That Others May Live

by CptBrony

O'er the Hills We Go

O’er the Hills We Go

The men sat on a massive carriage pulled through the sky by close to a dozen pegasi on the way to the border. The carriage looked to be made of metal, and Duke had wondered how it could fly, but he soon found that magic would have a role to play in everything in this world. He found it impossible to wrap his head around it, so he stopped trying.

When he and Frost had arrived at the runway, they were lugging all the gear they needed on their own. Several guardsponies offered assistance, but the men weren’t sure they wanted their sensitive gear to be handled by those who didn’t understand it. The last thing they needed was for their twelve thousand dollar night vision optics to be broken because someone was careless.

But they found out to their honestly unhappy surprise that they would have to let someone else take their stuff for at least a little bit. When they arrived at the border, they would be strapped onto two gryphons from the Equestrian guard who would then jump off with them into the mountains. Their gear would be strapped to two other gryphons. When they all landed, the men would assemble their gear with the gryphons as lookouts, and then the gryphons would leave.

Duke brought his flare gun, which would be used to signal for reinforcements from a different flying carriage that would be on station just on the other side of the border if everything went wrong. Should it occur, the carriage would fly over and release a contingent of pegasi and the gryphons to come down and fight. But this was a last resort plan; plan A was much more ideal.

Plan A was for the men to find the unicorn, fix him up for transport, then put some device on the tip of his horn to send out a signal for an extraction. A new pair of gryphons would drop in to come and get the unicorn. They would say the word “Blue”, followed by the men’s response of “Ridge” so that they knew they were friendly. Then, the men would climb further up the mountain to await pickup at higher altitude. They would have to take a separate pickup because the original flying carriage would be back home, with its crew resting, and the new one only had the two gryphons to help. If the men got to the top of the mountain, the winds wouldn’t be as bad, and they could be picked up by pegasi.

Duke and Frost sat next to their gear with the two gryphons who would be handling it, explaining the fragile nature of some of it and how important it was to keep it undamaged. The gryphons listened intently to the men, taking the lecture in like the words of a prophet. The gryphons who would be carrying Duke and Frost were setting up their more complex rigs while they waited.

“Thirty seconds!” a voice shouted.

Everyone looked up to the front, nodded, and set about for the drop. They were able to hear it because the cabin of the flying carriage was closed. The carriage was eerily similar to a C-130 on the inside, similar in width and about half as long. The main force of pegasi were in front of it, dragging it along, while a few were up top, keeping it in the air. And thanks to the magic, the ride was smoother than that of a C-130.

The gryphons Duke and Frost were talking to got to attaching the gear to themselves and the men walked over to the other two. They didn’t speak when the men approached, only nodded and faced them so the men could see the tandem rigs. The men nodded, and they walked over to the end of the cabin, where the door was closed, and started setting up. By the time they were ready, the door was starting to open.

“Ten seconds!” the voice shouted again.

The familiar cool rush of wind from a jump felt like a brief moment back home, preparing for a training jump. They could feel the air flowing underneath them, the fresh smell of high altitude air a welcome feel in their nostrils. Their heart rates started going again, but came with an odd sense of calm, a feeling of zen. This was what they did; it was what they were born to do.

The door sat wide open and led out into the dark night sky. Frost peered over the edge of the floor to see the mountain below. They were only about half a mile from the peaks of most of them, so the gryphons would have to flare their wings pretty fast. Frost desperately hoped that they knew what they were doing.

The voice came on again. “GO, GO, GO!”

With the command, the mission was on for real, and everyone started toward the open air. The gryphons with the gear went first, hopping out and flaring immediately to adjust for the awkward loads they carried. The gryphons with the men followed close behind, exiting the plane with a grace that the bizarrely shaped birds didn’t seem capable of. For the men, it was like wearing a parachute that had a mind of its own.

The wind tore at their faces, the freezing, high altitude mountain air like icy daggers against their faces. They could all just see each other in the night sky, silhouettes in the darkness illuminated only by the faint light reflecting off feathers. The gryphons could see the ground easily with their far superior vision, and the men could feel when they prepared for the landing.

The ground came up fast, and in an instant, each gryphon was on the ground, separating from his respective load. The equipment-bearing gryphons placed the gear gently on the ground while the other two extricated the humans from the harnesses. When they were free, the men immediately rna to their gear and set themselves up.

“Humans are on the ground,” one of the gryphons said, putting a claw to his ear. “Heading back up for extract.”

Three of the gryphons immediately took off, leaving the one who had been speaking on the ground for just a moment longer. He briefly watched the men rapidly donning their gear and making the appropriate preparations, then approached them.

“Good luck,” he said.

“We’ll see you later,” Frost replied automatically. The gryphon could see that they were focused on the task at hand and left them alone on the mountainside.

The mountain was silent as death and chilled winds passed in quick bursts. The winds whistled and wailed, carrying every possible sound with them through the valley. But in the night, there were no sounds that one would want to hear.

The men finished getting their gear on and took in their exact surroundings. They knew that they had landed in the right place, but now, they had to establish which way to go. There was a path just about a hundred yards down the side of the mountain that they would have to take to get to the unicorn, and after some hiking, they would go back off trail to find the crevasse and rope down. Duke had the compass and map and faced the direction they would need to go.

“Let’s get moving. That guy won’t last much longer,” he said.

“Rog,’” Frost replied.

They set out down the hill, keeping low to avoid detection and keep their centers of gravity toward the earth. To further avoid falling, they were forced to lean into the mountainside and keep at least one hand on it for control of their descent. They had to take it carefully but quickly to get to their charge safely and efficiently.

It took a bit of time, but they made their way to a relatively flat path that would take them most of the way to the unicorn they needed to find. The path, though, seemed wildly unsafe, as while on one end there was a mountainside, the other had a steep, almost ninety degree drop down into a foggy abyss. They would have to keep at least one eye down there the entire time they were here to avoid being snuck up on or stumbled upon by an unexpected gryphon.

Now on the path, the men started walking through the mountain range. The dirt of the mountainside crunched underneath their boots. dozens of thoughts ran through their heads, primarily concerning the rescue. How many enemies might show up? What would the walls of the crevasse be like? If something went wrong with their gear, how serious would the equipment failure be? Could there be unexpected weather that might hinder or all-out end the rescue?

As usual, they were risking a great deal to perform the rescue. The only difference was that, now, they were doing it for a different nation.

“Boss,” Frost said. “You think that these ponies have much of a chance against these gryphons?”

“I don’t know, Frost,” Duke said. “It’s no different than the war on terror back home. It’ll never end, but if they play their cards right, they might be able to stay in the lead.”

“Going purely off of their fighting capabilities,” Frost said.

Duke paused the conversation to step over a large rock in the middle of the path. It posed a particular challenge with its odd shape on the narrow path, but they crossed over it quickly.

“We don’t know what the ponies can do,” Duke said. “But if you’re thinking of the horses of Saddle Arabia; no, probably not.”

“Ah, that’s a shame,” Frost said. “I liked our boys out there.”

“If they can train more guys like them, then they may be able to stand to the gryphons, but if they keep their forces purely conventional, they won’t win.” Duke certainly thought that they had capable fighters, but not the right kind.

Frost nodded thoughtfully. “Equestria does have that,” he commented.

“That they do,” Duke replied.

Duke stopped for a moment to take a look at the map and compass to determine where exactly they were in relation to the unicorn. From the topographical map and landmarks; namely, crevasses with very distinct shapes; he could see that they were about halfway there. They were making good time, actually getting there a little early, but that didn’t mean they could slack off. They had to keep pushing forward.

The men kept their ears open as much as their eyes throughout the mission. It wasn’t quite dark enough to start using their night vision with the moonlight, but the odd light distribution made depth perception difficult. The night vision was more for going down the crevasse rather than travelling across the mountains. They had to feel the terrain carefully with their feet most of the time when they detected any hint of a hazard.

Duke and Frost froze; their ears picked up some sound coming from a little below the ridge to their left. Frost crouched down low, and Duke took a look over the edge.

It was hard to see, but Duke could just make out several figures, gryphons, walking along another path that led from one cave to another. The path was short, only about eight or ten meters, and the cave entrances were just large enough for the men to be able to walk through, albeit uncomfortably. The gryphons wore simple clothes, mostly white cloth draped around their bodies, and one carried a sword. The group was a lot like the natives one might see in Afghanistan.

Duke removed himself from the ledge and stepped back, then turned to Frost. Silently, with his hands, Duke told Frost that there were three gryphons, putting up three fingers, and that they were moving down a path, walking fingers, to a cave, the walking fingers going under the arch made by his other hand. Duke closed his fist to tell Frost not to move, but Frost was already ahead of him on that one.

They remained completely still while they waited for the gryphons to disappear into the next cave. The gryphons were taking their sweet time, though, and it sounded like they were actually standing around, probably looking out at the valley. Neither man could make out exactly what they were saying, but the words sounded a lot like English. Duke and Frost were losing time waiting for them to move like this, and if they didn’t hurry, they would be behind schedule.

Duke made the decision to get moving again. he signaled to Frost to continue forward, to which Frost nodded. They started off slow, lightly brushing where their feet would land with the toes of their boots to move aside the crunchy dirt, and kept their pace as quiet as possible. They had training in noise discipline, like all special operations forces, but they weren’t exactly Force Recon Marines. Every time they heard something crunch or crush under their feet, it was, at least to them, like a bomb was going off for the whole valley to hear.

Before long, they were out of earshot of the gryphons, and they resumed their previous, still not fast pace. It had been a close call back there, one that they didn’t want to repeat, so they made absolutely certain that there were no caves ahead of them on their own path as they pressed onward.

At last, after the long trek along the path and nearly being heard, they could see the crevasse where the unicorn was. It was just up the mountainside, about a thirty meters, a huge gash in the rock. The mountainside here was a little less steep than they had seen earlier. Not much farther down the path was an exit from the mountains, toward Equestria’s border, where the unicorn had been operating.

“Eyes on,” Duke said.

“Rog.’” Frost looked up at the crevasse and breathed deeply. “I always have felt bad for anyone who gets stuck in one of those.”

“It’s a real bitch to get them out, that’s for sure,” Duke said. He started up the side of the mountain. “Let’s get moving, we haven’t got a lot of time.”

Duke took the lead and the men made their way to the crevasse. The wind whistled hard around them, picking up strength, and they were forced to hunker down to keep their balance on the rocks. Frost remembered a talk he once had with a Special Ops Weather Technician about mountain weather. Winds like this weren’t typical of mountains, not when they had good weather.

“Boss, I think we got a storm coming,” Frost warned.

Duke looked to the sky; sure enough, in the distance, there were clouds forming that didn’t even begin to look friendly.

“Let’s go,” Duke said with a new sense of urgency. “We gotta get this guy out ASAP.”

With another source of inspiration to get the job done, the men hauled up the side of the mountain to the crevasse. They made there in good time, well ahead of the coming storm, and started setting up their climbing gear. They took out their tools, and the especially important Spring-loaded Camming Device, and set the anchoring rods into the ground and tugged on them to make sure they were secure. Then, they attached their rigs and tugged again to make sure the rigs were good to go. With confirmed safety of equipment and no other living things in sight, they put on their night vision and descended into the nearly pitch black crevasse.

The descent took more time than anticipated. A lot of the rock faces were hard to get their boots to stick to, even though they were climbing boots. They would have liked to rappel down, but the tiny space that was the top of the hole wasn’t very permitting. They had to ease themselves down in the beginning.

About halfway down, it opened up a little, revealing it to be like a single room cave. It was pitch dark, but with the infrared nightvision, the men were able to see easily. It didn’t take long for one to spot the unicorn.

“Boss, toward the wall, east side,” Frost said, pointing down.

Duke looked over where Frost was pointing. There, situated in a corner, was the unicorn, laying completely silent and barely moving. He had his uniform off and draped over him like a sheet and wore a small tarp as well. There was blood on the ground, and the unicorn was shivering visibly.

“I see him,” Duke replied. He and Frost hurried the rest of their descent, hit the ground, and rushed over to the unicorn.

When they got to him, Frost removed the tarp and uniform from on top of him and Duke held him in place to get a good look at him. He only barely seemed to notice the men, groaning in response to their taking away of his sources of warmth. Duke looked him over for injuries and found that he had several lacerations on his side and determined that he had several cracked, if not broken, ribs.

“Get the IV ready,” Duke said.

Frost pulled out his medical kit and started setting up an I.V. for the unicorn. Among all the medical gear they carried, the I.V. was perhaps the most important. If they had thought to ask, they might have asked about the unicorn’s blood type and asked for a bag of it to use, but they were a bit rushed at the time. Duke started taking out bandages and applying them to the unicorn’s wounds while Frost worked.

“Ready,” Frost said, holding up the IV. “Unicorn, can you hear me?” he asked as he approached. No response. “If you can hear me, I’m going to insert an IV into your leg. It might sting a bit. Just stay still.” Frost took it slow to avoid any potential of startling the unicorn in case he was conscious, however unlikely it seemed.

Frost sat next to to the unicorn and stuck the needle in his hind leg. Duke was holding him down as Frost administered the IV, just in case the unicorn freaked out at being stuck with the needle. It took a moment for Frost to find a spot; he needed to feel around for a vein that would be bulging enough to find, and the blood loss the unicorn had experienced was already making it difficult.

With the IV in place and the lacerations bandaged up, the men made a final assessment of their charge. He had several serious injuries that would be critical if they didn’t get him out soon, but for the time being, he was as stable as he could be. Carefully, Duke removed the signalling device from his gear and placed it gingerly on the unicorn’s horn. Once in place, it emitted a low signature, dark orange glow and made no noise.

“Tracker is in place,” Duke said. “Let’s pull him out of here.”

“Roger that,” Frost said.

Duke and Frost had carried with them on this mission a break-down stretcher, one that they could reassemble whenever the need arose. With an efficiency found among few other human beings, they assembled the stretcher and placed the unicorn gently atop it. They carried it over to the wall and set it down between them.

“I’ll take left,” Duke said. “We hook the stretcher to our sides and make our way up. Move at the same speed, or we all fall down.”

“London bridges,” Frost replied.

They hooked up to their climbing gear and attached the sides of the stretcher to themselves. The unicorn was neatly strapped into his bed and was in no risk of falling out, even if the stretcher were to roll. Though that would possibly make the men fall, so the risk of death by impact with the ground was still very much prevalent.

Slowly and with extreme prudence, they made their way back up the wall and out to the world above. It took substantially longer than getting down, as it always does, but they had planned for a long ascent out of the crevasse. And getting out faster wasn’t all that important right now anyway; if they got out, and the gryphons had not arrived yet, they would just be waiting out in the open with an injured recon pony in tow. And no one wanted that.

They were almost at the top when Duke could hear two voices atop the crevasse.

“Blue?” a voice asked.

“Ridge!” Duke answered from below.

From heard a startled yelp from just over the ridgeline and chuckled a little to himself. The gryphon who made the noise peeked over the ledge down at the men and the unicorn and motioned for his buddy to join him. Once the men were close enough, the gryphons grabbed onto them and helped them out of the hole.

“Thanks,” Duke said.

“Don’t mention it,” the lead gryphon said. “Is he alright?”

“He’ll be fine, but only if you get him to serious medical aid quickly,” Duke replied. “Strap him onto yourself and fly out of here.”

“Got it,” the gryphon said. He and his flight buddy set up a rig to carry the unicorn away, put him in, and set out with the injured unicorn.

Alone, the men started putting all their gear back into place on their personal rigs and started up the mountain one more time. They had successfully retrieved the unicorn and brought him out of the dark and into safety, and there was not an enemy in sight. The weather was coming, but it was only present enough to block out the moonlight enough that the men needed to continue to wear their nightvision, and they would no doubt be able to get out of the area with ease. It had proven to be a very good rescue.

Frost looked up the side of the mountain. “More climbing... great,” he complained.

“Yep,” Duke replied. “The sooner we start, the sooner we end. So get moving, I want to take a warm shower when we get back.”

“Amen to that,” Frost replied.

Proud of a mission accomplished, they ascended the mountainside at the fastest pace they could manage. The entire way, they remained vigilant of their surroundings, weapons ready in case enemy fighters showed up. Everything had a mechanical green glow in the nightvision optics, and the sky appeared black and empty through them. It was a long trek to the top, but they made good time up the slope.

At the top, the men scanned the area. They couldn’t see well into the sky with the cloud cover, so they had no way of knowing when the pegasi would arrive. The top of the mountain they were operating on was high, giving them an altitude advantage if something were to happen, but they were totally exposed otherwise. They had to hope the pegasi arrived soon.

“So. Here we are,” Frost said. “At the top of the world, waiting for a storm to roll by, in enemy territory, waiting for our extraction.”

“So we are,” Duke replied.

“It was good to get to do a rescue,” Frost said. “I hope that most of the missions in this joint venture of ours are more like this.”

“As much as I agree, I seriously doubt it,” Duke said. “We got paired with the Nighthawks. They’re a combat unit. We’ll probably be acting as medics and personnel recoverers for them on missions where OGA might be present and there is significant danger.”

“Ahh, that’s right,” Frost said. “But maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“We can never rely on luck, my friend. It’s never on our side.” Duke looked over at Frost and smirked. “But if one of us gets lucky, it’ll probably be you.” Frost couldn’t see it, but Duke waggled his eyebrows at him under his helmet.

“Cool, boss, real cool.” Frost shook his head and stopped talking.

Not long after they finished conversing, some of the cloud cover broke, and through the hole, several pegasi flew in. Duke and Frost waved their arms back and forth to get the pegasi’s attention, drawing them down to their position.

“Duke and Frost,” a heavily armored pegasus said as he landed. “We’re with the 117th. We’re here to carry you guys out.”

“Good to see we got some stink bugs with us,” Frost said. The pegasus raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. “We’re ready when you are.”

The armored pegasus nodded and turned to two pegasi, ordering them to come and take care of the gear so that the pegasi who would carry the men wouldn’t be overloaded. Duke and Frost stripped the gear off and neatly bundled it, then handed it over to the Nighthawks to carry. Two other Nighthawks approached the men, wearing harnesses on their backs, and strapped them on.

When everything was said and done the group flew out of the area of operations and to the flying carriage that would take them home, feeling good about the mission and ready for some time to rest.

Comments

[GodOFInsaNity666]

Nice and clean
Good work Boys !

[Ghost-091]

A few misspellings here and there.

...the men immediately rna to their gear...

This one stuck out the most.

Also:

With another source of inspiration to get...

I believe that the saying is "source of motivation".

[Dr Daring Doo]

Moar plz

[D48]

Hm, no obvious snag. It looks like Celestia lied to them about the unicorn having useful information.

[CptBrony]

4365301
Funny thing, trusting foreign leaders.