We Sail For Celestia

"Gas, gas, gas!"

Lieutenant Tracer took up the cry, and a sudden panicked murmur spread among the defenders. The cloud of smoke drifting slowly down the tunnel was not benign; it was a spreading cancer, a weapon of war. Somewhere above, the Kirin must be opening cylinders of the stuff and letting it pour down into the vents of the fortress.

The Equestrians had no gas masks. The sailors were never issued with them at all, and the soldiers assigned to garrison duty were never expected to ever face such a threat either, especially since most nations had signed a treaty prohibiting the use of gas as a weapon. The Kirin, however, had never signed.

"Get something over your faces!" Greenwood shouted. "Masks if you have them! Handkerchiefs or scarves if not! Piss on them and then put them over your mouth and nose!"

A few ponies looked at him with confusion, but her reiterated his order. "Piss on them! It's better than nothing, just do it!" He remembered his time in the infantry and the helpful lecture his unit had received from some grey-maned old chemistry professor on war gases. The thing he remembered most vividly, because it had appealed to his juvenile side at the time, was the instruction to urinate on a cloth or rag or piece of clothing to provide rudimentary protection if nothing else was available. Something to do with the ammonia, he recalled.

Around him, ponies hastily unzipped or dropped their trousers to void their bladders onto whatever piece of clothing they could spare. There was no time for anything so unnecessary as modesty. Greenwood urinated onto his scarf before tying it around his face like a bandana. It stank like a public restroom and was immensely claustrophobic, especially in an already-confined space like the tunnel. But it might just offer some tiny modicum of protection against the gas.

He searched his memory again for the chemical warfare training he had undergone years ago. Respiratory symptoms seemed to be the primary effect so far- chlorine? No, wrong colour. This cloud of gas was whitish-grey, like smoke. Phosgene, then. Yes, that was it. And the smell of that meadow suddenly, which reminded him of his father's garden after a summer rain, when the gardener had managed to mow the lawns before the heavens had opened.

Now, there was no sky above, yet still the water dripped down. He realised he was now standing again under the spot where he had been sitting before, before he had moved, and the incessant drip-drip-drip was falling upon him again. Up ahead, the ponies from the two outer posts were retreating, coughing and gasping, unable to give themselves the rudimentary protection of a piss-soaked rag before the gas reached them. If their scarves and handkerchiefs did nothing to protect them, then the main line would break. They would have no choice but to retreat.

The gas cloud crept onward, like a malevolent fog from some gothic horror novel.

"Stand fast!" Greenwood ordered. "You!" he pointed to a Pegasus mare. "Get a message to the commander. Gas attack in sector six. Alert everypony that there may be additional attacks elsewhere in the fort at any moment."

She saluted and took to the air, keeping low in the bare concrete corridor and sweeping away into the darkness behind them. Pegasi had better eyesight than other subspecies of pony, and she would have little trouble navigating her way to the sections of the fort where the lights still blazed. Everypony else stood ready, rifles in hand, eyeing both the gas cloud and the tunnel beyond it. Surely the Kirin would be exploiting this? Surely they would be on the heels of the gas cloud like hounds on the hunt?

Greenwood tried his best to concentrate and not to heed the rising tide of nausea caused by inhaling the vapours from his improvised protection. The gas crept closer until it washed over them, and it quickly became apparent that a urine-soaked rag, while probably better than nothing, had little effect, not at the concentrations the gas found itself in thanks to the confined space of the tunnel. On an open battlefield, it would spread out, dilute in the air, be carried by winds, settle in shell holes and low-lying areas. But in the tunnel, it was funnelled forward and kept contained.

"Shit..." somepony groaned. "It's not working!"

Greenwood felt his eyes burning. He had no protective goggles, though they may have done nothing anyway. That was only the first symptom of exposure; within seconds his throat tickled and he began to cough. There was that smell again, seeping through his scarf. New-mown hay or grass or something, not entirely unpleasant in the right context, but this was very much not the right context.

"I can't breathe..." somepony croaked out. Others were coughing and retching, pouring the precious contents of their water canteens into their eyes to quench the burning sensation. Greenwood's vision blurred, swaying like he was drunk, a sensation that had not long since gone away from his session with the vodka bottle the night before. His throat was starting to feel like it did at the moment of waking from a drunken slumber; raw, painful, clogged with mucus or sputum or something. He coughed, hacking rasps of air. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

"What do we do, Lieutenant?" somepony asked, a soldier, glancing desperately between Greenwood and Tracer, his face concealed behind a canvas bandolier soaked in his urine, but equally as invisible to Greenwood because his eyes were full of water and itching madly, forcing him to squint and peer through the liquid veil, as though he were walking in a torrential downpour.

They couldn't fight like this.

Even if the gas wasn't going to kill them, the Kirin would, because nopony could fight while blind and bent double with coughs. Bands of sudden and sharp pain gripped Greenwood's chest and he coughed half a dozen times. There was no way they could repel a Kirin attack. Several ponies were already on their knees in panic, half-choking on phlegm and frothy sputum, peeling their makeshift masks off to hack it up onto the floor or to vomit uncontrollably.

"Fall back!" Greenwood shouted, the effort of forcing the words out through his swelling throat causing him to dissolve into another bout of coughs. Tracer repeated his call, and the ponies began to stumble back, away from the gas, seeking fresh air and relief from the deadly grip of the cloud. Their symptoms, while disorienting and scary, seemed relatively mild; nopony was falling down dead. But the effects of the gas were not just short-lived, and anypony with a high enough exposure to it risked developing edema of the lungs within a few hours, and drowning from the inside out, choking on their own fluids as they gasped for breaths that would not come. Greenwood knew this, remembered from his training, and he knew the longer they stayed there, the greater the risk would be, especially since their cloth masks were practically useless.

Before they could run completely, however, the Kirin appeared on the scene, as he knew they surely must. Bursts of gunfire erupted from the darkness of the tunnels, and the Kirin stormed forward. Unlike the defenders, they wore proper gas masks, well-fitted around their snouts and mouths, filtering out the harmful gas and letting them breathe normally as they charged.

Greenwood, with difficulty, ordered a rearguard action, setting one squad to cover their retreat. The position, he could see clearly, was lost. The junction between the tunnels could not be held against a properly equipped Kirin force, and perhaps might not be recovered, especially if the Kirin used gas again to break up a counterattack. It pained him to give the order to retreat, but, as ranking officer, it was his duty. Leaving his ponies to choke to death on phosgene fumes was not the mark of a good leader.

They stumbled away, out of the Kirin gunfire and round the corner into the tunnel, flashlights and magic illumination leading the way and piercing the darkness, coughing and weeping and vomiting as they went. Greenwood tore off his scarf and coughed up globs of pink-tinged yellow mucus. He could barely see where he was going, his eyes red and streaming. Though they were now clear of the gas, its lingering effects were still holding him tightly, making him struggle for breath as his unit made their way back to the next line of defence, a strong barricade with two machine guns tucked in behind it, guarding the tunnel and the courtyard entrance, where the Kirin had tried again to force a breach into the main section of the fort, and again been repulsed. But now, they had found a different route, through the interior, and had just made another leap forward by taking the tunnel junction where Greenwood and his unit had been stationed.

Greenwood leaned on the bare concrete wall for support as he coughed and almost vomited, instead hacking up pink froth, like seafoam tinged with some sort of algae. The ponies behind the barricade leaped out to assist their comrades, supporting them and helping them to climb over the sandbags and improvised obstacles. The messenger Pegasus had informed them of the gas threat, and a few of them already wore some form of mask, soaked with urine but, as Greenwood's unit had already discovered, all but useless against the phosgene gas in such high concentrations. The officer in charge, of the barricade, Captain Charade, was dismayed by the news. He helped Greenwood climb over the barrier personally, sitting him down against the wall and offering him water. Those who were most badly affected by the gas, mainly the ponies who had been in the outer positions ahead of their main strongpoint, were taken away to the fort's infirmary.

"They're advancing," Greenwood grunted out, after a big swig of water had helped him partially clear his mouth and throat of the foul mucus, which he spat away into the tunnel's drainage culvert.

"I know, we heard the gunfire," Charade nodded, his dark brown beard a slightly deeper shade than his chestnut body and face. "I hope the commander has a plan, because if they gas us here, we're done. We can't keep on retreating. Soon there won't be anywhere to retreat to."

Greenwood nodded, only able to see the Captain as a swaying, shimmering figure, like a ghost, through the mist of tears and swelling around his eyes. "We couldn't stay," he added plaintively, as though interpreting Charade's words as criticism. "It's phosgene, I'm pretty sure. High concentration...in the tunnels..."

Charade nodded. He understood. "None of us have gas masks," he replied. "If the Kirin wanted, they could just pour that poison into the vents until we all surrender or die. Like smoking out the rats from grandpa's old basement," he mused, mind wandering for just a second. "You and your sailor boys shouldn't even be here. This isn't your realm. Should be out on the water, but instead they decided to send you down here to hell." He shook his head sadly. "I know those guns they sent over were naval, but they work just the same as our artillery. They shouldn't have sent you out here to die like this."

"I was one of you, sir," Greenwood replied with a pained grin. "Lieutenant of Foot, almost three years. Was over in Mare-isle."

"Huh, no shit," Charade chuckled. "I figured there was some good in you after all. I could sense it. How'd you end up in the navy then?"

"Transfer..." Greenwood coughed. "Army life? Not for me."

"Not for me either," the Captain admitted, helping Greenwood to stand. "Not this side of it anyway. Garrison duty, well sure, that's fine. But...not sure any of us expected an actual fucking war to break out. C'mon, let's get you to the infirmary. If we get any kind of chance for a breakout, I'll make sure you and your sailor boys are the first to leave. The fleet's gonna need you, by the sound of it, if it comes down to fighting."

Greenwood nodded. He didn't speak again as Charade helped him to the rear and handed him over to two medical orderlies. "Oh, and Lieutenant?" the Captain called. Greenwood turned his head.

"Don't beat yourself up about falling back. You did the right thing," Charade assured him. "If those Kirin fucks drop gas on me? I'll pull my boys out, too. Can't fight this stuff, not without real gas masks. Can't fight fate."

Greenwood nodded, and the orderlies bundled him away.

Fort V was stubborn. The Kirin kept pouring soldiers and gas into it, but the dwindling garrison continued to resist, not content to simply lie down and die. Every chamber and corridor that was taken was paid for dearly in blood by the invaders. For all their training and equipment, the Kirin stormtroopers were just as vulnerable to bullets and grenades as anybody else, and they were relatively few in number. After taking heavy losses in the first few days of the siege, they were mostly replaced by regular line infantry. They fared no better, and indeed a little worse, lacking the demolition charges, bundled grenades, and other useful equipment that the stormtroopers used.

Flamethrowers still led the charge each time, often preceded by the targeted release of more phosgene gas. The Kirin would place a large metal cylinder near one of the vents that they knew, or suspected, fed a certain part of the fort with fresh air. Then the valves would be opened and the gas allowed to flow free, being sucked down into the vents by the slight pressure difference. For the most part, it was highly effective, although once the Kirin did unleash it through the wrong vent, and managed to kill eighteen of their own troops and hospitalise several dozen.

While Greenwood was convalescing in the less than pleasant surroundings of the fort's dingy and bloodstained infirmary, surrounded by members of his ragtag unit and others who had been exposed to the gas, the battle for Fort V continued to rage. The Kirin surged forward, taking the courtyard, finally, littered with the bodies of their comrades who had fallen in earlier assaults. They gassed their way into the main wing, but a furious bombardment from the Equestrian artillery prevented them from deploying any more cylinders successfully. One shell landed near a cylinder that was being prepared, and shrapnel burst it open, the gas spilling forth and maiming or killing the entire team send to deploy it.

In Harmony Bay, General Wild Willow had long since accepted the likely fate of Fort V. She knew the garrison could not hold out indefinitely, and she knew that the main Equestrian counterattack had not yet really begun. She knew of the approach of the Home Fleet, and she knew what she could achieve with the forces at her disposal. As a result, she organised a local counterthrust, aimed at Fort V, with the sole intention of opening a relief corridor to the beleaguered garrison. It was a simple enough plan; under cover of heavy artillery bombardments from the three rear forts, all of which had been repulsing regular Kirin attacks over the past week, a column of infantry would advance, securing a corridor through the empty scrubland and snowfields that lay between the two lines of fortresses. Once they reached the rear of the fort, where the main entrance lay, they would hold off the Kirin while, at the very least, the wounded were evacuated. If there was time, they would take everypony, but the fort's commander, Major Raincloud, had told her via carrier pigeon- the radios having been knocked out- that he would remain behind with a force of volunteers if necessary.

Under cover of darkness, the relief column began to advance quietly across the open ground. Then, the guns of forts X, Y and Z, the artillery batteries in the city, and the heavy guns of Admiral Strongbow's battleships, opened fire at the stroke of midnight. The naval guns, unable to be accurately directed due to their position down in the harbour, nevertheless had the range to strike at Kirin positions on the flanks of Fort V, to try and prevent any movement of troops from Fort U or Fort W if the Kirin attempted to cut the corridor from the side. The guns of the forts themselves, with spotters in their observation cupolas, were able to direct their fire on top of Fort V, to scatter and pin down the Kirin troops who swarmed all over it. Under this protective barrage, the Equestrian troops hurried forward, linking up with the garrison. The evacuation began immediately.

In the infirmary, Greenwood had been resting on bedsheets stained with the blood of some other poor unfortunate. All around him for the past two days, ponies he had been in command of had been dying, choking on the melting remains of their own lungs, fluid filling their airways as the phosgene gas took its deadly, delayed revenge on those who thought they had escaped its clutches. By quirk of fate, Greenwood had avoided developing any edema in his lungs; for whatever reason, be it receiving a smaller dose, his scarf being more effective protection than whatever the others had used, or divine protection from Celestia, he had pulled through the worst of it, though his eyes, lungs and throat still ached. Any danger of being exposed to more phosgene was to be avoided at all costs, for that would make things worse and likely lead to the same kind of agonizing death as some of those around him had suffered.

When the evacuation order came, Greenwood was among the first to be taken out by stretcher. true to his word, Captain Charade had persuaded Major Raincloud to permit the sailors to be evacuated too, wounded or otherwise. After all, he argued, they had lost the use of the naval guns which they had been brought over to use. They hadn't been sent to fight this kind of fight.

Once the wounded were away, Raincloud and Charade met in their command room, deep in the fort. They quietly agreed. Both officers would stay. Charade saluted Raincloud, and she waved it away, shaking his hand instead. Together with sixty volunteers, they remained in the fort to try and hold it. None of the sixty-two ponies would ever see their homes again.