sputtering barrel-fires and fitfully purring electric heaters to drag every degree of warmth that they possibly could from the meagre heat sources. The mains electricity had been cut, presumably by the Kirin who must have destroyed the transmission poles or cut the wires, and fuel supplies for the backup diesel generators within the fort would no longer be coming either, as the rail line to the city was also in Kirin hands. The supplies they did have were being rationed, so as to provide lighting for the common areas and gun galleries. Heating, it seemed, was a secondary concern. So long as they could see their guns, they could fight, no matter how tired and cold they might be.

To be so close to the rest of civilization, such as it was, in Harmony Bay, and yet cut off entirely from it, almost immediately began to have a deleterious effect upon the morale of the garrison in Fort V. Greenwood was far from alone in harbouring such feelings of painful isolation. A sense of despondency spread rapidly among the ranks, especially the seaponies who had been seconded to the fort to man the additional guns. They were not meant to be in situations like this. The Navy fought at sea, not on the land, not in these concrete hellholes. There was resentment from those who had been unlucky enough to be picked for the tough duty, while the rest of their fellows from the Northern Fleet sat safe on their ships in the harbour, not even sallying forth to engage the Kirin ships any longer. Admiral Strongbow flat out refused to risk his fleet in another attack on the Kirin, who still had the numerical advantage and were just waiting for him to play his hand, or for their own Army gunners to drive the fleet out from the harbour for fear of being annihilated. If the second rank of forts were to fall, then that would become almost a certainty, for the Kirin could have free reign to deploy their heavy guns and install their observers in perfect positions to bombard the fleet.

Greenwood stomped his feet to keep them warm and walked out into the darkened corridor. The electric lights flickered fitfully whenever a shell landed nearby, making the whole fort look like something from the pages of a horror novel, of which he had a few in his collection aboard the Defiant. He wandered along, almost in a half-daze of blackness. Never before during his military service, at sea or on land, had he felt anything like this, and it scared him. It had been two weeks under Kirin fire, two weeks since they reached the fort, and the shelling had scarcely ceased during that time. Only the heavy downpours of rain had stifled the Kirin guns, and that was- what, a week ago? Ten days?

It was hard to keep track of time. Greenwood had a wristwatch, a gift from his uncle, but that was hard to read in the perpetual semi-darkness of the fortress, and it didn't tell him what the date was anyway. He imagined this was what life was like as a Diamond Dog or a Changeling drone, subterranean species who lived without natural light, sometimes for their entire lives. To try and prevent himself from slowly losing his mind, Greenwood had taken to regular walks around the interior of the fort, circling around its corridors, crossing the interior courtyard just to see the sky, before dipping back into the sepulchral atmosphere of the tunnels and chambers, where silent ponies sat or slept, nursing their own problems, their own fragile minds.

At least one pony had already snapped, though not, Greenwood had been pleased to note, one of the seaponies, but rather a member of the fort's original garrison. The shelling and the darkness and the deprivation had driven him mad enough to storm out of the underground tunnel entrance and into the trenches outside, despite the protestations of the guards. The trench-pickets had been unable, or unwilling, to prevent him climbing over the parapet and storming across no-pony's-land like a one-stallion army, shouting abuse and coarse language at the silent Kirin beyond, his wails of despair and anger echoing across the barren landscape. Greenwood had tracked his progress through the viewing periscope in the gun-gallery as the stallion hurled his helmet in the direction of the Kirin in a rage, crying his cuttingly simple questions, questions that remained unanswered.

Why? Why?

Why are you here? Why are we here? Why am I here?

The Kirin gave him no reply, save for the sudden rattle of at least two machine guns. His bloody, lifeless corpse still lay out in the snow, frozen both by the rictus of death and by the brutal winter. Everypony who had been watching with bated breath knew there was no other likely outcome for the poor stallion, unless the Kirin had felt like taking a low-ranking prisoner. The stallion, Greenwood mused to himself, must have known that truth, too. That was probably why he did what he did, like how a desperate pony would sometimes call the police on themselves in the hope that threatening the lives of the officers would lead to them performing the last fatal act that the pony could not bring themselves to complete.

Greenwood knew that at least he had a fallback, his own sidearm, if it came to that. Much easier to do the deed with than a rifle, as the officer who he had replaced aboard the Defiant had ably demonstrated when he smeared his brains across the bulkhead of his cabin. The deck sentry, it was reported, had found the poor bastard with the gun still in his mouth, gripped like a vice in his dead hands as he sat slumped back in his chair. The pressures of military service, combined with the intoxicating depressant he had been consuming in the form of an empty bottle of vodka, had been enough to drive him over the edge.

Greenwood didn't know what had caused the stallion to pull the trigger, but he could easily imagine such a situation arising from the predicament that Fort V was under. Though he very much liked his drink, Greenwood had never indulged in alcohol while on duty before, other than the customary tot of vodka when toasting the Princesses during meals in the officers' mess. A few days ago, that had changed. One of the army officers, a Lieutenant 2nd Class, matching his own rank in naval parlance of Junior Lieutenant, had offered him a bottle of locally-distilled vodka from the stores. The fort, he had said, had a plentiful supply. Nopony would notice and nopony would miss one bottle among literally thousands. The entire Regional Command, he had told Greenwood, was overstocked with alcohol of all kinds. A lot of it was produced locally, either by the pony settlers or the Yaks who had been distilling vodka and brewing beer for centuries, but even besides that, there was a tacit understanding at Regional Command and back home in Canterlot that ponies stationed in the more extreme corners of Equestrian territory needed a guaranteed morale booster in the form of a guaranteed alcohol ration, for there was little else to do by way of entertainment in some of the most remote bases, stations and military posts. Northwick and Harmony Bay certainly qualified for that assessment, and steady supplies sent from home as well as locally produced drink made sure that the garrison of the province and the sailors of the Northern Fleet were never short of a tipple. The rivers that ran through the province, the officer had joked, were not chill glacial water, but pure vodka.

Greenwood had accepted the proffered gift, just to cement Army-Navy relations, he told himself. That explained why he let the officer give him the bottle. It did not explain why he drank half of it that night. Twenty-four hours later, it was empty, and he went back for another bottle, though it shamed him to do so. The army officer said nothing as he handed it over, merely a nod that said I understand. Perhaps, Greenwood had thought at the time, that meant he was not the first pony the officer had plied with drink to satiate their mental anguish. His walks through the darkened corridors and tunnels quickly confirmed that, for he would often come across ponies slumped in corners, asleep in the happy haze of a drunken hour that would soon fade when they awoke. Others were still drinking, their bottles of hard cider, whiskey or vodka tucked beneath the blankets and greatcoats they wrapped around themselves to stave off the cold. Whether officer or enlisted, every pony would stiffen and bristle as Greenwood approached. He was an officer, and a navy one at that. Would he berate them, summon their army superiors, have them court-martialed for drinking while still, technically, on duty?

He did none of those things. Instead he simply walked on by, sometimes locking eyes with the offender for a few moments as he passed. He didn't want to linger long enough for them to notice the stench of liquor on his breath. For the same reason he tried his best to stay clear of anyone with more stars, pips or diamonds on their collar than he had- just like the soldiers who shied away from him, he did not know how a superior officer would react if they knew he was wandering the fortress drunk at night. The fort had a tiny brig for prisoners, but in truth the whole complex of drab concrete and unforgiving metal felt like one giant prison in itself. They were isolated, cut off, and alone, with only their fellow sufferers and the sound of shelling for company, trapped in purgatory, waiting to die.

"Stand to! Stand to! Up, up, get up!"

Greenwood scrambled from his cold bedroll, eyes darting too and fro. He felt for his automatic and sword, grasping them firmly in his hands. The gun-gallery was still dim and dull, though it must be morning by now. Whoever was on sentry duty must have alerted the fort, for the warning bells were trilling and there was the sound of running feet in the corridor outside.

His head ached lightly from the night before, when he had stumbled into bed after half a bottle. The viewports and firing ports of the gallery were flung open, brilliant beams of light bathing his eyes in temporary agony until he looked away, stars dancing in his vision. He hurried to the viewing periscope and peered through. Nothing seemed out of place, a light mist hanging just above the snow-strewn ground, but...wait, now there was something. Movement! Movement, out beyond the trenches.

Rifle fire suddenly began to crackle from the outer defences, followed by the heavy chatter of machine guns. The Kirin, the foreign devils, must be using the mist as cover to try and sneak up close to the fort.

"Get those guns ready!" Greenwood called to his crews, mostly seaponies but with a few soldiers thrown in. They prepped the guns for firing, making sure they were not frozen over from the night's chill, checking the powder charges, double-checking their rangefinders. The range markers out beyond the trenches were hidden by the mist, so they would have to take their own sightings when engaging the enemy.

Without warning, the field of view through Greenwood's periscope erupted into a tapestry of dirt and snow as a Kirin bombardment roared from the skies. They must be mad! Greenwood mused. Almost shelling their own soldiers! Mad, or perhaps supremely confident in the accuracy of their gunners. It was a clever ruse- lure the defenders out into their trenches with the visual evidence of an impending attack, only to pound them with heavy artillery. It had been tried before, but only when the Kirin had not actually been on the field of battle. This time they were perilously close to their own shellfire. If the ruse backfired, they might find themselves taking massive casualties without even reaching the fort, but if it worked...

"Sight those guns on our forward trenchline!" Greenwood shouted, drawing confused looks from his gun-captains. "You heard me!' he snapped. "If we're lucky you won't need to fire, but if the Sun and Moon aren't with us, then you're going to need every shell you can bring to hand." They complied, lowering the barrels of their guns from the more distant fire-marks they had been zeroed on. As the smoke cleared, Greenwood could see that his fear was being realised.

The front trench had been pounded hard, and there was almost no sign of anypony anywhere along the length of it that he could see. There were Kirin, though, clambering over the ruined parapet, dropping into the trench as sporadic rifle fire from the second and third-line trenches spat back at them. They did not look much like the regular Kirin in their khaki uniforms, for they were clad in dark-blue. Peering closer through the periscope, Greenwood could see that they were adorned with gear and equipment quite unlike the regulars; no simple rifle, pack and water canteen. Indeed most wore no pack at all, leaving their strong backs to carry other things. Most seemed to hold submachine guns, extra clips and grenades strapped all across their chests, their visored helmets making them look almost like the riot squads that the police deployed to break up violent demonstrations back home. Some had other gear, too- wire cutters, satchels that could well be explosives. These were no line infantry unit. They were shock infantry, stormtroopers outfitted for their mission with the best that the Kirin could provide. They were not here for a probing attack or a reconnaissance in force. They were here to take the fort.

Machine guns and defensive cannons were now firing from the fort itself, but the Kirin were already inside the trench network and thus protected from much of the incoming metal. Greenwood shouted an order to fire, and the four-inch guns hurled their shells at the lip of the forward trench. Some Kirin tumbled, their bodies broken, but others replaced them, and now coming along out of the mist behind the stormtroopers was a wave of khaki-clad regulars, at least a regiment of them.

"Shit...reload, fire!" Greenwood ordered. "Keep firing until I tell you otherwise! You!" he pointed to one of the seaponies. "Go find the Colonel, get his orders for Battery 4."

"Aye sir!" The seapony scurried away as the Kirin surged forward. Now they were meeting resistance at the second line of trenches, less badly affected by the shelling. Squads of Equestrian soldiers were blocking their way. Grenades were being hurled in both directions and vicious close combat developing before Greenwood's eyes as he looked through the periscope. To the right, he could see ponies firing from behind stacks of wooden ammunition boxes in one of the large mortar pits. A few Kirin were advancing on them, and before any of the ponies could react, they were engulfed in flames.

Greenwood blinked in surprise, his eyes glued to the periscope. He felt his heart lurch. Something flammable had not been struck by a stray bullet. This was fire as a weapon. One of the Kirin, in contrast to most of his compatriots, had a bulky object strapped to his back. Instead of a gun, he held a hose-like contraption, and from its nozzle spewed flame, igniting all it touched. The ponies rapidly found their cover was as flammable as they were, and panicked. Several broke and ran from the onslaught of flame, while others closer to the Tartarus-spawned weapon were caught in its blast, their skin, fur and clothing igniting, turning them into living torches. Even over the din of battle, their horrifying screams reached his ears, or at least he imagined they did. He could see them thrashing about, tumbling to the ground and rolling in a desperate attempt to put out the flames that were consuming them. One pony climbed out of the trench and dove into a snowbank, putting out the fire but being riddled with bullets from the advancing Kirin regulars instead. At least one other was put out of his misery by a Kirin soldier who put a bullet through his head in an act of mercy before resuming his advance behind the flamethrower.

"By Celestia..." Greenwood muttered to himself. "These devils have no magic of their own, so they have to create evils like that instead?" He slammed the concrete wall with a balled fist in rage and horror. if the Kirin got their flamethrowers to the fortress itself, the results scarcely bore thinking about. More soldiers from the garrison were taking up positions in the third and final line of trenches, but it was the numerous machine guns in the fort itself that were doing the damage, mowing down dozens of Kirin regulars as they advanced to support their shock troops. There could be no accurate, sudden barrage to subdue those guns, for they were safe behind thick concrete walls which days of bombardment had failed to penetrate. They would have to be taken by force, by storm, and by fire from inside.

With his battery's guns blazing, Greenwood had little else to do but continue to look through the periscope. The Kirin were still making progress; much further and they would be able to hurl grenades through the firing apertures of the gun-gallery and threaten the lives of his crews. Despite the flamethrower and the firepower of the shock troopers and their submachine guns, however, they were slowly bogging down, their rate of advance stagnating as the fortress woke and bristled, like a porcupine with its quills. Their initial attack had succeeded in taking the fort partly by surprise and gaining them significant ground, letting them seize the first two trench lines with relative ease and limited casualties. Gaining entry into the fort itself, however, would be far more costly for both sides.