The city of Canterlot loomed through the Northmost window of Commander Rusty Lance’s office, painting its silhouette across his floor in the moonlight. His faded gray features were made blued by the light of the moon overhead and emphasized in an orange-gold glow by the flaring cherry of the cigar hanging off his muzzle. His eyes lazily drifted over a letter on his desk as he chewed on his cigar, making little noises of annoyance—a grunt or chuff out his nostrils—or occasionally amusement—a grunt or chuff out his nostrils—or every so often, he would grin a little and make an amused sound, usually a grunt or chuff out his nostrils. He glanced at the framed photograph on his desk and frowned. It was the last he’d taken with his wife, nearly two years ago. He looked young for his age in it. Now, though? Now? He groaned and sagged a bit. Barely pushing fifty and my mane’s turned almost all gray. Bloody fur used to be blue, now it looks almost white. A hoof came up and ran across his face, deftly avoiding the burning cigar.

He glared hatefully at the massive inbox of paperwork on his desk. It was the kind of affair that normally required him to hoof-sign, but as the crisis bore on and ink became scarce to get abroad, he moved to a more impersonal method, stamping with red, green or blue. A knock at his door distracted Rusty from the musings at hoof, and he turned his head up to acknowledge it. “Enter.”

The guard who stepped in wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Flash Sentry was a good officer for the army, if inexperienced. “Sir,” the lieutenant began. “A letter has arrived from the Throne.” Rusty’s brow furrowed and he gestured with a hoof for Flash to come closer, prompting the guard to remove a wax tube from within the folds of his chainmail and present it.

The wax tube made a hissing pop sound as the seal broke and its scroll was removed. “It’s from Princess Celestia herself,” Rusty murmured as he unrolled the letter from bottom to top. His eyes scanned across the fine quill hoofsign as his eyes widened noticeably. Flash Sentry shuffled in place anxiously. “It’s a summons to the castle.” Flash gawked.

“Permission to, um, speak freely, sir?” Rusty gave a nod and a ‘get on with it’ waving gesture with his hoof. “Why would you need to be summoned to the castle, sir? Especially when you’re needed here for inspections?” Rusty only gave a grunt as he pushed out of his chair. Flash Sentry had an image of the snobby, aristocratic Royal Guard officer—a fat old bastard with a barrel full of ribbons on an immaculate uniform. Rusty Lance’s uniform was frayed at the edges and crumpled from lack of care, and his chest was barren, save for his badge of rank and nobility. Rusty ran hooves down his uniform to straight out the creases.

“Operation Prescribed Burn. We dipped a lot into junior officers and our retired veterans to see it to completion.” Flash Sentry seemed to frown at this, so Rusty cleared his throat. “The Guard is tied up with Projects Slingshot and the Redheifer Plan. Taking away from those was deemed—“ Rusty coughed, and his face turned sour. “—costly. Too costly for the councils of nobility.” Flash Sentry’s ears drooped and his own expression began to taint at the knowledge. Rusty trotted over with a slow, long-legged gait and planted a hoof on the colt’s shoulder. A sympathetic pat was all he could muster. Flash didn’t much notice. His eyes flicked from Rusty to the desk, then to the dimming silhouette of the moon against the floor. Smoke clouds were rolling through. Another burn team, or something else? Flash couldn’t wager. Felt no need to, anyway.

“We don’t have anypony with your eye for inspection that can be trusted to handle the overhead like you, sir. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll—” Rusty held up a hoof.

“I know.”

“Well, damn it, sir you can’t leave—”

“I know.”

Flash Sentry swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “Well then sir, what are you going to do?” Base Commander Rusty Lance looked at the young officer with the age of a stallion who lived a thousand years before trotting over to his desk. He ran a cracked hoof along the wispy chin hairs that hung, well-trimmed and short from his muzzle. His eyes looked glassy in the dim light of the moonlight. The old stallion scooped up his forgotten stogey and took a pull on it, enveloping himself in the flavors of the tobacco.

“I’m going to do what I have to do, son.”

Subaltern Léandre Jacquet felt uneasy.

Uneasiness was a familiar emotion, once that comforted him like a sucking chest wound in times of great anxiety and stress. In spite of those situations, the adrenaline, the violence, the volume—Jacquet was calm. Combat was easy—you kill the enemy and you obey orders. Natural calm under stress in the trenches of foreign wars at home proved the deciding factor in his rise in position, nary some time ago. When he was promoted to Subaltern to fill the gaps left by the rung climbing in the wake of former captain, Hauptemann Yeruti Roman’s death, uneasiness rushed in to fill the gap where calmness once held like a dam. He was a squad leader by trade before this wretched place, and now, by his own arrogant hand and the hand of fate, Jacquet was leading a platoon of soldiers to their own deaths.

The thought weighed in his gut like a stone. He suppressed it by scanning the horizon. More trees, though beginning to thin. They were ahead of schedule by at least five minutes. Not good. Not bad either, but it meant there would be five minutes they would be stuck sitting with their asses hanging out in the open. Jacquet looked to his executive officer—she was a Fraint, skinned somewhere in the spectrum of roses and wine, and bearing turned-down goat horns alike to a demon’s own. Fähnriche 1st Class Tamanna Andrei was a good soldier. They shared a look behind their beaked gas masks. Hand gestures began to fly.

Where go next?

Hold. Off schedule. Five mikes.

Understood.

The wave of small metallic clinks and rubber creaking signaled the platoon had the order heard just fine. Good. Jacquet looked over his submachine pistol. The Millsaw, in his opinion, was as flagged onto its’ receiver with the words, a piece of shit. The Omelese PM9 was the better weapon, and he was all too disappointed the ‘Saws had to be broken out of storage once the ammo ran dry. He recalled the conversation with Harshal Ajam, Hauptegefreiter and company blacksmith with a frown. Till we’ve gotten settled in, I can’t reload the brass. Didn’t even recover most of it, anyway. 90 rounds to split between a company and ten guns. Jacquet ran the bolt on his Millsaw back until it clicked into the fire-ready open position.

… In order to accommodate for the design features such as the fire rate of the weapon, its crisp trigger and compact design, some decisions had to be made, starting with the usage of the notorious ‘open to go, closed to stop’ safety, wherein the bolt shall be locked shut in order to prevent it from firing. Given its’ open bolt design and standard chamberless carry practice…

A rustle in the bushes. Jacquet raised his bulky machine pistol.The mumbling came back to him first and set the hairs on the back of his neck to stand. It was the voice of a child—the equines spoke the language of a Craviist ally. It was a miracle that saved them from cleansing at the hand of 2nd Platoon’s favorite cook and flamethrower.

The word Mutter was whimpered raggedly by whatever was crawling around in the brush. Jacquet took a step back and tensed. The color began to drain from his face as the equine child crawled from out of the bush, dragging a red stain behind it. No need for the poor thing to suffer. He stepped back again to keep space from the infectious child and went to draw his knife. The animalistic snarl and the whites of eyes that met him when his eyes flicked up past the bloody drag marks on the ground. His submachine pistol was snapped up, and it earned its name with the first and only burst of fire.

Unterofficer Faris Quirke’s head snapped up at the buzzsaw’s brief screech and bright flash of muzzle flare. Her rifle came to bear. The safety went off and she turned to Nat, gesturing with a snappy pair of tightly married fingers to move. The distinctive clicking of the woman’s flamer trailed behind as Faris ran forward toward the flash. Léandre Jacquet came running toward her. His bellowed orders to fire fell on deaf ears as the disconcertingly jarred animal roar echoed across the forest. They proved unnecessary as the Manticore burst through the underbrush, looking feral and manic. Black nettles sprouted from gashes along its sides and its glassy eyes dribbled fluid down furrowed channels along its face. Faris’ rifle bucked in her arms as she squeezed on the trigger. Fire and smoke boomed out of her rifle and filled the air with plumes of smoke. The shot was followed quickly by the cacophony of twenty other rifles opening up.

Faris backpedaled until the glow of Nat’s flamethrower was visible on her right. She was planted like a statue in the ground, legs spread and wand brandished as its pilot light flashed bright and napalm drizzled from the bore. Her assistant flamer stood behind her, brandishing a revolver in one hand while the other fumbled to connect the reserve tanks along his body to Nat’s donut-like backpack.

The Manticore was like a bullet as it leapt through the smoke cloud without so much as a whimper of pain at the dozens of shot-wounds now covering its matted hide. Nat’s bearded face twisted to a wicked grin as the flamethrower bucked slightly in her fingers. Blue and orange flames like a pressurized stream of water came splashing across the manticore as Nat took three steps backward in tandem with the Manticore’s landing near directly in front of her. The beast’s glassy eyes seemed to come into brief focus as it lashed about and screeched as the wet fire licked across its body and clung like glue. Nat kept up the hate in long bursts as she continued to back up. The Manticore set its sights on her with a howl. One of its eyes detonated as it lunged, and threw it off as it sailed like a fireball through the air toward Nat. She dove to the right. It went left. Faris was sent flying back as the fireball made of muscle, melting fur and chitin smacked into her at vehicular speed. Her chemsuit was all that saved her from fiery death as the jellied flamer fuel failed to stick to the rubbery composite.

She hit the ground with a crunch as her ankle twisted unnaturally. Faris screamed as her world turned to pain. The light of the Manticore grew closer and the squad leader snatched her rifle from its sling. It looked intact, and with shaky arms she turned it on the burning tower of blooming fire and pulled the trigger.

Click. “Fuck!” Faris ran the bolt back. The Manticore reeled and swept its paw. She threw her gun up. It went flying alongside a long rake of her suit and skin. Faris screamed as she was tossed awkwardly by the momentum onto her side. Her sidearm was pinned under her. She twisted. The Manticore’s jaws were rapidly approaching by the time her fingers wrapped around the wooden grip of the Empire revolver.

The swarm of angry buckshot made first contact. The Manticore’s momentum was redirected and its flaming bulk slammed into the ground beside Faris instead of into her. She snapped her gaze to the source and found the towering bulk of a filitaur soldier rapidly sliding up next to her. He shoulder-checked right into the manticore and sent it skidding back several paces before turning on her and lunging. Faris yelped as his bear paw of a gloved fist snapped around the back of her webbing and ripped her up and over his shoulder. She wrenched her revolver free as the filitaur turned heel and ran. “I’m getting you out of here, boss!” he barked through his own rubber face mask. Faris’ revolver barked at the recovering minotaur in reply, but it proved fruitless as one of her soldiers ran up and slid a stick grenade down its open throat before leaping prone.

The Manticore’s head went one way, and its body flipped the other way, landing on the ground with a crackling thump. The jellied fuel was smothered under the weight of the corpse, and soon enough, the body was a smoldering heap. The filitaur put Faris down at the base of a nearby tree as her squad filtered in from the surrounding forest. She hissed at the pain in her leg. “That’s gonna be a week of light duty at best, shit…” Faris shook her head, looking with squeezing eyes up at the filitaur. “Thanks for the save.” The big man grunted and gave a curt nod. She offered her free hand. “Faris Quirke.” He shook it.

“Bitrus Sonja.” Faris gave him a grin behind her mask, realized it was all but entirely hidden, and snorted.

“Glad to have you on my side, Bitrus.” Nat came up to Faris, wand held over one shoulder. Concern etched itself across her eyes, but a dismissive wave from Faris saw the concern melt into the background. “What’s the situation, Nat?”

“Well, it looks like you’re our only casualty. Thank Ludovic for that, because I don’t know damn well what we’d do without you, Unt.” Nat offered the woman a hand. She took it, flinching as she was pulled up and onto her good leg. Nat looked at the chicken winged leg and smirked. “Doc Gwen’s gonna give you no end of shit for that one. Hey, at least you can say you got tossed by a…” she looked back at the burnt corpse barely two hundred feet away. “… Lion… Scorpion… bat? What started fucking in the forest to make that ugly bastard?”

“Manticore,” came the reply from an accented voice. Nat’s head snapped on a swivel to Subaltern Jacquet as he limped over. She stiffened at the sight of him, straightening her posture, but he quickly waved her off. “At ease—Merde, my back.” He turned to Faris. “Can you walk, Unterofficer?”

“Not unassisted, sir.” He bobbed his head in thought and acknowledgement in a few successive beats.

“Okay. Get your squad in order. We’re about on schedule now, so we’ll be moving into position on Hollow Shades.” Faris swore under her breath as the subaltern walked away. Bitrus cracked his knuckles.

“Fuck me running, this is going to be living Hell.”

Author's Note

Sorry for the day-late posting. My backlog is empty so this may become more common with time.

Yeah, so we're almost at Hollow Shades and I'm setting up some of the details regarding Canterlot.

Next chapter will be the finale for Act One! I'm excited. We'll be moving into territory where the characters can actually show their colors and we can have more meaningful interactions now that they'll have a proper place to lay down roots and relax. My biggest struggle writing these first twelve chapters has been mostly that--I'm inexperienced with character writing and I'm pretty rusty because I haven't been as inspired recently, but I intend to finish Cheap Company before 2026. We shall see what I manage. Hope you enjoy. Ciao Ciao.