Pony Tankers

Turnip woke with the smell of copper and cordite in her nose. She was staring up at a few wisps of cloud in a bright blue sky, wondering what was crusted to the side of her head and why her chest felt so heavy. Wondering what she was doing lying on her side in the dirt. Her head was pounding behind her eyes, and her mouth felt too dry.

She tried to rise, and found the weight was more than just metaphorical; she was lying under the body of another Equestrian soldier. His glassy eyes stared at the sky, as hers had, and as she watched, a fly buzzed around and landed on one eyeball.

“Get offa me,” she muttered, struggling to wiggle out from under the weight of the stiff corpse. Her body felt robbed of all strength, like she had been marching all day and night with no food or water. Then she heard voices speak in an undeniably foreign accent, and she stopped struggling and tried to figure out what was going on.

Craning her head, she was able to look down the trench. Two crystal ponies in tan infantry uniforms, one rose-colored and the other an aquamarine grey, were picking through the pockets of the dead. As she watched, the rose one pulled out a gold-plated cigarette case from a soldier’s pocket, opened it, sniffed the contents, then shrugged and put it in her pocket. The other admonished her for looting for personal gain, but good-naturedly.

Hearing their conversation made Turnip realize that she could hear again, or at least, hear things well enough to understand these two in their conversational tones.

How long had she been out? She glanced at the sun’s position in the sky and saw that it looked past noon. What would they do if they found her alive? Would they check? Maybe it would be best to surrender now?

Turnip hadn’t heard good things about Empire prison camps. She decided to play dead. Better for her pa to get the letter that she had died in battle than find out she was going to linger for a few years yet before dying of disease in a drafty unheated shack in the frozen north.

She closed her eyes and slackened her jaw and tried to look for all the world like she was still unconscious.

The crystal ponies on looting detail worked their way up the trench with agonizing slowness until they eventually got to her. They rifled through the pockets of the body on top of her, and then it was heaved off her suddenly. Moment of truth; Turnip tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, so that her moving flanks wouldn’t give her away.

Keeping up their banter, one of them turned out all her pockets, coming away with her tobacco, her wallet, her ration opener, and a few other odds and ends she kept. She was rolled over, and she did her best impression of a stiff corpse, and hoped they didn’t notice anything amiss as they stripped her of her bandolier and midsection belt, probably for the buckle. And then they moved on to the next body. She kept still and controlled her breathing long after their voices had faded away into the distance.

Well, now that the looting detail had come through, what came next? Well, probably at some point soon, whatever was left would be scraped into a mass grave…

Turnip didn’t want to be around for that. Taking a risk, she opened her eyes and raised her head to look around again. The coast was clear, at least as far as the trench went. And now that the body had been removed…

She stood up, shakily, and fought the pain that shot through her head as her helmet shifted. Reaching up, she undid the straps that held it painfully against her neck and tipped it to the ground.

The helmet had a deep dent where the mild steel had caved, but not broken. It was longer than a bullet-width dent had a right to be, and she rubbed at her tender throat where the chinstrap had cut against it. If the helmet hadn’t had the “give” on her small head to move back as it had when hit, and if the steel had been harder and more brittle… thank Celestia for wartime corner-cutting, Turnip supposed.

It had probably left a whopper of a bruise, though, and maybe worse. She cast around for a weapon. All the Equestrian rifles were already gone, collected, probably, and they had taken her belt knife along with her belt. An entrenching shovel with a crushed dent in one side of the blade about the size of a pony’s helmet lay discarded a short distance away, and she scooped it up in her mouth. Not everything was fit to be collected, she supposed.

Cautiously, she popped her head over the trench. The two ponies who had taken her things were sitting next to a cart on the neighboring hill, and several other groups of Crystal ponies moved in the vicinity as well. How was she going to get away from a place they had specifically dug so that nopony could approach or leave without being seen?

She looked back. The crown of the hill blocked her view of the state of the headquarters, but it was either destroyed or occupied by the enemy or both. To either side were more quickly-dug trenches crawling with crystal ponies. That left only the direction the enemy came from, the forest across the open ground. She tried to think of a plan to help her escape, but thinking was hard. Harder than usual.

Oh, well, gunned down on a battlefield was the same either way as far as the official report was concerned, no matter if it happened during or after the fighting. She checked to see if anypony was looking her direction, then clambered out of the trench and started running for the trees.

She heard a distant shout that was followed by a rifle shot that didn’t even come close to hitting her. The next shot, however, cracked over her back with a deadly hum and took a branch off a bush in front of her. She hunched lower and tried to duck and weave as well as she could, bullets striking around her. Thankfully, none of them had a machinegun, or she’d be a goner for sure.

Reaching the treeline, she dashed behind the first trunk big enough to give her some protection. Several bullets hit the tree or hummed to either side, and one hit the edge of the trunk next to her head and sprayed her face in tiny splinters. Fortunately, it was next to the bandaged side of her face, and the dirty linen absorbed most of the little stings.

Ponies were running closer, firing as they went. Firing on the move was never accurate for a pony, but it served to send lead in her direction and keep her pinned down. Her legs were shaking with the effort of running this far, but Turnip knew if she stayed where she was they would close in and capture her in no time.

She wanted to get mad, feel something – that usually helped her when she needed a boost. But for some reason, she just couldn’t. The only thing she could be was afraid, afraid her legs would give out, afraid she would die without seeing her pa or her brothers again. She mustered what little strength she had and dashed out from behind the tree and ran deeper into the forest.

She ran as fast as she could, but still her pursuers were gaining. She risked a peek backwards and saw that most had broken off, but a few adamant souls were still hot on her heels. She tried dodging under a fallen tree, and they vaulted over; slipping through gaps between saplings, and they went around. Without her midsection belt, her uniform jacket was free to flap around her, and for one terrifying moment it caught on a projecting broken branch before she tore it free and kept going.

The problem was, her legs were just too short, and she was tired. These ponies had probably been in the assault, but they were fresher, and they hadn’t been lying in the sun with no water for the better part of a day. But Turnip wasn’t about to give up. She still had her hooves, and she had the shovel, and before her legs gave out she determined to stand and fight.

The last battle of Turnip Sprout, who gave better than she got. Too bad no one was around to write that on her headstone.

“Hey, over here!” shouted a voice ahead of her, in a decidedly familiar accent. An Equestrian-sounding one.

She spotted him; a young soldier in a grey Equestrian uniform, rifle at his side and leveled. A living soldier? In these woods? It could be an empire trick, but Turnip didn’t care. She ran in his direction, ducking down as she saw him move to trigger his rifle.

The bullet caught the pony closest behind her full in the chest, and the crystal empire soldier crashed heavily to the covering of old fallen leaves. When the Equestrian had shot, Turnip scrambled to her hooves and tried to run farther, only for the next one behind her to bowl her over with sheer momentum.

They tumbled together a meter or two before fetching up against a tree, Turnip trying to jab her shovel under the other pony’s chin and the other pony trying to pin her forelegs to her sides. Turnip didn’t have the leverage she needed, and she settled for bashing her foe on the side of the face before releasing the shovel to bite something. Very close by, several rifle shots rang out.

She bit, but it was hard jawbone, and the other pony managed to shake her off and get Turnip flipped around, forelegs pinned. Turnip tried to headbutt her hard in the nose, but her assailant kept her head down and blocked it. Turnip thrashed uselessly in the larger pony’s grip.

Turned around, she had a view of what was going on, though: the Equestrian soldier was not alone, and he and his comrades were engaging the other three crystal empire soldiers in a very brief running close-range gun battle. As she watched, one of them buckled from a wound Turnip couldn’t see, and a grenade went off, sending deadly shards everywhere around it. One of them stung her in the foreleg, just above her right hoof, but she felt her attacker flinch. Served her right.

The last crystal soldier yelled, “kom on, lets get aut auf heer!” to his one surviving comrade and tried to disengage, using the trees as much as possible to stay out of the line of fire. He unclipped a crystal empire grenade from his webbing, a small oblong object the size of a lemon, and tossed it with a curious rearing-up motion. It flew over Turnip’s and her attacker’s heads and exploded somewhere on the other side of a large deciduous tree.

The Equestrian and his companions, minus one, pursued shortly thereafter, firing sporadically. Turnip’s attacker began backing up slowly. One of the soldiers, a grizzled stallion with a cleft chin and a thick moustache, noticed and leveled his rifle at Turnip. Or at least it seemed that way.

“Hold it there, rockhead. Let the filly go and we won’t have no problems.”

Okay, that made her at least a little bit angry, despite the ostensibly friendly rifle pointed her direction making her reconsider how much she wanted to die rather than be taken alive. If they took her, she could always escape later, right?

“Hey!” she yelled, while trying to kick the pony pinning her in the belly. It was no good; she didn’t have the space, the leverage, the length of leg, and, most of all, her legs were shaped the wrong way.

“Zhis is no filli, zhis is a solder, a kombatant!” her attacker shot back, trying to shuffle backwards on her hind legs alone while struggling to contain Turnip’s kicking and squirming body.

In answer, the Equestrian soldier made two brisk motions with an upraised forehoof. Turnip could feel her attacker move her head one way and then the other, and felt her body stiffen more as she realized what was happening. The lone crystal soldier was out of options.

“Veri uell, haff her,” she said, dropping Turnip and stepping back on all fours again. “Ai vill go in pease, just no harm.”

Turnip scrambled in the direction of her dropped shovel a short distance away. She had to end this crystal pony now, or the wretch would tell everything the second she got back, and the one that had got away was bad enough already. Her right forehoof felt slightly numb when she put weight on it.

“Of course,” the soldier said, and Turnip heard the rifle shot. She snatched up her shovel and spun around just in time to see the body hit the ground with a heavy thud.

She stopped dead in her tracks, looking around wildly for any new threats. None presented themselves immediately. It was just her, and three ponies wearing Equestrian uniforms and holding Equestrian weapons. They looked dirty and ragged, and the two stallions were unshaven, now that she saw them clearly. Turnip very much doubted they were real Equestrian soldiers; the officers she knew would never allow their ponies to get like this.

Their leader, who’s collar would claim to be a corporal, cycled the bolt on his rifle and looked at her, and then at the body of the crystal pony. Then he turned to the two who had been flanking her in the standoff.

“You, help Gutter with his leg. You, relieve the bodies of the guns and ammo.” Orders dispensed, he turned his attention back to Turnip.

She faced him, chest heaving, heart pounding, ready to run again if need be. New wetness trickled down her hoof and worked its way down the crusty dried blood on the side of her head. She was painfully aware that she would never get away from this lot if they chose to chase her down, too, and they might not have any obligation to treat her under the laws of war.

The so-called corporal spoke first. “Put the shovel down, li’l miss. It’s okay, we ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

Turnip tried some way of stowing the e-tool, remembered her belt was taken, and set it down close at hoof. As the rush of combat slowly faded, it was getting harder and harder to stay on her hooves.

“I’m an adult,” she said, through gritted teeth.

“I’m sure y’are. Come on, let’s get ya somewheres safe.” He slung his rifle to the side and advanced on her slowly, like one would a skittish animal.

Turnip stamped the ground angrily, sending a lance of fresh pain up her leg. Ow. “Turnip Sprout, enlisted cannoneer, 5th Equestrian Armored Battalion, D Company, 3rd Platoon, Tank Fifteen. Service number 998734.” Belatedly realizing she should have done this first, she fished down the neckline of her jacket and came up with an Equestrian military I.D. disc. “I’m a real Equestrian soldier, unlike you frauds!”

The stallion just looked at her for a long moment. Turnip’s sides shook. Maybe now was the time to make a run for it, while the others were occupied.

Then he guffawed loudly. He started laughing so hard he had to bend to stay on his hooves. Wiping a tear from his eye, he said, “Frauds! Frauds, she says!”

“It ain’t no laughin’ matter,” Turnip said sourly.

“Frauds! Missy, I tell ya the truth, I thought you was the fraud here!” he laughed, straightening up. “I didn’t know as they made soldiers that small! How’d ya do it, lie about yer age?”

“I’m twenty,” Turnip said, defensively. “Are ya soldiers or aren’t ya?”

Still chuckling a little, the corporal pulled out an identity disc long enough for Turnip to see that there was one, then stashed it away again.

“Proves nothing,” Turnip said stubbornly. “Coulda taken it off a body.”

“Have it yer way,” the corporal said with a shrug. Turnip’s blood ran cold. Buttons! She’d left without even trying to find him, and he had surely been in the same trench as she had been in! He could have survived, or, more likely, he was like that other stallion, lying somewhere with flies on his eyeballs, waiting for someone to push him in to a big hole in a nameless field…

The corporal continued, heedless of her inner turmoil. “We gotta get back to the unit and report this action, anyhow. You can come with us, if ya like. Get sum stitchin’ on yer leg, there, get ya fed an’ watered. Howaboutit?”

Turnip eyed him warily. Whether he was really an army scout or a partisan or just a bandit, if he was any good at his job she knew he wasn’t going to let her leave of her own accord, lest she give something away to somepony else. What was that about escaping anytime? Oh, yes. Besides, water didn’t sound too bad right about now.

“Fine,” she said, guardedly, “Jus’ let me get some things off this here body.”

The stallion gestured with his hoof grandly at the body that Turnip had so recently been wrestling with. “Be my guest.”

She limped over, throwing him a cautious glance, and took the corpse’s webbing and pocket items for herself. She had felt the profile of a pack of cigarettes against her back during their struggle, and she tried to find them, but the other scout must have taken them already. A shame; she could have used them to bargain for something if she ever made it back to a unit. Checking the belt knife, a Crystal Empire-issue bayonet, she slipped her damaged Equestrian e-tool through the belt and stood up.

She spat to one side. “Let’s go.”

“Right y’are.” The corporal flicked away the enemy cigarette he had been smoking while she had been busy and gestured to his companions. “Y’all wrapped up?”

“Pretty much. Waiting on you, sir,” answered the only mare of the four, tying off a fresh bandage that wrapped around the hindleg of the casualty of the encounter, a young russet-furred stallion.

The third stallion of the party was laden-down with four enemy rifles along with his own, and his pockets bulged with clips of rifle ammunition and other bits and bobs.

“Can I git one o’ those?” Turnip asked, pointing at him.

The corporal shook his head. “Not ‘till we know where you stand, ya can’t. Jest hold yer… well.”

The mare made a placating gesture at her. “Oh, don’t worry. The commander’l find something for you to do. Us nurses could always do with some more little helpers.”

Turnip scowled at her.

The group walked away from the scene of the brief skirmish, and Turnip limped along with them.