Faris Quirke’s team made it back from the city with two casualties; one death and one wounding, due to a failure of the pulley-crane that their engineer had built. Obergefreite Thibaut Eulalie’s leg was crushed under a piece of heavy metal, and Gefreiter Armand Malvina had his neck crushed. He died instantly. Thibaut was quick to blame herself for it when she and Faris delivered the mission after-action report to Kvetoslava once they arrived back at the caravan with two carts full of materiel and twenty-five prisoners.

Kvetoslava was not expecting the prisoners. Grateful, of course, but not expecting it. The Oberleutnant’s executive stood beside him; Harshal Ajam, Fähnriche 1st Class, was a man that stood with Kvetoslava for the whole stint of his service. Narrow-faced, scrawny but with steel cables for muscles. Slava could think of few others he trusted as much as Harshal. The men stood beside one another on a small berm overlooking the dug-in convoy, a few infantrymen sitting behind them and sharing some smokes. Kvetoslava cleared his throat. “Any word from the prisoners?” Harshal sucked his teeth and jammed his hands into the pockets of his chemsuit.

“They’ve had little to say. Good old chirurgeon Gwendoline Mireille had some words about their biology, though. Says they’re all uninfected. Oh, and they’re old fogeys.” Slava scoffed. I could’ve told her that, with the way they’re all gray around the faces like that hound we kept at base. He gestured for Harshal to continue. “Right. The uh, one in charge, Ruby, I think its name was; it wanted to speak with you, sir. Face to face.” Slava nodded. Doable, he replied. They stepped away from the berm.

The ponies were all huddled together in a tent that was put up and had its walls rebuffed by using corrugated iron plates scrounged from Manehattan, burrowed into the dirt so they wouldn’t have any night-time visitors without ample response time. With two riflemen at the doors, Kvetoslava felt comfortable stepping in with only Harshal at his side and the former captain’s hand-cannon on his hip with a hand rested comfortably upon the ruby grip plates. There was enough room for them to comfortably sit about with personal space, something they seemed to take advantage of. The one that identified itself as a field surgeon, its ears perked up as soon as they stepped in. The junior officer, too. Kvetoslava had a prayer mat tucked under an arm; in a quick motion he laid it out and knelt upon it. Then, after getting a thumbs up from Harshal regarding the air quality, he popped his garish helmet and mask off. The ponies gawked at his stubbly face and long, gaunt features for reasons he suspected were separate from the looks he’d get from his fellows who reacted similarly on occasion. Never seen a person like us before, I wager, Slava deduced. The boys just think I’m ugly. These? They think we are ugly. Or at the very least, they’re unaccustomed to us.

The officer spoke, the field surgeon translated. “I am Junior Lieutenant Ruby Beacon, this is my second in command, Field Surgeon. We represent Her Majesty, Princess Celestia of the celestial throne and the Equestrian nation.”

“I am Kvetoslava Shalev, Oberleutnant of the 107th Khantaran Demons sanitar regiment of Craviisto Gradd. We represent the authority of the Office of the Premier of War of the Conciliary Republic and the General Secretary of the Craviist Altruist Party and the General Conciliary Committee.” It gets longer every fucking year… Slava fought the urge to vomit. The ponies seemed unhappy with the mouthful of titles too. Glad we agree on that, at least. He gave them a sympathetic smile. “Yeah. Mouthful.”

The conversation went casually from there. He produced a map they had acquired from the city, asked them to identify where they were. They did.

Northeastern Equestria. We should be going south, not north. The only thing north of here is the wastes and the crystal empire.

That begged the question. “What is the crystal empire?” The answer was drawn out and left Slava with more questions. Hours of more questions, more answers then even more questions would drag on until the sun fell from the sky and a moonless night spattered by dim stars dominated the horizon.

Slava gave Junior Lieutenant Ruby Beacon and Field Surgeon, esq. An assurance of safety and retreated to the tracked command vehicle in the center of their convoy, still laid out where it landed those few days ago.

Kvetoslava ran his finger along the rim of the artisanal whiskey glass. The bottle sat under the seat his ass was firmly planted on, in a compartment the late Hauptmann Yeruti Roman likely commissioned after he was promoted to captain of Cheap Company. Slava took the time to inventory its contents after the man’s death. A Craviist flag, two boxes of ammunition for the handcannon, four bottles of ten-year aged whiskey from the lost continent2 and a trapper keeper packed with illegal Ukrean cigars. His first act as de facto Hauptmann was to give the cigars away to his subalterns, to be distributed to squad leaders as rewards. The whiskey was the same, all for one bottle which was kept alongside two cigars for his own indulgence.

A knock at the door. Slava hollered a quick it’s unlocked before continuing his admiration of the artisanal glass. So much money wasted on such a frivolous thing. Wonder how much ammunition we could’ve bought with just one of these, or spare parts, or…

His attention was taken by Piritta Winter as she slumped onto the green leather-topped bench across from him, map table between them. “Got a final count for the resupply operation. With what we… repurposed from the, er, ponies’ city, we’ll be able to keep ourselves fortified wherever we put down roots.” Slava gave a bob of his head.

“Roots,” he parroted. “If we’re putting down roots, it needs to be in a defensible position and we need to figure out what the hell our plan is, first and foremost.” His eyes raised to look at Piritta, who matched the look with some concern and bemusement.

“Seems like something the other platoon leaders should be present for, sir. Planning, that is.” Slava’s lips pursed and he shook his head. He produced the bottle of whiskey from beneath his seat. He pinched a pair of glasses between his fingers and placed them on the table. He gestured to the bottle. Piritta gave a haphazard shrug and took it in hand. She popped the cork, gave the swill a good smell, dipped a pinkie into the bottle and licked it as it came out3. Glasses were poured, then the bottle recorked. Slava sucked his teeth before giving the whiskey a taste.

“Maybe it should be something all the other platoon leaders should be present for. All the same, it’s just us.” Slava’s facial features twisted at the bitter alcoholic taste in his mouth. You get used to it, his father told him. Lying bastard. Slava cursed the man as he rubbed his stubbly face. “Based on what the ponies’ maps suggested, I think it’ll be best for us to follow the coastal roads. Avoid any patrols and—” Piritta held up two fingers. Slava paused and pointed his chin at her. Go. She questioned the wisdom of keeping prisoners with their supply situation being what it was. Kvetoslava snorted derisively. “Hardly wise to do from a logistical standpoint, no. From a strategic one? The ponies are a wild card. It’s their world we’ve stepped into, and the first thing we’ve done was take prisoners. I think it’ll be a smart bet to keep them close until we’ve set up some kind of defensible position, then figure out what to do with them.” Piritta was frozen in thought, eyes darting across the map as her head meat sparked with activity.

“Okay. They’ll have better knowledge of the land, too. We can pressgang them to assist as long as we need, then release them after we’ve got a few more cards in our hand.” She looked up from the map and gave Kvetoslava a smirk. “Or any cards at all, for that matter.” His shoulders bounced with the amused snort as Slava nodded his agreement.

“We’ll get the vehicles moving at first daylight. Bring up the field surgeon pony, we’ll use her as a navigator. We’ll discuss specifics on the road with the rest of the officers in the morning.” Slava threw back the rest of his whiskey in tandem with Piritta, then wished her a good night. He removed the hand cannon from its holster on his side in tandem with a great coat Slava had inherited from Roman. He placed the pistol under the bunched up coat, laid across the bench and set his wristwatch’s alarm for the morning.

Author's Note

Here's to trying for weekly uploads. Going to try uploading every Monday, at 14:30 EST. We'll see how long that works out for!