Chapter 1

Chapter One

One thing I learnt in my time as an agent of Her Majesty is that people are never pleased to see you; something that no longer concerns me, of course.as my glorious and undeserved reputation always seems to precede me wherever I go. A good rule I made in my younger days but by that point I’d never faced death in the eyes of the very troops I was assigned to. In my long and glorious career I have faced down (or more accurately, run screaming in terror) Hrud, Griffons, Watts and Shrikes, just to pick out a few highlights, but nothing ever seemed quite to compare to that experience of bowel-clenching terror I faced in that Rec hall.

The first sign of trouble should have been the regiment’s new CO smiling at me as I arrived on board the troopship ‘Celestia’s Grace’  That alone should have set alarm bells ringing in my head. While I had every reason to assume the worst, based on the briefing paper I had read on the train to Baltimare; this miserable assignment, hilariously, seemed he best way of keeping my precious skin intact.

The root of the problem was of course that my term with the Wonderbolts had ended. This, coupled with the fact that my apparent heroism had grown to such ludicrous proportions, meant that my superiors finally realized my skills could be put to better use elsewhere rather than the comparatively safe flight demonstration unit I had hoped to serve the rest of my career in. This unfortunately meant I had been plucked from my unit and dropped into a position at division headquarters.  It seemed like a fairly good compromise at first, as my duties merely included shuffling files and occasionally listening to some nasal general to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. Of course I hadn’t expected my unwanted reputation to exacerbate things more so.

The problem I find with being a hero is that everyone assumes, for some reason, you like being in mortal danger.

Naturally, for reasons I am yet to discover, the General’s staff seemed to always drum up missions and find excuses to get me in mortal peril time and time again. In the three years I served there, I was seconded to units on high risk missions, sent to clear towns from invading forces, perform deep recon into enemy territory and other things not particularly good for my health, dozens of time. Every time I returned, against all odds alive, HQ would give me a pat on the head and a shiny new medal before trying to come up with some new creative idea to get me killed.

Obviously, something had to be done before my luck ran out (or one of the General's staff got really creative) and again, I let my reputation do the work for me and I requested a transfer back to a regiment. Any regiment. I didn’t care by that point. In my experience, the chances of saving my own neck in a tight spot always seemed better when I could just pull rank on any of the officers around me. My charismatic skills paid off for once and after a few meetings with one of the General’s personnel staff, I had all but guaranteed my ‘urgent’ request.

And so a week later I found myself approaching the moored troopship ‘Celestia’s Grace’ in Baltimare harbour with a hint of trepidation. The smell of salt and sea bird droppings mixing with the familiar odour from my aide, Trooper Cormano, who had been my aide since the ill-fated day I had started my career serving Her Royal Highness almost a decade beforehand. Despite being taller and better built than most earth ponies, Cormano always appeared out of place and as far as I can recall, his armour always seemed to be a few sizes too big. While polite enough, he seemed uncomfortable around others, a fact probably not helped by his constant odour which frankly, took a lot of time to get used to. Despite this, he was an effective and valuable aide and while I won’t say he was the brightest bulb around, his eagerness to please, adherence to protocol and literal minded approach to any order he received was a pleasant buffer from the less appealing aspects of my job. Additionally,  he never questioned anything I said or did, convinced that it was for the greater good or part of some greater plan that benefited Equestria in some manner, which considering the occasionally discrediting activity I took part in, was more than I could hope from any other grunt.

So there I was, marching down the dockside with Cormano following in my wake, carrying our luggage like a good aide; our steps punctuated by the occasional cries from the dockworkers doing whatever it was that kept them looking busy. I trotted up the gangway to the deck, were a small gaggle of officers from my new regiment had gathered to meet me as protocol demanded.

   “Welcome Commander[1], it’s an honour.” A surprisingly young mare with a dark brown mane and blue eyes said, giving me a perfect salute. At first I felt slightly offended, thinking that only the junior officers had been sent to greet me before I connected her face with the one on my briefing file.

   “Colonel Wave Breaker.” I said, nodding my head in acknowledgement. While I certainly no objection to young mares fawning over me, her overly enthusiastic greeting left me with a sick taste in my mouth. It was then that I noticed the absolute sincerity of her face and I realised she was genuinely happy to see me. A faint chill ran up my spine as I realised just how bad the situation had to be for this to be the case.

To cut the story short, morale in the 7th/31st regiment was at rock bottom. In fact, rock bottom would be a gross understatement, perhaps in the pits of Hades would be a slightly better comparison. The idea of combining two depleted regiments together to make an effective fighting unit was a smart enough idea on paper and a common enough practice if the units in question wouldn’t be able to take in fresh recruits before their next deployment. What wasn’t sensible though was combining the 7th Armed wing, an elite Pegasus assault unit which had a combined ego bigger than mine (which is saying something) and held the firm belief it was superior to every other regiment in Equestria and the 31st Earth regiment, a rear echelon support unit, which just to add fuel to the fire, was one of the few all female regiments that the crown maintained. The final piece of good news was that Colonel Breaker had been given overall command of this mess by virtue of a week’s superiority over her new XO, a stallion with much more actual combat experience.

This, of course is why I’m of the opinion that the politicians who make these decisions without any practical military experience should be given a crossbow and herded into the combat zone for a month or so, just to shake their thinking up a bit. This is of course presuming our own troops don’t ‘accidently’ shoot them first. Then of course we’d have a shortage of stupid politicians who think they can play soldier and I’d have less to moan about. Wouldn’t that be such a pity?

But I’m digressing. I returned Breaker’s salute, noticing the new colonel insignia on her collar. It seemed few officers had survived whatever combat zone they had just been in and many had received an unexpected promotion to fill the gaps. Unfortunately neither of my colleagues from either regiment had survived and due to my amazingly well timed transfer request, I had been handed this job and was expected to fix it up. Lucky me.

   “My second-in-command, Major Thunder Crash.” Breaker said, motioning to the Pegasus on her right.

   “Major.” I said, smiling blandly. We shook hooves, the major pushing a little harder than required as if he were trying to gauge my strength. Two could play at game of course and his face paled slightly as I returned the favour. I let him go before I damaged anything other than his pride. I turned to the next officer in line; it seemed that Breaker had brought along most of her command staff to greet me. Most seemed happy enough for me to be there, most likely as I would be handed a situation which most thought was well out of their league and a few of their eyes dazzled as they introduced themselves to me, my reputation, as always, seeming to precede me.

   Frankly they were probably all just happy I wasn’t just throwing them in a prison somewhere, or shooting the lot of them and bringing in somepony who could actually do the job. I could have done that if it was a realistic option but I had my unwanted reputation for fairness to live up to so thankfully, that really wasn’t a feasible choice.

                After the introductions were finished, I turned to the walking pile of kit bags behind me. I saw the colonel’s eyes widen slightly as she saw a snout poke out from somewhere behind the moving barricade. I noticed with a trace of amusement that most of the assembled officers were now breathing shallowly through their mouths.

   “My aide, Trooper Cormano.” I said with well-disguised amusement. “Perhaps you could arrange some quarters for him?”

   “Certainly.” Breaker said, quickly regaining her composure and turned to one of her lieutenants whose blonde mane and elongated snout made her look distinctly foreign. “Cobble, would you able to organise something with the quartermaster?”

   “I’ll do it myself. Molten is doing his best, but he still has a few kinks to iron out.” She said a little too enthusiastically.

Breaker nodded and turned back to me, apparently unaware that Crash’s jaw had hardened slightly. I noted that most of the stallions surrounding me also failed to mask their displeasure.

   “Cobble was the quartermaster sergeant before the last round of promotions. She knows everything we have back to front.” Breaker explained, oblivious to her subordinate’s displeasure.

   “I sure she does.” I said levelly. “But I’m sure she has much more pressing duties than finding my aide a bunk. I’ll liaise with Sergeant Molten myself, if that’s no issue.”

   “None at all.” Breaker said, a slightly confused look appearing on her face before promptly dismissing it. Major Crash however, was now looking at me with something that possibly could’ve been called respect.

Well at least that was some progress, but I was going to have my work cut out for me if I was going to get this unit back into fighting shape. Well, fighting our enemies at least, as they seemed all too happy to fight among themselves as I was to later find out.

***

While my paranoid subconscious usually kept me informed if something seemed wrong or to too good to be true, my first few days on the troopship needed no such prompts to tell me something was wrong. Tension hung in the air like static before a thunderstorm, other regiments on board wouldn’t go in the sections assigned to us and several naval guards patrolled the corridors in small groups. I suppose the only bright bit was the fact that there wasn’t a mob of Hrud chasing me while screaming for my blood. Of course if I’d known what was I was in store for, I’d have taken the Hrud any day.

I made appoint of visiting the ship’s captain who, while possessing an excellent supply of liquor, was far too stuck to the ceiling by my presence to be good company. He even made the point of offering me (useless) advice which was somewhere along the lines of shooting a few troops to bring the rest to heel.

   He had a point, and perhaps a few of my more trigger happy colleagues would have done exactly that, but I find that getting your troops to fight off their fear of you only works for so long before you accidently catch a crossbow bolt to the back of the head. And as I said before, I had a reputation to maintain so I had to look like I gave a damn about the troops under my care.

Regardless, I commonly took strolls around our section of the ship, hoping my presence would help diffuse the tension hanging in the air (Not to mention the added bonus of being closer to several escape routes if things went south.)

It was on one such night, when I was on my way back to my quarters after a surprisingly pleasant walk, that my hoof was finally forced. And in a way I could have done without.

***

It was the noise that alerted me first. The sounds of smashing glass and yelling voices getting louder as I made my way deeper into our section of the ship. I stood in the hallway for a moment, the pleasurable atmosphere I had around me evaporating in an instant. A squad of armoured unicorn guards cantered past me, confirming the worst of my fears. I tagged along and found myself next to section leader.

   “Sounds like a riot.”

“Quite right sir.” The armoured unicorn said without breaking stride.

   “What caused it?” I asked, aware that with the simmering tension between the two former regiments, anything would have been an acceptable excuse for the troopers to start brawling.

The pony didn’t get the chance to respond as we reached one of the ship’s Rec halls and a glass tankard bearing iconography of some kind smashed against the side of his helmet.

“Celestia’s beard!” I ducked behind an upended table as the guards waded in, restraining the brawling troopers where possible and stunning others that were too vicious to hold back. I hid behind the table, trying to assess the situation. The room was sprawling with angry troopers brawling, kicking and flailing at each other with any semblance of discipline shot to hell. Several were down already, bleeding profusely from large gashes or being trampled under the swirling melee. The reasonable part of my mind told me to go find more guards but fear and shock kept me rooted in place.

   It was at that moment that things really started going wrong.

The guards had almost reached the centre of the action when both sides realised they had a common enemy. Spurred on, the mob attacked the guards with a frenzy that would have made a berserking timberwolf look tame.

One of the guards went down, a broken piece of glass slipping between the gap between his helmet and his cuirass. He fell, blood spraying from the wound in his neck.

“Frak this.” I said as I edged out of the room, trying not to gibber in panic. The mob was in a killing mood now and as I watched, another guard went down under a mass of flailing limbs. I would have made it if the leader hadn’t managed to emerge from the pile of bodies for a second and scream.

   “Commander, help!”

Just frakking perfect. Every eye in the room snapped to look at me as if guided by Celestia herself.  I could almost see my terrified form reflected in their eyes. Don’t run, I told myself. Do it and they’ll jump you. You’ll be dead before you even reach the door. So I did the unexpected thing and took a step forward.

   “You.” I snapped, pointing at a random trooper. “Get a broom.”

Whatever they had been expecting me to do, this certainly wasn’t it. A few uncertain gazes flickered around the room as the ponies slowly realised the situation had gotten far out of control.

“You, you, you and you. Go with him and grab buckets and mops, enough to go around. None of are leaving this place until its tidy.” I snapped, injecting just enough authority into my voice to intimidate them.

   The unlucky troopers I had chosen, three of them pegasi, looking at each other uncertainly as they slowly edged towards the door.

“At the double!” I barked and they scurried away like rats down a sewer pipe.

And with that, the storm of violence vanished as quickly as it arrived. It was easy after that and by the time Breaker and Crash arrived with another dozen guards in tow, the troopers were busy helping each other up, tending to the wounded and salvaging what was left of the Rec hall. A trickle of wounded moved past me towards the infirmary, less than I had originally thought but still far too many for my liking.

“Bravest thing I’ve ever seen… He just stared down the lot of them, didn’t move an inch.” One the wounded guards said to two of his fellows as they carried him past me. I smiled glumly, knowing the story would be around the entire ship by noon tomorrow and in turn, would add another increment to my already bloated reputation.

“You did well.” Breaker said approvingly.

“Not well enough for some of them.” I muttered, nodding towards a few body bags our medics were carrying away.

“Who’s responsible?” Major Crash asked, his wings flared in anger. “I’ll show them a thing or two.”

“I’m sure we’ll find the ponies responsible.” Breaker said, refraining from laying the blame straight on Crash’s pegasi. “I’m just glad we’ll have the Commander’s impartial perspective to find the culprits.”

Well thanks a lot I thought, but she was right of course. And the way I would handle it would decide my future in the regiment. Not to mention leaving me running for my life again, the beginning of a long and undesirable association with another enemy and an encounter with possibly the most interesting mare I’ve ever met.

***

[1] ‘Commander’ is not an actual rank in the Equestrian armed forces, rather a title for a specific branch of personnel known as Overseers. To effectively do their job of maintaining discipline and adherence to military laws and codes, an Overseer is technically outside the chain of command and is actually the ultimate authority when it comes to making command decisions in a regiment. They also possess great disciplinary powers, how they use them though usually boils down to the Overseer in question. Because of this, many officers simply see them as an annoyance and would rather not have them around to interfere.