Cheap Company

The flamethrower’s gout of jellied fuel came out like the belch of a pissed off young drake. The bark of gunfire was foreign to the ponies at first, but they became accustomed to it at first sight of what it did to the bloomers. Their rifles, based on the contemporary rotary “dump feeding” magazine, feeding a powerful compressed black powder charged, walloped harder than any Diamond Dog firepowder musket could even approach. The carbines, loaded with hollow pointed rifle bullets, kicked into shoulders. The copper-jacketed bullets snapped through the air at supersonic speeds, bit into woody, dried out flesh and expanded, rending holes into the bloomers’ bodies. They dropped like sacks, and the noise alone seemed to repel them at first. Smoke began to belch out of the tunnel as her five-man squad began to backpedal, Nat’s flamer belching out continuous gouts as they led a collapsing retreat. Ponies above screamed as the onyx-black bloomers began pouring through the tunnel, cast alight and screaming as they burned.

“Driftwood horses, fuck off and die!” Nat roared. Kalin Rylee’s automatic pistol snapped off repetitive shots, the toggle lock snapping up with each recoiling of the action, causing the hit bloomers to stagger or drop dead as the rounds impacted. The refugees scattered once the armored ponies made it up to the upper floors and their unicorns flung firebolts into their flammable homes. A few more bloomers came bursting out of a few. They were peppered liberally with buckshot before the group moved on, up the next bridge and burning the ones behind them. The smoke became choking as it rose to the ceiling and clouded the solid roof.

Faris was unharmed, but still all too eager to get the hell out. Her gas mask was rated for this sort of work but it ran hell on the filters. If they ran dry, she was cooked, figuratively and literally. Her troopers had the same problem, and were all too eager to push forward and keep any wayward attacking bloomers or refugees on the ground and full of holes.

Faris’ revolver barked repeatedly, four times in quick succession. A wrapped pony dropped as she trundled past its body and pushed toward the soup kitchen. It was abandoned, save for the bled corpse of ‘Windy Slope.’ Faris kicked the basement door in. A bloomer fell back. It had been fiddling with the knob using talons. It had some bird-like features in addition to its pony ones.

No longer. Her revolver barked and its brains splattered across the concrete. The twenty or so armored ponies still following darted past her, with the field surgeon at their front and the junior officer at their rear. Faris’ team trailed in behind, Nat holding up the rear with the frequent clicking of her flamer as it coated the soup kitchen in burning fuel. She shoulder-checked the door shut once Faris called out that everyone was present.

The door was slammed against repeatedly, but an extra gout of flame would mean it would open into yet another inferno. Fucking woody bastards, Faris inwardly swore. She began kicking empty shells from her revolver into a palm. She was closing the gate on her revolver when they pushed out into the first floor of the bank. The field surgeon looked to Faris uncertainly. “They’re more active at night, you know. They’ll be drawn by all the noise. Creepy damn things will be stalking us as we move on the open streets. Our numbers should help keep them away, they tend to go for lone targets, pick them off and get them infected or dead.”

Faris found truer words never spoken. The open city was hell to traverse at night, even with their Sanitar-issue handcrank torches and rudimentary chemlights. They managed, but not without a few more of the armored ponies getting lost in the dark. Faris wagered a fifty percent casualty rate at minimum for them, including just trying to get their way up the damn causeway and out into the burnt-out building above it. All the same, she was in some ways grateful for it; less of the pastel freaks meant less leverage the field surgeon had over them in bodies. She crunched the numbers as they walked. They could manage this. Prisoners meant intel and intel earned good marks. And without casualties? Kvetoslava would be bloody relieved.

They found more corpses across the street where Faris ordered the machine gun to emplace. She threw out a chemlight, called out the code-phrase. A positive response came, and Faris rounded the corner. “Guests!” she said to the gunner and his loader. Certainly, there were fewer fitting words in the dictionary to describe the pastel ponies than guests. Prisoner will be a good fit for ‘em, Faris wagered.

“You’re coming back with us,” Faris said to the field surgeon. They made no argument against it. The junior officer did, of course, but there was a quick argument between them ending in a strike to the junior’s jaw and a snapped order which had the rest of the ponies filing past the machine gun toward the wharf where the pulley lift was working its magic, and a team was running supplies across the river.

Field Surgeon knew she misstepped somewhere between the refugee camp and the wharf. They were running on little sleep and too many lost faces burned into the mind. She rubbed her face as she sat beside the rest of her comrades. They weren’t stripped of weapons, but she didn’t wager it would matter much either way. Their muskets fired quickly, quicker than any Diamond Dog firepower. Her head rang from the noise. So much volume packed into a nine by fifty or so millimeter brass tube, so much hate packed into the thirtyish millimeter projectile.

“Guess we have something to talk about,” Ruby’s voice called out as she slumped onto her haunches across from Field. The veteran’s face melded into guilt. The slug across the mare’s jaw was unnecessary, and her hoof throbbed from it. Not deserved. Should apologise.

“I suppose we do.” Field Surgeon failed to meet her eyes at first but steeled her heart. You’re a big filly. You’ve seen far worse than this without flinching. “I’m sorry for hitting you. You didn’t really deserve that; it was out of line and uncalled for.” Ruby seemed unmoved.

“That’s hardly what I meant, but it’s a good start as any.” She rubbed her swollen jaw and glared at the older mare. “I haven’t given an order these past few nights without you having to parrot it before it’s listened to. It doesn’t much seem like I’m the officer of this platoon, it feels like I’m the observer.” Field Surgeon examined her features. She read frustration easily, but struggled to make out what was buried underneath. Guilt? Some sense of disappointment? Her eyes throbbed. She blinked and shook her head.

“Yeah. I suppose it’s been like that. I served with a lot of these mares and stallions, they respect me and my orders… clearly aren’t used to being back in the service, either.” She gave a half-hearted smirk that wasn’t reciprocated. It was dropped. “More than anything, I don’t think any of us are at our best. I know—it’s an excuse, but it’s the best answer I have for you right now. If it’s any consolation, I’ve not done anything to go against you intentionally—” Ruby scoffed.

“I don’t care if you haven’t done anything to go against my orders. You’ve barely even acknowledged my authority, but that’s only small change in the grand scheme of my worries, here.” Field’s face scrunched up with bemusement. She looked up and met Ruby’s stern look. They were the eyes of a naïve filly as much as Field’s were. She flinched a little under the ocular assault. “We left those ponies to die. We let these… creatures kill them, we let them shoot one and get away with it. What in the name of Tartarus were you thinking, Field?!” She was standing, pointed at Field like a ready pike. Field’s ears flattened against her head, and she soon met the stance, standing straight-backed on all fours.

“What were you thinking, Junior Lieutenant Ruby Beacon?” Her snarl made Ruby flinch in return. A trade of verbal blows. Field pushed the assault, stepping closer. Ruby stepped back. “We are here to burn out colonies of lepers. We are not here to administer hospice to the homeless. They died when the local garrison blew the bridges, ma’am. Our job was to destroy, and we became so caught up in this mess that we’re already down most of our ponies and in the hands of a group of apes as fucking PRISONERS. Do you really think that now is the time to keep balking at my moral compass, Ruby Beacon? Hm?” The junior officer’s bite was a limp gumming in comparison. She had no bite-back, only allowing herself to slump on her haunches. Field Surgeon took a few deep breaths, then huffed them out angrily. She stepped back and slumped down herself. There wasn’t enough energy to stay angry. “I don’t know what you think you signed up for, Ruby, but I did. This was a suicide mission that was expected to succeed at our expense to save the lives of Celestia knows anymore. Ten ponies? A hundred? A few thousand? I don’t know what in the name of Tartarus they were thinking that we could stop this by burning a city that’s already been lost.” She laid forward on her stomach, head lying on folded hooves. The exhaustion on her features made her look a decade older. Emotions swirled in her head as their bipedal pseudo-captors shuffled about, chit-chatting and doing maintenance on their weapons. Tomorrow’s a new day, Field told herself. Tomorrow’s a new day. Chance to start again and have a better day than today. Then she closed her eyes for a nap.