The Birth of a Flash

“Lieutenant, I do not care how many there are. Your platoon will hold this damned corridor until you are ordered to withdraw, and not a moment shorter.”

“Sir, there’s not going to be a corridor left to hold in the next five minutes unless Luna herself is about to obliterate these damned-”

Steel Gear leaned forward, placing one hoof on the table, and slammed the radio into the ground. The salty air of Baltimare was tinged with the smell of burnt flesh this morning, a new addition to the unrelenting smell of gunpowder and death that permeated the city for the past few weeks. Yet it was eerily silent this morning.

The Heer struck at the defenders with unrelenting fury, and have been at it for weeks now. Artillery had slowly and steadily ruined the once magnificent city, caving in roofs and poking holes into the walls, crushing the last bastion of organised resistance in the entirety of Equestria. If the piecemeal reports from the perimeter were anything to go by, that was just the prelude - the Changelings had merely been waiting for the Jagers to catch up, unwilling to risk pushing into the city on their own again. Steel Gear considered that a point of personal pride. They tried three weeks ago, and the casualties the remnants of the Royal Equestrian Guard had inflicted upon them were apparently sufficient for them to back off for the time being. His own troops had paid for the ground in blood, of course, but things went down exactly as Marhall Blueblood had predicted.

Even the colts and fillies fought when their backs were against the doors of the evacuation ships. It was a bloodbath, yes, but the city held on just those few days longer - the evacuation managed to save those remaining in the city since then. Nobody but the volunteers was left. A victory. Probably the last one they would see for years.

Steel Gear knew they would lose, that much was obvious since the fall of Canterlot - but he still had a duty to perform. He still had changelings to kill. His troops were made up of few battered, starving and poorly equipped veterans, disparate remnants of two dozen divisions, and a citizen militia of tribals pressed into service sometime in the past six months. Altogether about eleven thousand soldiers, barely a division. Their backs were against the shoreline, and they were just barely holding open a corridor along the road east.

But SMILE - or whatever was left of it - had made a promise, and the Princesses themselves believed would be fulfilled. Steel Gears didn’t care if the plan had the same chances as a snowball during Winter Wrap-up; If it was good enough for Luna and Blueblood, it was good enough for him. The civilians were out, the ERNS Sisterhood still held its position just outside Queen Ember’s waters, and the three remaining transports in the docks were waiting on whoever would survive.

They didn’t have the capacity to fit a division. Steel Gear suspected it wouldn’t matter.

He laid his eyes on the empty docks, on the two dozen sailors who sat there on the dock, surrounding the only vessel that actually mattered. The submarine’s hatch waited, wide open, ready to receive the single most important piece of cargo a ship could carry. The wait was making the sailors anxious - the telltale tapping of hooves and pacing only furthering his own anxiety. But they were still there, the plan was still in motion. Hope lived on.
Major Steel Gear of the Royal Equestrian Army, recipient of the Sisterhood Medal, the Order of the Steel Stallion, Distinguished Service Cross and the Olenian White Star, commander of the Hundreth Provisional Rifle Division and the highest ranking officer still remaining on Equestrian soil straightened his back, held his head high and picked the radio back up. His eyes never left the pacing sailors as he lied to his troops one more time.

“There are civilians in the corridor, Lieutenant. Hold. Your. Position.”