Author's Note

This one's a bit short, but don't worry! The weekly update schedule is back on now that I have more free time.

As always, feel free to give me feedback or criticism.

Chapter 7/GLA: A Nice Gentle Walk

We are the vanguard, the unwavering voice of the oppressed, for we believe in a future where justice and freedom prevail, no matter the odds. Never retreating, never fleeing, fighting till all hope is lost for freedom.

???. August 7th, 2045. ???

"Time, Private?"

The Private grimaced as he fumbled for a watch from his Russian uniform pocket, covered in flakes of ice and snow. "Nearly... 4:58 AM."

???. August 7th, 2045. 4:58 AM

"Right, then, enough resting. "

The group of 23 soldiers was huddled in a line below a snowdrift, dangerously close to the ledge of a snow-coated cliff. Captain Linton squinted at the sky, making out the early light of dawn. From the distance, they could hear occasional shouting and arguing between the creatures chasing them.

"Yaks will find you!"

"Yes, Ender will be the first! Ender is best!"

"No, Horlando is best. Horlando will find invaders."

"Ender is yak. Ender is best."

"Horlando is also yak!"

"Oh. Yaks are best!"

"Yaks best!"

The arguing broke down into various cries affirming that yaks were, indeed, the best. The Captain tried to ignore the shouting, and shuffled closer to Sergeant Ahmed Woods. He was incredibly grateful for their winter gear.

"Gather round, men. We can't stay here forever. Those... yaks... will locate us eventually. We've got to make a break for it. Hopefully we can make our way to the town we spotted from the plane before we had to land and ditch it."

"That's the issue. They'll outrun us- and this time we don't have a chemical bomb to distract them," contributed Pilot Pavlov, who was slotted between two GLA soldiers watching him carefully, rifles ready.

"Pilot, keep your mouth shut, or we'll finish what the Sergeant should have completed on the plane."

"I'm just stating the obvious, terrorist." Pavlov stood up suddenly. "I'm going to talk to them. If they're sentient, surely I ca-"

He was pulled down by one of the GLA soldiers, a Corporal. "You do that, and they'll find all of us. Sit down and listen to the Captain, Ivan."

With a protesting hmph, Pavlov sat back down again and stared pointedly at Captain Linton. He, in turn, stared at the sky, twirling a coin in his fingers as he considered the situation. What the Pilot had said interested him. While they didn't have any chemical bombs, they still had half a dozen packs of conventional ones.

Perhaps they could set one of the bombs off and make a run for it while the yaks investigated? No, he thought, glancing back at the unstable snow drift behind him. We can't risk an avalanche, especially so close to the cliff. It could knock someone- or all of us- down with it.

The entire group was looking at the Captain expectantly, waiting for some genius solution. What he came up with pained him, but it was the only way they could get out with little-to-no risk.

"I need a volunteer," he stated loudly. About half the soldiers raised one of their hands.

"For a suicide mission."

Every hand went down except one, the middle-aged soldier sitting closest to the Captain. He tried to put his down too when he realised no one else was volunteering, but it was too late. Captain Linton grabbed his arm, smiling forcibly.

"Thank you for your service, Private Arshad Waqas. You will be armed with an assault rifle, a pocket bomb, and a detonator. Keep whatever else you have on you in case you survive."

"Yes- yes, sir!"

"Good man. Listen closely, here's the plan. Private Arshad will charge northeastwards, catching the attention of the yaks. Meanwhile, the rest of us run west, down the mountain." He pointed to a distant glimmer of light from halfway down a relatively close peak. "That should be the town we saw from the air. Follow my lead, and watch the Sergeants- they know how to traverse mountains.

"What about the hostage, brother?" asked Sergeant Ahmed Woods, the third-in-command of their group.

"There is no need to watch Pilot Pavlov after the first few minutes. Where would he go? He can either stay with us or perish in the cold."

"I see."

"Any further questions?"

Receiving only silence, Captain Linton nodded to Private Arshad. He darted off above the snowdrift, into the snowstorm that was just beginning to form.

Barely a minute later, a burst of gunfire rang out from the distance. Their signal to run.

As the large squad hastily stumbled and skidded down the steep hillside, the now panicked- or excited- yak shouting faded away, and the snowstorm closed in on them until they were being with wet snow from all sides.

Within half an hour, Captain Linton was unable to see the light of the town because of the snowstorm, and had to rely on his compass and general sense of direction. The slowly increasing sunlight was of no help to them. On the bright side, it seemed they had completely lost the strange yaks.

Noticing the soldiers beginning to slow down, the Captain called for a rest.

The group ate their rations in silence, Pilot Pavlov turning down offers of food. However, he eventually caved in and helped himself to a packet of cashews. They finished, and continued the trek.

The ground under their feet began to level off as the snowstorm lessened in intensity. Captain Linton noticed the snow beneath them was firmer, their feet not sinking as much, and bent down to wipe some of it aside, revealing cobbled stone laid down on the ground.

"I think we're walking on some sort of crude stone road," he shouted aloud so those who were lagging behind could hear. The squad clustered around him, with the rookies being visibly relieved to have found some sort of civilisation.

Sergeant Woods commented, "We've probably reached the valley between the two mountain peaks."

"It seems so. We'll try to stay on the road going-"

"Hey!" shouted one of the rookies, some distance away. "Has anyone seen Private Roderigo?"

Most of the soldiers gave various mumbles indicating that they had not. Captain Linton looked around worriedly, not seeing the young, Spanish Private.

"I remember eating with him the last time we stopped to rest," commented another rookie.

"That was nearly two hours ago. Does anyone remember seeing him since then?" Linton stood up and beckoned the group to gather closer, mentally checking that everyone else was still with them.

"No, sir. He was there when we left our camp though."

"He must have gotten lost in the snowstorm then. Leave him; if he is not dead, he will be able to see the village when the snowstorm clears. We will have to meet him there instead of following the road."

He carried on walking slowly along the road, stopping when he noticed only the two Sergeants were following him. The rest of the soldiers simply stared at Linton.

Low morale has finally caught up with us.

Captain Linton pumped his fist into the air and shouted, "Why do we fight?"

One of the soldiers replied reluctantly, "For freedom and justice!"

"And why did you join the GLA?"

"Because the GLA will fights for freedom and justice!" replied another soldier, more enthusiastically.

"And so, who do we fight for?"

"FOR THE GLA!" cried the entire gathering, except for Pavlov, each soldier waving their rifles in the air.

The fanatics are so easy to get riled up. No wonder the GLA almost took Europe once.

"Onwards! For the GLA and for humanity!" he marched ahead, down the road, and sighed in relief quietly when he heard the rebels following.

With the firm road now under their feet, the squad made good progress trudging through the ankle-deep snow, but Linton was still entirely unsure where they were going. As the hours dragged on, and the snowstorm faded to light flurry, he could make out a black line running along a hill in the distance. To the right and left were towering mountains, enclosing them in a U-shaped valley.

With the daytime, the light from the village had disappeared from view. Captain Linton hoped this was because of daylight rather than them being off-track.

As the tension and worry of the situation wore off, most of the rebels began chatting as they walked; their topics ranged from serious to casual banter. Linton was able to overhear most of it, partly because of the absolute silence permeating through the snowy landscape.

His two Sergeants were discussing their possible location in hushed tones:

"We cannot have gone from the Antarctic to a grassland so quickly. And there are certainly no mountains like this there. Or yak-creatures."

"What were the Russians looking for, though? Maybe it's some sort of, like, grassy oasis or something with aliens," replied Sergeant Ali in his usual laid back, disinterested tone.

"I am sure the Pilot knows," Woods glanced back at Pavlov, who was trudging along silently, staring straight ahead.

Pilot Pavlov had been the only non-GLA member on the plane to survive the flight, since they had lost control and had to bail before they had disposed of him. Captain Linton had considered several times over the previous day, while they were running from the yaks, whether to get rid of the Pilot. He had eventually decided to keep Pavlov around in case they came across the Russians.

"If they told Pavlov, why didn't they tell Linton anything?"

"I think... Russian command was not certain themselves what they were looking for. Then there was the strange white flash..."

"Whatever then. How's our, like, supplies looking?"

Captain Linton turned his attention to a conversation between a trio of rookies as his Sergeants switched to a more mundane topic.

"...our deaths," whispered a Private, trying in vain to stay silent. There was a soft thud. "Ow.."

"Don't talk like that, rookie. The Captain knows what he's doing- he may seem eccentric or strange but he's not one to throw lives away."

"Tell that to Arshad. And anyways, you've only been deployed with him once," commented a third voice who Linton recognised as their sniper.

"For half a year in southern Poland. You two are lucky to have joined us right before the Russians invaded. All you had to do was fight some half-dead Americans and put on a Russian uniform."

"My brother was in the other team," said the rookie suddenly.

The other team. It had been comprised of fifteen rebels and ten mercenaries, ready to hijack the Russian plane full of food and other supplies. The cargo plane had been shot down and presumably destroyed by American forces before the Flash.

Linton glanced back to see the sniper awkwardly patting the rookie on the back. The veteran Private, Aleksandar just sighed.

"That's war for you. They all knew what they signed up for."

"For freedom and justice?"

No one replied, as a quiet rumbling sound from afar began to louden. Captain Linton rushed up the nearest snow hill to see a plume of white smoke steadily approaching from the distance.

Northeastern Crystal Empire. August 7th, 2045. 10:38 AM

A train rumbled along the half-frozen tracks, weaving between and climbing low, snow-ridden hills in a valley between two mountain ranges. There would have been a river running here if the temperature wasn't so low.

Communications Officer Talcite Volcano, a crystal pony, lay on the sofa-bench, staring idly out the window. Across from her, the two Intelligence and Medical officers sat casually on the bench in their tight compartment, chatting about the news from Canterlot. Talcite knew she should have been excited or afraid about the arrival of an entirely new, unknown species with advanced technology to Equus, but really she felt entirely indifferent.

There was a knock on the door, which the Intelligence Officer- a pink-furred unicorn mare- got up to slide open. She spoke briefly to someone before calling back to the two other passengers, "Med, Comms, you guys want anything from the snacks cart?"

The Medical Officer perked up, his eyes hopeful. "Is Command paying?"

"Nope, not an official expenditure."

"Aw, then I'll pass."

"What about you, Comms?"

Talcite rolled over lazily. In each Spec Ops mission, every member of the team was randomly picked. They used codenames when speaking to each other since they were forbidden from knowing each others' real names. The other half of the squad- Alpha, S-1, S-2, and Engine- was in the next compartment over.

"Didn't Command arrange us a dinner in the dining carriage?"

"That's in three hours. You really want to wait that long? C'mon, buy a hayburger or something."

"Fine then. Get one for Med too, Intel."

As Med happily dug into the hayburger, Talcite sat up and carried on looking out the window at the impressive line of mountains, idly taking a bite of her burger. She caught Intel's eyes in the reflection. Intel smiled back awkwardly.

"So... Comms, you're not much of a speaker, eh? Isn't that your whole job?"

"My job is to get information across as efficiently as possible. I do my job."

"Oh, um... that's great!"

Awkward silence fell again for a few moments before Talcite tried to start up the conversation again.

"So, how many missions have you been on so far? I've finished three and it's a total breeze. The only time I actually had to heal someone was when-"

Talcite glanced out of the window for a moment, then whipped her head around again. She thought for a second that she had seen a white blur darting across the snow towards the train, but there was nothing there now. It had been too big to be a smaller animal like a snow hare, and the desolate North of the Crystal Empire was largely uninhabited anyways.

"Comms? You alright?" Med was staring at her concernedly.

"Oh, yeah. Just thought I saw something."

Med's expression became more serious. "Do you need to inform Alpha?"

"No, it was nothing."

She settled back and closed her eyes, having given her hayburger to Intel, and tried to put the incident out of her mind. After all, she didn't want to call a false alarm on her very first mission.

Not yet...

Private Arshad lay on a hill overlooking a small village, full of yak-like creatures going about their daily business. It was eerily similar to his own village-

Don't think about it.

He clutched a remote with a large, red button on the top firmly in his hands, watching as the yak search party looking for him approached the village.

Not yet...

They trotted down the main village path amidst a crowd of curious villa- yaks. Another yak approached them slowly, covered in various beads and colourful clothing. Arshad guessed that he was important to the yaks.

The search party and the yak elder met in the very middle of the village. Arshad smirked, and pressed his thumb into the red button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again, and still nothing. "What the hell?" he whispered to himself, picking up his rifle and aiming at the yak elder.

"Yak find you."

Arshad rolled around quickly in horror, raising the rifle, but was stopped by a heavy hoof smashing into his forehead.